Lamb Stew

I don’t want to say that it’s gone cold here. It’s not really “cold”, it’s just really cooled down very quickly. And it’s bloody damp. I will admit that I broke down on Friday and turned on the heating for an hour just to get the damp out of the house.

So in light of that, I figured it was time to get back to making soup and stews. I have been only gradually re-introducing lamb into my diet this summer. I love lamb, and the constant availability of fresh lamb is one of the many things I love about living in the UK. In Canada, most of the lamb comes from New Zealand, meaning it’s frozen, and very expensive. In the UK, I drive across country roads where sheep roam and think about what tasty things I would do with one who is stupid enough not to move when my car is approaching.

Silly beast, don't you know that you'll end up on my plate if you wander that close to the road?

When I was last at my lovely butchers, I got some diced lamb shoulder that has been waiting in my freezer, so with the change in weather, I thought it was time to thaw it out and stew it.

I prefer to make stews and casseroles in my slow cooker, but due to a particularly bad week for mental health and insomnia, getting my act together to get everything into the slow cooker in the morning just wasn’t happening. I also only had a very small amount of lamb, and a slow cooker really needs to be at least half full to work properly, and the amount I was working with wasn’t going to cut it.

So this is what I did for a tasty stew for one or two -

I used ½ lb of diced lamb shoulder (with most of the fat trimmed off) and tossed it in 1 tbsp of flour (gluten-free flour works fine) and some salt and pepper.

I heated about 1 tbsp of olive oil in a big pot, then added the lamb and browned it on all sides.

Meanwhile, I peeled and chopped a carrot and a potato into small pieces. I added these to the pot and let it cook off for a few minutes, stirring so that it doesn’t stick.

I peeled 2 shallots and 2 cloves of garlic, and put these into the nifty little cooking basket I found a few weeks ago, and hung that on the side of the pan.

I added ½ of dried thyme and 1/4 of dried rosemary. I made 2 cups of beef broth (I used Knorr Stock Pots). I put the heat under the pan up to high, and added about ½ cup of the broth and scrapped all of the bits off the bottom of the pan. Then I added the rest of the broth. I brought it to a boil, then popped the lid on and turned the heat down to a simmer and left it for 35 minutes.

Mmmm . . . tasty stewed beast!