Lamb Stew with Artichokes and Baby Carrots
As you may remember, I attended another cooking class at Voila! with my tried-and-true cooking instructor Nadia and everything she made was LAMB-i-licious! In fact, it was fall-out-of-my-chair scrumptious.
My husband is literally the happiest man on the planet right now because his mostly-vegetarian wife has finally conspired to cook luscious, tender lamb at home. He used to bug me constantly, begging me to cook meat for him at home. I think he’d finally given up all hope several years ago.
But today, we visited three different grocery stores (Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Jimbo’s) for ingredients and then we came home and cooked together in the kitchen, creating a rich and spicy lamb stew a la Nadia.
It turned out that we didn’t even need to go to Whole Foods because when we asked the butchers there to cube and trim the fat from 3 pounds of leg of lamb, they pointed us to the pre-packaged lamb which Nadia explicitly told me to avoid. We tried to explain to the WF butchers that we’d prefer them to trim it up for us fresh and they pretty much told us that it would take too long and they wouldn’t do it. Hhmmm… great customer service, Whole Paycheck!
So we hit our third and final store - Jimbo’s in Del Mar. There, we met with pleasant and bend-over-backwards service from the butcher counter and we gladly handed over our credit card to that fine establishment. I know some people prefer the meat selection at Jimbo’s over that at Whole Foods. Well, I’d like to announce that Jimbo’s will be getting my meat money from here on out. Thank you, Jimbo’s!
A good two hours after we started the stew, it was ready and tender and just what we wanted. We followed Nadia’s recipe to the letter, but of course we have some notes and changes for next time so I will be sharing our modified version below.
The ginger and cayenne give a nice kick to the stew and the tumeric gives a rich Indian note to flavor mix. My husband Daniel hates cooked carrots, but even he admitted that the carrots gave a nice sweetness to the spiciness of the dish. We’re artichoke-enthusiasts so next time we’ll be doubling that amount and maybe using water-packed canned instead of Trader Joe’s frozen.
Oh, and Daniel is a true meat-and-potatoes guy so he wants to add potatoes next time.
Call me spoiled, but I’m attending another cooking class with Nadia tonight (titled “A Cruise to Morocco, Greece, and Spain”) and she’ll be teaching us a more Moroccan version of this lamb stew that includes dates, apples, and apricots. I can’t wait to compare!
Lamb Stew with Artichokes and Baby Carrots
Based on a recipe by Nadia Frigeri
Serves approximately 6 to 8
3 to 3 1/2 pounds of boneless leg of lamb, cut into 1.5-inch chunks and trimmed of fat
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil OR 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter
1 medium-large yellow onion, peeled and finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
2 t salt
1 t tumeric
1 t ground ginger
1/2 t cayenne pepper
2 cups chicken broth or water
2 T chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 to 1 cup pitted and chopped Kalamata olives (can be found jarred at Trader Joe’s)
12-24 ounces quartered artichoke hearts (frozen at TJ’s or packed in water and canned)
8-16 ounces baby carrots, blanched for 5 minutes in a separate pot
1. Place the meat in a large pot or tagine with the oil or butter, chopped onions, garlic, salt, tumeric, ginger, and cayenne. Toss to coat evenly and saute until meat is brown and onions are transparent.
2. Add the broth and bring mixture to a simmer and reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 90 minutes, turning the meat often in the sauce and adding liquid whenever necessary.
3. Add the cilantro, artichokes, carrots, olivess and continue the cooking for 10 minutes longer or until meat is tender and the sauce is reduced to a thick gravy.
Good call on the less than stellar Customer Service at Whole Foods. Avoiding pre-packaged meat is always the best choice.
Comment by Kate — March 6, 2006 @ 3:37 pm
I’m seeing a lot of “or” in this recipe, and I’m curious how the variations work out.
But many of these are things that I’d have to think about culturally-significant vs. better flavor. Say butter vs. olive-oil. Olive-oil might be a bit more mediterranean. Butter might give more flavor. Chicken broth vs. water? Clearly the chicken broth would add more, but I’d even consider vegetable stock instead (I don’t mix meats very often. I’m not even sure why.)
I’m a little surprised that the traditional lamb-flavor-enhancers weren’t consistently used. No mint? Might make an interesting substitute for the cilantro in a future version. I’m glad to see it does call for garlic.
As for the meat, I’ve been looking for a good independent butcher in the Orange County area, and I might’ve found one, but I’m still compiling my list of questions that I want to quiz them with when I go in. Currently, it’s as follows:
1) Hey, that’s a nice looking piece of meat. How would you suggest cooking it?
2) Are you willing to trim the fat from it for me?
3) Wow. That piece sure looks nice, but it’s probably too much. Any problems dividing it?
3a) Will you separate a primal if I ask?
4) Can you show me the origin of the meat, including its age, slaughter date and any other details that might be pertinent? (i.e., feed, post-slaughter treatment, location of the source, whether it has ever been frozen, etc.)
At least that’s what I’m going with for now. How they answer vs. how you feel about it is left as an exercise for the reader. I’m also checking out some kosher butchers, as they are alleged to maintain stricter standards when it comes to food handling (and hey, if I decide to make a cheeseburger out of the result, they don’t need to know) Probably a bad place to pick up pork chops or bacon, though.
It is worth asking, and sometimes, it is worth walking away. I saw one of the what-should’ve-been-foodie-friendly places (Henry’s, a division of Wild Oats) selling “Sushi Grade Tuna, Previously Frozen”. In my book, previously frozen doesn’t make for sushi grade. Fishmonging is probably a bigger ball of wax, but certain concepts like willingness to accept the customer requests, as well as knowing as much about the product as possible are always going to equate to extra points in my book. If I’m looking at a pre-packed product (as is always the case with Trader Joe’s), I know I’m gambling. But if they’ve got the stuff loose in their display case (is it on ice? it might matter.), I ask for a higher standard.
The important thing is to be willing to walk if you aren’t satisfied with the answers they give (or don’t, in some cases) If you don’t want to maintain a standard for quality, you might as well be eating canned tuna and spam. It’s certainly cheaper, so you might as well save the money. Seriously.
I say this as a serious lamb-junkie. My biggest challenge is to get my sushi-junkie girlfriend to understand why I get so excited about it (although I’ve almost convinced her an analogue to her rarely-expressed-duck-tendencies)
-transiit
Comment by transiit — March 6, 2006 @ 9:39 pm
This sounds just wonderful. I think lamb is my favorite red meat.
Comment by Kalyn — March 7, 2006 @ 5:26 am
Trim & cube a leg of lamb? Funny, I was just doing that in class last weekend! While I’m not a ginsu warrior and take about 10 minutes to fabricate a whole chicken, trimming the fat off a leg of lamb (already de-boned) was a p-a-i-n in the you-know-what. Whew!! It took a good 40 minutes.. it’s shocking how much fat and silverskin those things have!! :-p
Comment by Tess — March 9, 2006 @ 8:24 am
Okay,I see someone has been talking smack–(Oh, woops that would be the zen foodist herself)! Isn’t that special…I do read your blog on occasion, however you know very well that cooking, baking and basically food in general are low on my list…so, with that said, I think I should get REAL points for attending the most amazing and YUMMilicious cooking class with Nadia, your new best friend. I didn’t see any comments about our awesome class with a new lentil soup recipe (Harira), delicious, creamy huummus made with Milk! Another Lamb stew with prunes, apricots and sauteed apples…baked in a Tajine. Shrimpilicious with a Greek flair and the Spanish Flan with almond cookies, rasberries and a splash of Grand Marnier. Doesn’t that sound intoxicating…it was. See you next time. With blog love, your redeemed sis in law!!
Anisa
Comment by Anisa — March 9, 2006 @ 11:03 pm