LAMB SHANKS IN RED WINE AND SUMMER BERRIES

Lamb Shanks In Red Wine and Summer Berries

Ingredients (to feed 2):

2 Lamb shanks on the bone

2 Banana shallots finely chopped

2 Cloves of garlic finely chopped

150g Mixed summer berries such as raspberries, blackberries, blue berries etc

(Waitrose sell packs of frozen summer berries)

Large glass of red wine

2 Carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

50g Small garden peas or petite pois

Handful of parsley (about 6-8 sprigs)

The same sized handful of thyme

1 Sprig of rosemary

1 Bay leaf

The cooking:

This dish is suitable for a slow cooker as well as a conventional oven. Start by seasoning your lamb shanks with plenty of freshly ground salt and pepper. Set aside for a few minutes. Then, melt a knob of butter in a tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Lay the lamb shanks in and seal on all sides. Keep turning them every 2 minutes until they are golden/brown on all sides and underneath. Set aside in your slow cooked, or in a casserole dish. Next, de-glaze the frying pan by adding a small glass of water to it, and stirring it gently over the heat for a minute, to absorb all the meat juices and and bits from the pan. Pour over the shanks.

Next, add another knob of butter to the pan. Throw in the shallots and lightly fry for about 2 minutes. Add the garlic and the berries. Turn the heat up and stir. Then add your wine and cook on the high heat until it has reduced down (about 4 to 5 minutes). Then pour over the shanks. Add your chopped carrots and lace all the herbs on one side (to make them easy to pull out once cooked). Finally top it up with water from the kettle so it nearly covers everything (just islands of meat sticking out of the top).

If you are using a slow cooker, put the lid on and cook on the "low" setting all day (approx 6 to 8 hours). If you are using an oven, put the lid on your casserole dish and place in an oven at 120 degrees c for 5-6 hours. Check it every couple of hours to make sure it does not dry out.

The only problem with slow cookers, is that they tend to produce watery sauces. So if you have opted for this method of cooking, when you are ready to serve up, thicken up your sauce first. I would do this by putting a sieve over a large jug and pouring the contents of the slow cooker through it. All the juices will pass through. All the meat and veg gets left behind. Return the meat and veg to the slow cooker (but turn it off), just to keep it warm. In a pan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and add to it 2 table spoons of cornflour and stir into a paste over a medium heat. Then, gradually add the juices from the jug to it. No more than a cup full at a time. Every time you add some sauce, stir it with a whisk until it is all absorbed and then add the next. Keep going until you have used all the sauce then turn up the heat and whisk continuously until you get the consistency you want. Like a gravy.

Serve up with fresh green savoy cabbage, fine beans and some creamy mash potato.

A couple of variations you may want to try. If you find this sauce too quite bitter, then 10 minutes before serving up, stir in a tablespoon of honey to make it a sweet sauce. You can also add mustard to it if you want a bit more bight. its up to you really.

Braised Neck of Lamb Casserole with Butter Beans

Braised Neck of Lamb Casserole with Butter Beans

A traditional Provencal farm house dish. Still often a favourite on rural cafe set menus in the South of France. Tastes amazing, doddle to cook and uses cheap ingredients. For best results use fresh herbs rather than dried ones. Feeds 4.

Ingredients:

500 - 600g of lamb neck fillets

5 salad tomatoes, chopped roughly into chuncks

500mls boiled water

2 tins of butter beans

200g of smoked bacon lardons

1 large handful of curly leaf parsley (6 or 7 sprigs)

The same quantity of thyme (6 or 7 springs)

2 bay leafs

1 sprig of rosemary

25g unsalted butter

2 table spoons of olive oil

6 whole garlic cloves peeled

The cooking:

Preheat your oven to 150 degrees and prep your ingredients. In a frying pan, on a low to medium flame, heat your olive oil and butter until it starts to froth. Fry your lamb fillets in the butter and oil for 8 to 10 minutes, turning frequently and seasoning with freshly ground sea salt and black pepper as you go. You want them to end up browned all over.

Remove from the heat and transfer the neck fillets into a casserole dish. Spoon the excess fat out of your frying pan and then pour in 100ml of your boiled water, return to the heat and stir, to deglaze your pan. In effect what you are doing here is absorbing all the crispy brown bits and all the meat juices from the pan. You should achieve this in less than 2 minutes. Once done, pour this liquid over your lamb neck fillets in your casserole dish.

Now add to the casserole all your other ingredients except the lardons and the butter beans. Specifically, that is your 6 peeled but not chopped garlic cloves, your tomatoes, the parsley, thyme, rosemary and bay leafs and as much water as is required to cover your ingredients in the casserole. Cover with a lid and place into your preheated oven and cook for between 1 hour 30 and 2 hours.

An hour before the dish is ready, place your bacon lardons on a baking tin and place them onto a shelf in your oven to crisp up. Once they have browned and reached the desired degree of crispness use a slotted spoon to separate them from the fat that has been rendered from them cooking and place them and your butter beans into your casserole for the last 45 minutes of cooking.

Serve up in a bowl with some rice and a chunk of rustic bread.

Harissa Lamb, Merguez and Couscous

Harissa Lamb, Merguez and Couscous (Serves 4)

Ingredients:

4 Lamb Chump or Loin Chops

4 Table spoons of Harissa Paste

1 Teaspoon of Cumin

4 Merguez Sausages

Some Good Olive Oil

100g of Dried Couscous

300ml of Boiling Water

Half a Cucumber, Peeled and Cut Into Chunks

Handful of Chopped, Fresh Coriander

1 White or Red Chicory (also called "endives") Cut Into Chunks

Cherry Tomatoes Halved

A Handfull of Black Olives

30g of Pui Lentils

4 Sundried Tomatoes sliced

Juice from a quarter of a lemon

3 to 4 Tablespoons of Greek Yogurt

The Cooking:

A couple of hours before cooking, make a marinade using the Harissa, cumin and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Prod your lamb chops all over with a pointed knife and liberally coat with the combined paste, covering on both sides and put to one side in a covered dish.

Make your salad by combining the cucumber, coriander, chicory, cherry tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, lentils and olives in a bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice, then cover with yogurt and stir well until all is covered.

Fry your marinated lamb chops in a tea spoon of olive oil for approximately 8 minutes each side on a medium heat to leave it nicely pink in the middle, or 10 minutes each side if you prefer it more cooked. You can cook the merguez along side the lamb, and frying for 5 minutes each side until browned and cooked through. Alternatively you can bake both in an oven at 190 degrees. The lamb for 30 minutes, the merguez for 20. Turning regularly so they cook on both sides.

Prepare your bed of couscous by boiling 300ml of water and pouring over 100g of couscous in a pot and cooking on a high heat until the moisture has all been absorbed (about 7-8 minutes). Then serve up. Nice and spicy without being hot. Serve with a dollop of yogurt and a dollop of sweet chili jam if you have it, This would also be great for a summer barbecue.

Roast Shoulder of Lamb with Boulanger Potatoes

Roast Shoulder of Lamb with Boulanger Potatoes

This one is off the scale when it comes to simplicity and deliciousness. Hold out to the end of the recipe to find out why they are called "Boulanger Potatoes".

Ingredients:

1.6 kilo shoulder of Welsh Lamb (on the bone)

Handful of Thyme, strip off the leaves, chop finely

5 sprigs of rosemary, chop finely

4 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped finely

500g of small new potatoes, skin on, quartered

Hand full of black, pitted olives

Extra virgin olive oil

1 heaped table spoon of cornflour

1 pint of strong lamb or beef stock

Cooking time: Minimum of 4 hours (best if left to cook all day) 

Serves: 6

The Cooking:

Wash your shoulder of lamb and score the fat in long, straight lines. Sprinkle, liberally with olive oil and rub it into the meat, all over. Sprinkle with the thyme, 4 out of your 5 sprigs of rosemary and garlic and season with coarse ground salt and black pepper. Cover with foil (creating as air tight a seal as possible) then put into an over, preheated to 130 degrees for a minimum of 4 hours (more if you can afford the time). Make sure you check on it every 30 minutes or so, and baste it in its own juices so it does not dry out. You want the edges to get a bit crusty though. That is one of this dishes best features.

40 minutes before you are due to serve up, par-boil your quartered new potatoes in boiling water for 10 minutes. Take your lamb out of the oven. Transfer it into a new roasting tin. Pour a table spoon of juices from the old tin over the lamb. Take another 2 table spoons of juices out of the old roasting tin, and set aside in a jug to make the gravy, and then take your par-boiled potatoes, drain them, and put them into the remaining juices and fat in the old roasting tin, with the black olives. Sprinkle with the last sprig of rosemary, finely chopped. Place both roasting tins (the one containing the lamb and the one containing potatoes and olives) uncovered, back into your oven. Turn the heat up to 210 degrees.

After 15 minutes, take out the lamb and put it to rest on your chopping board. Give the potatoes in their roasting tin a good stir so they cook evenly on both sides and don't stick. Leave them to bake for a further 15 minutes.

To make your gravy, pour your slightly cooled juices and fat that you have set aside in a jug into a saucepan and add a heaped table spoon of cornflour. Stir together with a wooden spoon over a gentle heat to create a roux (a paste). Stir for about 3 minutes, until it is both smooth and starting to darken in colour, Then little by little, start to add your stock. Replace your wooden spoon with a whisk. Stir continuously. Keep going until you have added the whole pint, then turn the heat up high, still stirring, until the gravy starts to thicken and bubble. Reduce the heat right down to minimum and let it simmer until you are ready to serve. Stir occasionally to stop a skin forming on the top.

The lamb won't need carving, you will be able to pull the meat away from the bone with a fork. Serve up with your boulanger potatoes and gravy. Best accompanied with baby carrots and petite pois peas. Gorgeous!!

And now the history lesson; why "boulanger potatoes"? At a time in France when domestic ovens were not common place, the only way you could roast meat or vegetables, was to take the food down to the local baker who would have the only oven in the village. So if you sent your potatoes down in a baking tin, covered in fat to be roasted, they became know as boulanger potatoes, as boulanger is french for baker. Feel free to bore the pants off your dinner guests with this bit of trivia every time you make them. I know I will. Cheers!

Italian Lamb and Pea Casserole

Italian Lamb and Pea Casserole

I have to confess; I first came across this recipe on an episode of BBC TV's "Saturday Kitchen" and I've changed it very little. It's great if you have many mouths to feed as it will easily feed 6. Last time I prepared it was at my parent's house in southern Spain for a dinner party. I went to the local market on a boiling hot day to get everything I needed. But I could not find chillis any where on any of the stalls. And to make matters worse I didn't know what the Spanish word for chilli was so I asked one stall holder who appeared to have every other type of spice known to man except chillis. "Pimienta" I said (which means pepper) and mimed that I had eaten something hot by fanning my mouth with my hand (just like a twat would!). Any way, it worked. The woman exclaimed "Ah!Chiles!" (so I felt even more like a twat!). She then walked into the house behind the stall, disappeared through a door and brought one from her own kitchen and refused to charge me.Such kindness. Actually, that is all assuming it was her house! This is great peasant food. Rustic, filling, simple but bounteous in flavour.

Ingredients:

1kg of shoulder of lamb, off the bone and cut into 1 inch chunks (your butcher will do that for you. You will usually have to buy the whole shoulder. It does not really matter if it is exactly 1kg or not)
One 50g Tin of anchovy fillets in oil
2 sweet, white onions sliced
1 large carrot thinly sliced
2 celery stalks thinly sliced
5 garlic cloves, crushed under the blade of your knife and chopped
Handful of fresh thyme sprigs
250ml of white wine
20ml of white wine vinegar
250g of tiny little petit pois or generally small peas (frozen ones perfect)
400g of Pembrokeshire new potatoes (skin on) cut into quarters
200g cherry tomatoes cut in halves
1 red chilli cut into slices

You'll need olive oil and coarsely ground sea salt and black pepper
And buy a Tiger bloomer loaf (all the super markets do them these days) and cut into thick slices to make toast to eat with it (so it mops up the lovely sauce).

The cooking:

Start by putting your lamb chunks in a bowl. Really liberally season with coarsely ground black pepper and sea salt and leave to one side for about 10-15 minutes. While that is rendering you can crack on with all the slicing ('cos there's quite a lot with this one). Once you've got all your ingredients prepared, heat about 80ml of really good, extra virgin olive oil in a large, heavy pan.

First, fry your sliced onions, carrot and celery on a medium heat (not too hot as olive oil tends to burn at high temperatures and takes on an unpleasant smell and taste). After about 4 minutes, when it all golden, add you garlic, anchovies, chilli and thyme and continue to cook, stirring until the anchovies have completely dissolved. Add your lamb and maybe a splash more olive oil and fry it until it is browned on all sides.

Pour in your wine and cook it down until the volume has roughly halved, then add your vinegar, stir the whole lot in and then turn your heat down low to a simmer. Cover the pan and leave it bubbling for 20 minutes. Stirring occasionally.

Once your 20 minutes is up, pour in your potatoes and cover again, and cook for a further half an hour. Then you add your tomatoes and your peas and cook for another half an hour with the lid on. Stirring occasionally to keep it from sticking or catching.

For your last 10 minutes or so, cut your bread into slices and toast under a grill on both sides. 

This is a really good dish for a big family or a night when you have some friends around. I like to serve it by giving everybody a bowl, a glass of full bodied red wine and cutlery each, then plonk the casserole in the middle of the table with a ladle in it, and a plate next to it with a big pile of toast. Then just sit back and let every body get stuck in. Terrific!

Spiced Welsh shoulder of lamb and coriander casserole with Moroccan aubergine salad

Spiced Welsh shoulder of lamb and coriander casserole with Moroccan aubergine salad

Total prep and cooking time: 2 1/2 to 3 hours

This is a great little recipe if you want to knock up something really tasty for a group of 6 people (or 5 very hungry ones) who like their food with a strong flavour, without being hot or spicy. I've sort of made it up, to try and recreate something I once had in a seedy little north African cafe, up one of the side streets off the old harbour in Marseille. There's a big north African influence in Marseille as the port has always been a gateway to Africa. Then there is Frances' historical colonies in Morocco and Algeria, so in France you see Moroccan restaurants as regularly as you see Indian ones in the UK. This one was a bit different, as all the clientele were clearly of Moroccan/Algerian origin. Most of them crews off visiting boats. The food was absolutely great spiced up with the sensation that you could never be absolutely sure that you were not going to get your throat cut before the night was out.

Despite containing a long list of ingredients this is very simple and very quick to make dish (only about 30 mins preparation - the rest of the time it's in the oven to free up valuable aperitif time!!)

Ingredients

Moroccan aubergine salad

1 Aubergine

1 cucumber (skin peeled off)

A small handful of fresh coriander leaves finely chopped

Fresh mint leaves finely chopped (about half as much as coriander)

Fresh juice of half a lemon

A 200g pot of Greek Yogurt

The Casserole

Get your butcher to cut a Welsh Lamb shoulder off the bone, remove any surplus fat and cut into 1 1/2 " (4cms) cubes - giving you approximately 1 to 1.3 kilos

You might be tempted to buy a pack of "diced lamb" from the supermarket. Please don't. If you really want to taste how good a dish this simple can taste, don't skimp on proper ingredients

120g streaky bacon cut into thin chunks (and if it's dried out a bit because you didn't wrap it back up properly last time you used it - all the better for it)

2 sweet onions (or 4 long shallots) finely chopped

5 or 6 garlic cloves, crushed with the back of your knife, then finely chopped

30g anchovy fillets

1/2 tspn of ground ginger

1 tspn of ground cumin

1 tspn of ground coriander

1 cinnamon stick

2 bay leaves

2 sage leaves

Small handful of thyme (strip the leaves off the stems and only use the leaves)

A large glass of red wine

1/4 tspn of red wine vinegar

1 pint (500 ml) lamb or chicken stock

A table spoon of washed capers

The zest of 1 lemon

50g petit pois or small garden peas

small handful of fresh coriander leaves for garnishing

Salt, pepper and olive oil

Serve with couscous or rice.

Preparation

A few bits of pre-work; take your shoulder of lamb dices, wash them, then salt them and set to one side. Similarly, take your aubergine, half it length ways, then half it again. Liberally salt it and also leave to one side. Leave both for about 20 minutes. After that, wash both so any surplus salt and the fluid which the salt has extracted is removed.

You will also need to pre-heat an over to 160 degrees C.

In a heavy pot of pan (with a lid), pour in a splash of olive oil and fry your streaky bacon for about 8 minutes or until crispy.Add your chopped onion and garlic and fry for a further 2-3 minutes.

Add your lamb and cook until browned all over. Pour in the wine and wine vinegar and turn up the heat. Let the liquid in the pot reduce down to about 50% of what it was when you added the wine. Now add your stock and all the spices, leaves and herbs and grate in the zest of your lemon (keeping the rest of the lemon as you will need it add juice to your salad). Give the whole lot a stir, put the lid on your pot and let it come to a simmer for about 10 minutes.

Remove from the hob. If your heavy pot is oven proof then happy days - just leave the lid on and pop it into the oven. If not, transfer your food to a casserole dish, cover, and then put into your pre-heated oven. Bake for about 2 hours. Keep checking every 20 minutes or so, to make sure that it is not drying out. If it does look dry, add more wine. You will not need to add your peas until 20 minutes before it is due to come out (1 hour 40 minutes into the cook).

Once the casserole is in the oven, get to work on the salad. First, cut your aubergine quarters into 1cm thick slices and fry in olive oil, turning until they are browned on both sides. Then set them to one side to cool. As you did with the aubergine, slice the cucumber length ways into quarters, then slice into 1cm thick chunks and place into a salad bowl. Once the aubergine slices are cold add them as well, with the chopped, fresh coriander leaves and mint leaves and a squirt of juice from the lemon. Spoon in the tub of Greek yogurt and give the whole lot a good stir so all the chunks and leaves are covered. Then cover your bowl and put it into the fridge until you are ready to serve up.

Once the casserole has been cooked for the 2 hours the sauce will be almost black from the slow cooking. Once you have pulled it out of the oven, finely chop up some fresh coriander leaves, chuck them in and give the whole thing a stir.

Finally, serve up the casserole from the oven to the table and the salad from the fridge with a big bowl of rice. Give everyone a bowl and a spoon and let them help them selves.

Lush! But be warned, it is very rich and very filling. You don't need much.