Hope everyone had a fantastic St Patty’s day. I guess this recipe is a day late but I wanted to share with you a crock-pot recipe for lamb stew that my wife prepared for some friends visiting from out of town. She made the lamb stew in our new 6 and 1/2 quart programmable touch screen slow cooker from Crock-Pot.  Fancy, right? I replaced my 3 and 1/2 quart crock because it was ancient, too small and didn’t have a timer for auto shut off, so when it came time to replace it, I went all out!

We made this stew in a crock-pot but you could also prepare it in a large Dutch Oven. I love making stews in the oven with my Le Creuset 9-quart oval French oven. If you go this route, it will take less time and you can brown your ingredients in the same cookware as you braise them in.

About the Lamb Cut

The meat cut you use for lamb stew is important.  You want it to come from the shoulder area - you have the Shoulder Arm Picnic, Shoulder Arm Roast, Blade (Boston) Roast, & Blade Steak to choose from. These cuts are much less expensive than the meat you would purchase for grilled lamb chops or leg of lamb or lamb roast and in my opinion have more flavor when slow cooked.

As with any meat you’re going to braise (cook for a long time partially submerged in a liquid)m you need these tougher cuts because they are more fibrous and hold up better with long slow cooking. The moist heat breaks down the connective tissue, including collagen which melts and turns into gelatin that gives the sauce that amazing lip-smacking body. You don’t want a lot of extra fat, however, so you might have to trim some off before cutting your meat into 1 and 1/2″ chunks.

I found some already-cubed lamb shoulder meat at my local Farmer’s Market butcher shop called Stolzfus Meats. The butcher, “Bongo” Dan, has spent years butchering local meat for the market and is a wealth of information when it comes to all meat cuts. If you’re wondering how he got his nickname….I happened to see him one afternoon at a Phillies game at Citizen’s Bank Park on the Jumbo Screen playing air bongos for the Bongo Cam. Priceless!

This recipe for lamb stew takes about 1/2 hour to prep and then 5 hours in the crock pot set on low. If you prepare it in a Dutch Oven in the oven, it cooks for approximately 2 hours. Either way, it can be served right away, but like many braises, it tastes better the next day, if you can wait that long to eat it!  When making this in the crock pot, I like to brown the lamb meat before braising in the oven for a couple of reasons.

1. In my opinion, the browned meat looks better than meat you just throw into the crock pot.

2. Searing the meat gives it a brown crust that adds an additional layer of flavor.

Tender and Tasty Lamb Stew

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds lamb shoulder meat trimmed of fat and  cut into 1 and 1/2 inch cubes
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Flour for dredging
• 2 medium onions, roughly chopped
• 2 and 1/2 cups lamb stock (chicken stock if you can’t find lamb stock)
• 2 carrots, peeled and sliced
• 1/4 - 1/2 pound of mushrooms
• 1 or 2 sprigs of fresh thyme (dried will work too)
• 2 - 3 tablespoons fresh parsley, minced

How to Make Lamb Stew

Season the meat with salt and pepper and dredge in flour. Be sure to shake off any excess flour. If you don’t, the flour can burn and will make a mess on the bottom of the pan. Just a light dusting is fine.

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a preheated fry pan over medium high heat. When it starts to shimmer but is not smoking, add the meat and brown all sides. Don’t let the meat touch, so if your pan isn’t big enough, brown in batches. The best tool for turning the meat is a pair of kitchen tongs, one of the most important tools in your kitchen. When the meat is browned, transfer it to the crock-pot.

Time to saute the onions in the same pan. Reduce the heat to medium, add the remaining tablespoon of oil and then the onions. This is a good time to season with a little salt but not too much.  Cook the onions until deep golden brown, being sure to stir frequently so they don’t burn.

Add 1/2 cup stock to deglaze the pan, scraping the bottom with a wooden spoon to loosen any of the brown bits (fond) stuck to the bottom of it. Add the fresh thyme. Add  the onions and the deglazing liquid to the crock pot.

Add the sliced carrots and mushrooms to the crock pot along with the remaining 2 cups of stock, cover and set to low.  I have read it helps to first place a layer of aluminum foil over the top of the crock pot and then the cover. Not sure if this helps but sometimes I make the effort.

Cook on the low setting for about 5 hours or until the meat is tender.

Many recipes I read say to spoon off any fat that accumulates at the top. I have never found this easy to do but I know it is worth a try. Sometimes I make a stew the day before so I can let the fat rise to the top and congeal when refrigerated. Then all I have to do is spoon out the layer of congealed fat. Enough about fat.

Add the parsley to the pot, stir and adjust seasonings with salt and pepper. If the sauce is too thin, you can always make a quick thickener with a little flour or cornstarch mixed with water (a slurry) and add it to the pot. The only problem with this is that, if you don’t bring the starch up to a boil, your sauce can taste a little, well, starchy.  So, if you do find you have to thicken the sauce, you might have to turn the crock pot to high for a little while to cook off any starchy taste.

My wife served the stew with mashed potatoes of course and some Irish soda bread on the side.  The wine was a very inexpensive 2007 Boarding Pass Shiraz from Australia. It cost under $10 here in Philadelphia and received a 91 rating from Robert Parker, the wine critic for The Wine Advocate newsletter.  Yesterday I went out and bought a whole case.

Venison Stew

I feel very lucky to live just a couple of miles from the historic Harriton House, located just outside of Philadelphia. Harriton House was built in 1704 by a Welsh Quaker named Roland Ellis, but its most famous resident was Charles Thomson  who retired  there  in 1798 after serving 15 years as the Secretary of the Continental and Confederation Congresses. He lived on the estate until his death in 1824.

Some of you might be wondering, “Who was this Charles Thomson guy?”  Well, if you’ve ever looked at the back of a dollar bill, you have seen his work.  He created the final design for the Great Seal of the United States.  He was also the one who traveled to Mount Vernon in April of 1789 to let George Washington know that he had just been elected the first president of the United States under the new constitution.

Today, the 1704 structure has been faithfully restored to the “Thomson years” period and is furnished with a collection of fine 18th-century American decorative arts, including some objects owned and used by Charles Thomson himself. The estate is surrounded by a spacious park, complete with gardens and a stream and is home to Steady the horse, three sheep, and two goats who live in the former dairy barn.

Bruce Gill and Chef Walter Staib

The curator, Bruce Gill, is a friend of mine and a wealth of knowledge when it comes to life in the early nineteenth century.  He manages the communal garden, raises honeybees, teaches school children about life on a farm and has taught me a lot about agriculture.

He also introduced me to Chef Walt Staib, another neighbor to the Harriton House and the proprietor of The City Tavern, Philadelphia’s historic restaurant where Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington once dined and discussed the future of our young nation.

Chef Staib is an amazing person. He was born in the Black Forest of Germany where he began his culinary career at age 4 in his uncle’s restaurant and has been working in the restaurant world for more than four decades. He has also written numerous cookbooks including:

City Tavern Cookbook

City Tavern Baking and Dessert Cookbook

Black Forest Cuisine

City Tavern Recipes from the Birthplace of American Cuisine

A Feast of Freedom: Tasty Tidbits from the City Tavern - an illustrated children’s book that tells the story of City Tavern and its role in shaping the nation. I can’t wait to check out this one and share it with my kids.

I could go on and on about Bruce and Chef Walter, but let me get to the point of this post and that point is venison stew.   A couple of weeks ago, Bruce called me up and told me some hunter friends of his had dropped off a couple of deer that were ready for skinning and butchering. He told me chef Walter was going to show them how to butcher the venison meat properly and asked if I wanted to come over and see how it was done.

(more…)

New Year’s Eve Dinner

Happy New Year. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, full of great joy and wonderful meals.  I’m looking forward to the New Year and all the new cooking techniques and recipes I will learn and be able to share with you. 2011 should be a fun year with some major changes to the Reluctant Gourmet website and cooking blog.

This year I spent New Year’s Eve in Park City with my family at my good friend Alice’s home where she prepared delicious roasted beef tenderloin, Caesar salad, boiled potatoes and my oldest daughter prepared her special glazed carrots. On the way back from a great visit from our friend’s cabin in the Uintas, Alice asked me how long should she cook the tenderloin? I gave her my standard answer, “as long as it takes to get the internal temperature you want”.

How long does it take to cook a beef tenderloin?

I get asked this question all the time and although I often prepare a meal using time and temperature given in the recipe, I know this is not the best way to cook anything. The best way to cook a steak, roast or even a piece of chicken is to use a thermometer to measure internal temperatures.

For this whole beef tenderloin, Alice wanted to cook it to medium doneness which equates to approximately 145°F. In order to achieve this, I explained to Alice she should cook the tenderloin to an internal temperature of approximately 135°F and let it rest until it reaches the desired 145°F.  This also allows the juices to redistribute throughout the meat. (See my Meat Doneness Chart)

Photo Credit - The photograph above is not from our dinner but from Eric Olson’s Flickr page. I unfortunately did not take any photos of our dinner prep and we did not cut our whole tenderloin in half as Eric did but the thermometer is exactly the same as the one we used.

What type of thermometer?

With roasts, I like to use a meat thermometer. Whether it’s one of the old-fashioned style meat thermometers, or the new fancy models with a probe and an external remote (some have a wire connection and some are now wireless), it doesn’t matter. Alice had a very old meat thermometer that I found very difficult to read but worked just fine. My problem with her old fashion meat thermometer was how difficult it was to read.

The other option is to go with an instant read thermometer like the one I talked about in my recent Christmas gift idea article describing an instant read thermometer versus a talking thermometer.  These instant read thermometers are great for checking internal temperature of steaks, pork chops, and chicken breasts or anything you are cooking on the stovetop.  They work fine for roasts, but I don’t like having to open the oven door all the time to check the temp.

We cooked the beef tenderloin at 350°F for about 60 min. until the temperature at the thickest part of the roast reached 135°F. After removing it from the oven and covering with tinfoil, we let it rest for approximately 15 minutes. When I carved a slice from the middle of the roast, it was cooked perfectly to a medium doneness. Normally, I would cook it to a medium rare doneness, which equates to about 130°F but that is a little too rare for the girls.

I know that most of you are used to cooking meats and poultry using a time and temperature technique and that most recipes found in cookbooks and cooking magazines give you time and temperature, but I urge you to use them as approximations only and try getting used to using a thermometer to achieve better results. You may even want to keep track of internal temperatures for everything you cook and after a while you will be able to determine when a piece of meat is cooked to perfection by your other senses including touch, sight, and even what you hear.