Shoestring lamb casserole
Lamb neck casserole has been pronounced an unqualified success - I'd post photos of the finished casserole but a lot of it seems to have disappeared..
To start the casserole off I fried half a dozen snipped up rashers of streaky bacon in a heavy skillet, then sealed the lamb neck bones (cut into chunks by the butcher) in the same pan. The bacon and neck bone chunks then went into the bottom of the casserole dish.
I then added roughly chopped up carrot (three smallish carrots, or two medium sized one, whatever you have), a chopped up leek (one large leek, or two smaller ones etc.), two chopped sticks of celery, two quartered small onions, half a dozen cloves of garlic, a good whack of dried mixed herbs, lots of black pepper, a couple of tablespoons of tomato puree, a few shakes of Worcestershire sauce, and a couple of pints of chicken stock. Once the stock was in, a pound of chopped lambs liver went in over the top.
If I'd had any, I'd have used fresh rosemary and a couple of bay leaves as well.
After about 5 hours in a low oven (about 100C) I took the casserole out while I turned the oven up to 200 for the bread, scooped out the neck bones and left them aside to cool down. By the time the bread came out of the oven I had a bowl of chocolate sponge cake mix ready to go into the oven once it cooled back down to 140, and the neck bones were cool enough to pick over. The meat was so well cooked it just slid off the bones with just a little push - no knives or meat forks necessary. You can tell when meat has been cooked low and slow, the bones will come away clean.
The meat went back into the casserole with a little flour to thicken the gravy, and once the chocolate cake came out of the oven the casserole went back in for long enough to thicken the gravy up, and boil some rice to go with it. The casserole itself is so rich that plain boiled rice or good bread is all it needs to accompany it - mashed potato would have been too rich (not something you'll hear me say often...).
With the addition of a tin of tomatoes, a few chopped mushrooms and/or an extra carrot or two and a few dumplings, this will do another night easily, and that's without either of us having particularly economical portions.
Gorgeous, cheap and deceptively rich and luxurious-tasting.
To start the casserole off I fried half a dozen snipped up rashers of streaky bacon in a heavy skillet, then sealed the lamb neck bones (cut into chunks by the butcher) in the same pan. The bacon and neck bone chunks then went into the bottom of the casserole dish.
I then added roughly chopped up carrot (three smallish carrots, or two medium sized one, whatever you have), a chopped up leek (one large leek, or two smaller ones etc.), two chopped sticks of celery, two quartered small onions, half a dozen cloves of garlic, a good whack of dried mixed herbs, lots of black pepper, a couple of tablespoons of tomato puree, a few shakes of Worcestershire sauce, and a couple of pints of chicken stock. Once the stock was in, a pound of chopped lambs liver went in over the top.
If I'd had any, I'd have used fresh rosemary and a couple of bay leaves as well.
After about 5 hours in a low oven (about 100C) I took the casserole out while I turned the oven up to 200 for the bread, scooped out the neck bones and left them aside to cool down. By the time the bread came out of the oven I had a bowl of chocolate sponge cake mix ready to go into the oven once it cooled back down to 140, and the neck bones were cool enough to pick over. The meat was so well cooked it just slid off the bones with just a little push - no knives or meat forks necessary. You can tell when meat has been cooked low and slow, the bones will come away clean.
The meat went back into the casserole with a little flour to thicken the gravy, and once the chocolate cake came out of the oven the casserole went back in for long enough to thicken the gravy up, and boil some rice to go with it. The casserole itself is so rich that plain boiled rice or good bread is all it needs to accompany it - mashed potato would have been too rich (not something you'll hear me say often...).
With the addition of a tin of tomatoes, a few chopped mushrooms and/or an extra carrot or two and a few dumplings, this will do another night easily, and that's without either of us having particularly economical portions.
Gorgeous, cheap and deceptively rich and luxurious-tasting.
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