Lamb Stew with Creamy Eggplant Sauce

I love sitting at the table, eating a meal I’ve just cooked and saying, “If this is what I ordered at a restaurant, I’d be really happy.” I’m not suggesting I cook things that would be at home in a Michelin three-star establishment. They are usually more along the lines of dishes I would find in good Turkish restaurant or our favorite neighborhood Greek place. It’s the hearty, satisfying, often peasant-style dishes that I sometimes pull off really well.

With the help of Claudia Roden’s wonderful Middle Eastern cookbook, I made a simple lamb stew with a creamy eggplant sauce that tasted like some of the delicious dishes we’ve eaten at good Persian restaurants. It was the eggplant béchamel sauce that did it. All I did was roast a couple of eggplants, mash up the flesh and whisk it into a quick béchamel, the creamy white sauce made by whisking hot milk into a roux, or a mixture of butter and flour. Actually, Mike mashed up the eggplant while I made the béchamel. But even without two cooks, it’s easy enough to manage.

The lamb stew was just cubes of lamb leg, gently simmered with tomato and spices for about an hour and a half. The eggplant sauce is so much richer than just mashed eggplant (as in baba ghanouj), and you could also serve it as a dip or spread with pita bread. It would be a great addition to any lamb dish like grilled kebabs, but with buttery basmati rice it added a special component to this otherwise basic stew.

I may not be recreating dishes from The French Laundry or Alinea, but I’m plenty happy with meals like this.

If you liked this, you'll love:
Phyllo Triangles with Lamb, Onions and Pine Nuts
Spanakopita
Herb-Marinated Lamb Kabobs with Garlic-Yogurt Sauce
Hummus, Baba Ghanouj and Yogurt Dip with Mint and Shredded Carrots
Curried Lamb and Lentil Stew
Spiced Lamb Patties with Minty Yogurt Sauce
Ana Sortun's Red Lentil Kofte and Pomegranate Salsa

Lamb Stew with Creamy Eggplant Sauce
Adapted from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden
Though this dish originally comes from the Ottoman Place kitchens (the Turkish name translates to “Sultan’s Delight”), I think it’s very homey, just gussied up a little by the indulgently creamy, but incredibly simple, eggplant sauce. Roden’s stew does not include the dry spices, but I couldn’t miss the opportunity to add more flavor. The allspice especially is a good mate for lamb and eggplant. Have your butcher cut you piece from a leg of lamb (you want 1 1/2 lbs. of meat, so buy more if the bone is still in), or use shoulder or other stew meat. Serve with steamed basmati rice.

Serves 4 (You can make half this recipe to serve 2 generously.)

For the Stew:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 1/2 pounds lamb, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 (14 ounce) can diced tomatoes

For the Eggplant Sauce:
3 1/2 pounds eggplant (about 3 medium Italian eggplants)
4 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups milk, heated in the microwave
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Steamed basmati rice and fresh parsley for serving

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Make the stew: Heat the oil in a large, heavy saucepan or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook until soft and lightly browned. Add the lamb, season with salt and pepper to taste and cook until browned all over. Add the garlic, allspice, cinnamon and cayenne and cook for 2 minutes more. Add the tomatoes with their juice. Add just enough water to barely cover the lamb. Bring stew to a boil, then immediately reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook for 1 hour stirring once or twice. Remove the lid and simmer for 30 minutes more, or until lamb is very tender and stew is slightly thickened. You can simmer longer if necessary to reduce the liquid to the desired consistency. Taste for seasoning and add more spices, salt and pepper as needed.

Meanwhile, make the eggplant sauce: Trim off the top and bottom ends and cut the eggplants in half lengthwise. Place the eggplants cut side down on a baking sheet lined with foil and coated with nonstick spray. Roast until the eggplants feel very soft and cut side is browned, about 30 minutes. Set aside to cool.

When cool enough to handle, scrape the eggplant flesh into a fine colander and discard the skins. Squeeze out as much water as possible. Chop the eggplant and mash it with a fork to make a paste.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the flour, whisking constantly for about 2 minutes until smooth. Remove from heat and gradually add the hot milk, whisking constantly as you go. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg and return the sauce to low heat. Whisk continuously until the sauce thickens, about 10 to 15 minutes.

Add the eggplant to the béchamel sauce, whisking vigorously until well blended. Taste for seasoning and keep warm until ready to serve.

To serve, spoon some stew over a portion of basmati rice on each plate with the eggplant sauce on the side. Sprinkle with fresh parsley.

Provencal Lamb Stew with White Wine

Mmmm, stew. I love a meal like this on a Sunday night, or any night when you have a little time to let a pot of something sit on the stove at a bare simmer.

That's the key to great stew meat--besides browning it well--never let the stew come to a boil. It's too traumatic. The meat will cook immediately and miss the chance to become moist and tender. Just remember the expression, "stew on this." As you would ruminate thoughtfully over an important issue, so you have give this stew the time to arrive, slowly, at its delicious conclusion.

Happily, in this recipe, that slow stewing process only amounts to about an hour of cooking time. And the important stuff--like building the rich, stew-y flavor--happens in a flash before the simmering gets underway. You will brown the meat in two batches, so as not to crowd the pot, saving all the juices as you go. You'll saute aromatics like onion, garlic and dried herbs. You'll add flour before the liquid to cook away it's raw taste and set your stew up for an amazing thick texture. And finally, you'll add a nice glug of wine for complex flavor.

In much of the US (though not here), it's getting cooler. This is the perfect early fall stew--hearty and warming without being a total capitulation to Fall's chilly hands. Bright white wine, lots of aromatics and fava beans (you can find the frozen ones year round!) keep it light. But for Mike and me, eating it in 90-degree Florida heat is not a problem. Stew it up tonight!

Provencal Lamb Stew with White Wine
Adapted from Williams-Sonoma Savoring Provence
As you can see, the wine is an important component in this recipe. I used a medium-bodied off-dry blend, and I think it was successful. Avoid 100% chardonnay, and look for blends that have some chardonnay, reisling, sauvignon blanc, or semillon. 100% Sauvignon Blanc should work, but a blend will not be as dry. Don't skip the shallots even though the recipe calls for onions too--although they practically disappear, they add their sharply aromatic taste and work as a thickener.

Serves 4

1 tbs. butter, divided
1 tbs. olive oil, divided
2 1/2 lb. pound piece boneless leg of lamb, trimmed of excess fat, cut into bite-size chunks, and patted dry with paper towel
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
salt and pepper
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 tsp. dried rosemary
2 tbs. flour
1 cup off-dry white wine
3 cups chicken broth (I used Whole Foods regular organic or Swanson's low-sodium)
Pinch of sugar
1 1/2 cups chopped carrots (1/2-inch chunks)
3 parsnips, peeled and chopped into 1/2-inch chunks
1 or 2 whole shallots, peeled, divided into segments and cut into halves or quarters
1 1/4 cup frozen, shelled fava beans (or use fresh favas, fresh peas, or frozen peas)
fresh thyme leaves, for garnish
fresh chopped parsley, for garnish
Crusty bread, for serving

In a large soup pot with a lid (I used nonstick) or Dutch oven, heat half the butter and half the olive oil to medium-high. Add half the lamb to the pot and sear the chunks of meat, seasoning with salt and pepper, until browned on all sides. Remove the meat and all the juices in the pot to a bowl. Add the remaining butter and oil, and sear the remaining lamb in the same manner. Add the seared lamb to the bowl, but leave some of the juices in the pot. Add the onion to the pot and cook, stirring often, until soft and lightly browned. Season with salt and pepper. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Return the meat and all the juices to the pot. Add the dried thyme, rosemary and flour. Stir to combine and continue cooking until the flour has coated the meat and browned a bit, about 2 minutes. There should not be any white visible. Add the wine and bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring often, to reduce slightly, about 2 minutes. Add the chicken broth and bring to a simmer. Do not let the stew boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and maintain a gentle simmer for 40 minutes.

Add the sugar, carrots, parsnips and shallots. Cover and continue to simmer for 20 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender. Add the fava beans and simmer until heated through, about 4 minutes. Taste for seasoning and add more salt and pepper as needed. Ladle into bowls, sprinkle with fresh herbs and serve with crusty bread.

Wine Note: You could drink the white wine you used in the stew, but we also like it best with an earthy, medium-bodied red such Cotes du Rhone or a red from Portugal (we really like Prazo de Roriz).

Bonus! Here's another lamb stew I just remembered writing about a while back: Curried Lamb and Lentil Stew.

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Technorati Tags: recipes, stew, lamb, Main Course

Lamb with Tomato-Fennel Vinaigrette

Why am I roasting leg of lamb in the middle of the summer? For one, there’s no grill in sight here on the 5th floor of condo-land. But tell me honestly—you don’t leave your oven lying dormant all summer do you? It’s just too easy to season up something tasty, pop it in, and let it roast completely unattended while you take care of whatever business needs taking care of.

The other reason for this lamb is that a representative for the American Lamb Board contacted me and offered to send me a leg of lamb along with some handy cooking necessities. I rarely get any offers of free goodies, and if I do I’m usually not interested. But, I love lamb. So does Mike. We already know this.

I usually buy lamb at Whole Foods market, and it is usually flown in from Australia or New Zealand. I’ve never had any complaints about this lamb from Down Under, and I thought that is where the best lamb comes from. Naturally, the American Lamb Board would like to raise the profile of their product. What I really wanted to know was what lamb tastes the best—foreign or domestic? I said I would happily accept the lamb, as long as they knew I was making no promise of reviewing their product, favorably or otherwise. Honestly, I expected the American meat to be more bland than imported lamb, lacking the grassy, gamey quality that makes lamb taste like itself. Even the Lamb Board's literature says the meat is "mild." We would have to find a way to negate this prejudice in order to do a proper evaluation.

We cooked the American lamb on two different occasions. First we tasted it right next to New Zealand lamb cooked in exactly the same manner and did a blind taste test. While both were delicious, but the one I preferred—the one that tasted most “lamb-y” to me—was the American meat. I was pleasantly surprised! Mike could barely detect a difference, and we both concluded that any quality lamb—cooked properly—is going to taste good.

For this first experiment, we made a marinade with cumin and honey from the June issue of Cooking Light magazine. The honey helps created a caramelized coating as the meat, skewered for kabobs, cooks under the broiler. I substituted dried marjoram and tarragon for fresh mint. Sure, it sounds like a stretch, but the licorice flavor of tarragon has an affinity for sweetness that really works here.

The tomato-fennel vinaigrette in the photo above is from the August issue of Bon Appetit. It is dead simple and makes a pretty, summery topping for lamb that has been marinated with garlic, rosemary, anchovies and fennel seeds. No matter where you prefer your lamb to originate, remember the most important rule of cooking lamb—keep it medium rare or 130 degrees F on a meat thermometer. Otherwise, the luscious lamb will go dry. We attempt to keep ours on the rare side of medium-rare, and are always rewarded. Here is the link to Bon Appetit's Tomato-Fennel Vinaigrette. I scaled this down to serve 4, and of course I roasted the meat instead of grilling it.

Have any of you lamb-lovers ever compared meat from different regions? Can you detect distinct differences in flavor or texture?

Here are some lamb recipes of all sorts from around the food blogosphere, including a few of my own...I found them using my new searchable recipe index (check it out!).

1) Grilled Butterflied Leg of Lamb from Simply Recipes
2) Walnut and Fig Braised Lamb from 80 Breakfasts
3) Grilled Lamb Kabobs from Christine Cooks (she's another lamb-lover!)
4) Braised Lamb Shank (one of my favorite lamb dishes) from Seriously Good

From A Mingling Of Tastes:

Phyllo Triangles with Lamb, Onions and Pine Nuts --An excellent appetizer
Spiced Lamb Patties with Minted Yogurt Sauce --Serve as apps, a main course, or turn them into burgers
Exotic Rack of Lamb --Get out your spice grinder for this seductive special occasion meal
Curried Lamb and Lentil Stew --Easy, satisfying and flavorful
Herb-Marinated Lamb Kabobs with Garlic Yogurt Sauce --A simple marinade courtesy of the Barefoot Contessa, and an addictive yogurt sauce

Technorati Tags: recipes, lamb, Main Course

Phyllo Triangles with Lamb, Onions and Pine Nuts and a Request for Travel Info

This post may be about Middle Eastern food, but right now I've got bangers & mash, crumpets and pints of Caffrey's on my mind because tomorrow Mike and I are going on a much-anticipated trip to London, followed by a few days in Amsterdam. I went to school in London for a year during college, and I love the city. Mike has never been, so I'll get to show him all my favorite places. We have both been to Europe separately, but this is our first time together. I can't wait, and I'm about to go start packing! If anyone has any good restaurant suggestions for us, or anything else for that matter, please leave a comment! I won't be able to post next week, but come back on April 30th and I'll post pictures from the trip. Now on to the tasty...

For a long time, I was scared of working with phyllo dough. Then, determined to develop my own recipe for spanakopita, I channeled a Greek goddess or two, and took the plunge. By the time I finished, I had a very good spinach pie, and I was laughing at my own hesitation to cook with phyllo.

There’s nothing to it whatsoever! I had made pizza dough and yeast breads, but I was afraid of a cooking with dough that was already done for me? It didn’t make any sense, but was rather a case of fearing the new. Now that I’m over it, I can’t get enough of phyllo dough. If you love appetizers and small plates, phyllo can be your best friend.

These simple little lamb triangles are one of my favorite phyllo creations so far. You just cook up the ground lamb with a chopped onion, add spices and pine nuts, and fold the filling into a piece of phyllo, brushing with melted butter as you go. I find that I never need as much butter as most phyllo recipes call for. You don’t need to cover the dough with pools of it, just enough to lightly coat. You will still get golden, crispy, buttery phyllo.

According to Claudia Roden, this simple filling is a classic Arab preparation. The combination of lamb and Middle Eastern spices is a favorite of mine. The recipe sounds good on paper, but the real thing is so beautifully spiced and flaky that you will want to make them again and again.

Update: Not 10 minutes after posting, it has been brought to my attention that I failed to give due credit to the person who performed the horrible, mind-numbing, tedious task of making all the phyllo triangles himself. My wonderful, culinarily gifted husband did a top-notch job...how one man can have so many talents, I'll never know.

Don't worry if the dough gets a little raggedy; you won't notice once it's baked.

Seal up the edge with a little dab of butter.

Phyllo Triangles with Lamb, Onions and Pine Nuts
Adapted from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden

If you do not like lamb or can’t find it, this will work just as well with beef or even ground turkey; although for me, the unique flavor of lamb is one of the best things about this dish. Defrost the phyllo dough in its wrapper and always keep it covered with a kitchen towel once it is unwrapped to prevent it from drying out.

Makes about 20

3-4 tbs. melted butter
8 oz. ground lamb
½ tbs. olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
1 ¼ tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. allspice
2 tbs. pine nuts, lightly toasted
10 sheets phyllo dough, defrosted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly coat two baking sheets with melted butter using a pastry brush. Heat a skillet to medium-high and add the ground lamb. Cook, breaking meat up with a spoon as you go, until lamb is no longer pink. If your lamb is on the fatty side, turn the meat out onto a plate layered with paper towels to drain and pour any fat out of the skillet. Add the oil to the skillet and lower heat to medium. Add the onions and cook until soft and lightly browned. Return the lamb to the skillet and season with salt, pepper, cinnamon and allspice. Stir in the toasted pine nuts and remove from heat.

Place the phyllo sheets on a work surface and cut them in half lengthwise. Keep all the phyllo covered with a kitchen towel so it doesn’t dry out while you make the triangles. Take one strip of phyllo and lightly coat it with melted butter using a pastry brush. Place about one tablespoon of the lamb filling on one end of the strip, about 1 inch from the edge. Fold the end of the dough over the filling, then continue folding the dough over itself in triangle shapes. Seal up the end with a dab of butter, brush a little butter over the top of the triangle and place on one of the baking sheets. Repeat to use up the rest of the filling. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until crisp and golden.

Technorati Tags: recipes, lamb, phyllo, appetizers, Middle Eastern

Exotic Rack of Lamb with Spiced Quinoa

What do you consider exotic? I wonder if the more I cook and eat, the fewer things will be able to fit in that category. I think of hard to find ingredients as exotic, so that would include things like kaffir lime leaves, zucchini blossoms and wild game. Dishes from other cultures that I’ve never tried certainly are exotic, if not always appetizing (fried grasshoppers, anyone?).

In my mind, the word exotic conjures up a stereotypical image of a sultan’s tent with bright fabrics flowing from overhead, music involving a sitar and the scent of warm, aromatic spices wafting through the air. That is what I had in mind when I made up the spice mix for my rack of lamb. I did not adhere to the culinary traditions of any particular culture, but included all my favorite exotic spices to create a vaguely Turkish blend, resonant with the bitter vanilla tang of cardamom, the smokiness of cumin, the wintry spice of cloves and the heat of pepper. I toasted most of the spices whole and ground them in a mortar. The result was an intensely sweet, smoky and spicy crust all over the edges of the meat due to a quick sear followed by roasting to a gorgeously rare interior.

The only thing that could go with the lamb was an equally exotic quinoa dish that took on a more Moroccan bent with its spicing of intense Vietnamese cinnamon and good, sweet paprika. This recipe came from a Passover menu in the latest issue of Bon Appetit. I love using currants in grain dishes like this or the couscous I made here.

The inspiration for this exotically spiced meal was our wedding anniversary. The actual date was Monday, but it has gotten a bit drawn out over several days of celebration. We went out for a romantic dinner on Saturday, but we also wanted to cook something special at home since that is one of our favorite ways to spend time together both now and before we were married one year ago. Even though I use my “exotic” spices as often as anything else in my pantry, they still transport me out of our Florida condo and into that mysterious sultan’s tent. That great bottle of Zinfandel, lush with blackberry, may have had something to do with it too.

Exotic Rack of Lamb
I like to grind whole spices because you get the most intense, fresh flavor this way. If you want to substitute any of the whole spices in the recipe for ground, go right ahead. If you don’t have one of the spices, leave it out. These quantities are just a guideline, so alter them to suit your tastes or your pantry’s inventory.

Serves 2

8 green cardamom pods
1 tsp. cumin seeds
½ tsp. whole coriander
½ tsp. anise seeds
¼ tsp. red chile flakes
5 whole allspice berries
½ tsp. black peppercorns
2 whole cloves
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
1 frenched rack of lamb (8 rib chops)
coarse salt to taste
1 tbs. olive oil

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Add the first 8 ingredients to a dry skillet (not nonstick) on medium heat and toast until very aromatic, 2-4 minutes. Add the spices to a mortar or spice grinder, remove the cardamom seeds from their pods, discarding the pods, and grind the spices. Stir in the cinnamon.

Lightly score the fat side of the rack of lamb my making “X’s” with a paring knife. Rub the spice mixture all over the lamb, covering it thoroughly. You may have some leftover. Season all over with salt.

Heat the oil in a large oven-proof skillet over high heat. Sear the lamb, fat side down, until browned. Turn with tongs and sear on all sides, about 6 minutes total. Transfer the skillet to the center of the oven and roast for 12 to 15 minutes for rare to medium-rare meat. The meat should still feel somewhat soft when pressed with tongs. Let it rest in the skillet for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a cutting board and cut into individual chops. Serve immediately over the quinoa.

Spiced Quinoa with Carrots, Zucchini and Currants
Adapted from Bon Appetit

Serves 3

2 c. low sodium chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste
1 c. quinoa
¼ c. dried currants
1 tbs. olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 zucchini, diced
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. sweet paprika

In a medium saucepan, bring the broth to a boil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the quinoa and currants, return to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 20 minutes or until quinoa is tender.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the carrots and cook, stirring often, for 3 minutes. Add the zucchini and continue cooking until the vegetables are soft and lightly browned. Season with salt and pepper and remove from heat until quinoa is done.

Put the vegetables over medium-low heat and add the cooked quinoa to the skillet along with the cinnamon and paprika. Toss to combine and cook for 2-4 minutes to toast the quinoa and bring out the flavor of the spices. Remove from heat, drizzle lightly with olive oil and serve.

Technorati Tags: recipes, lamb, quinoa, Main Course