Sweet and Sour Lamb

Table all set for dinner.

When I first made this dish I thought it would be a good "do ahead" dish for entertaining. Today was the day to try it out, and as it was for entertaining those I love, I chose to use a boned leg of lamb, the dish was really well received, but in all honesty was it twice as good (reflecting the doubling of the cost), as the first time using lamb shoulder chops? I really don't think so. The presentation of the dish isn't spectacular, it is after all a casserole and its charm is in its complex flavours, so if it turns into an oft used recipe I wouldn't hesitate to use shoulder chops or a boned shoulder of lamb.

A basket of assorted fresh rolls to soak up the juices.












The side dishes were steamed tiny cocktail potatoes tossed in olive oil and parsley, Peas, and Glazed Root Vegetables including parsnips. Now parsnips have unpleasant childhood memories of nasty woody things that had to be eaten and Sis (one of the dinner party) flatly refused to have one touch her plate, fair enough as I was a bit nervous myself. However we were all very pleasantly surprised, with Sis relenting and trying a piece.

Glazed Root Vegetables Serves 4
1 bunch of dutch carrots, peeled and tops trimmed back to aprox. 1 1/2 inches, or 3 - 4 cm.
8 Shallots, trimmed close to the root and peeled
2 baby or young parsnips, peeled and halved lengthwise
1 medium sized beetroot, steamed until tender, skin slipped off and when cooled, cut into quarters
1 1/2 - 2 cups, approx. stock or water. The stock gives a richer flavour.
a knob of butter, approx 1 Tablespoon
pinch of salt.

Select a pan or baking dish that will hold all the vegetables in a single layer without crowding. Add the stock and knob of butter, heat slowly until butter has melted into stock, add vegetables except beetroot, sprinkle with salt and place in oven until just done, there should be just a little syrupy stock left, add more stock as vegetables cook if necessary. When just done turn off heat and leave to cool in oven. This can be done several hours in advance.
To serve, place pan on stove top and reheat, turning the vegetables in the glaze until heated through, about 5 mins. transfer to shallow serving dish, add quartered beetroot to pan and turn in glaze until heated through, add to other vegetables in server.

We finished off the meal with a lovely Apple Crumble, made by Sis, Yum. Very fond of Apple Crumble. We had it with cream and Ice-cream which was served in its own little dish. Another do-ahead tip

Sweet and Sour Lamb Casserole

Inspired by a recipe in Stephanie Alexanders "the cooks companion", a wonderful food bible. Her recipe calls for lamb shoulder and serves 6, I settled for forequarter chops to serve 3.

With new recipes I like to be fairly accurate with the recipe measurements and I find that when halving a recipe, its sometimes difficult to get fairly reliable measurements, how for instance to measure a half of a 1/3rd of a cup?, does one stand around ladling tablespoons of water into a 1/3rd cup and then decide on how many tablespoons there are in a 1/3rd cup? or does one just grab the 1/3rd cup measure and just fill it half way? and if that's the way to go, how do you write that into a recipe?? well I shall just plough ahead with the latter and hope that its not too unwieldy.

Sweet and Sour Lamb

half of 1/3rd cup olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
3 lamb four quarter chops, trimmed of all fat and halved
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 scant tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon toasted pine nuts
1 1/2 tablespoons sultanas ( the recipe calls for raisins)
1/2 teaspoon salt
black pepper

Heat 3/4 of the oil in a heavy frying pan and fry onion until soft, stirring often. Place onion in a sieve over a small bowl. Press on onion to extract all the oil. Wipe out pan, add the onion infused oil from the bowl and the remaining olive oil to pan, heat and add lamb chops to brown well.
Place lamb and onions in enamelled cast iron casserole. Pour off any fat from pan and deglaze with a little of the water. Add remaining water, tomato paste and vinegar, pour over onions and lamb in casserole, sprinkle sugar over and stir. Simmer, covered 45Min's, stirring a couple of times. Add pine nuts and raisins or sultanas and cook for 15-30Min's longer or until meat is very tender and juices is decreased. Season and serve. I served it with rice and peas and carrots simmered in honey and water. Pasta or Potato Gnocchi is also suggested as side dishes.

The meat was beautifully tender, the liquid was more of a broth than a gravy and although it went well with the rice I personally would have preferred mash. The sugar and vinegar balanced each other out, giving a nice piquant flavour,and the pine nuts giving crunch and texture to the dish. All in all a nice casserole, something I would do again even to using it to feed visitors as it could be done well ahead of time, just adding the pine nuts when re-heating.

Decided to finish the meal off with a chocolate self-saucing pudding, unfortunately I used a much too small bowl, I had forgotten how this pudding rises and splatters as it cooks, it just exploded in the microwave........chocolate pudding everywhere, nevertheless I just let it cook and salvaged enough for 2 servings, making more sauce on the stove top. I had made a half recipe so it should have served 3, well we lost a lot, ate 2 servings and there is still enough for another 2 serves. Shades of the "Magic Pudding"