Italian Style Lamb Stew
This is an altered version of a recipe in Sainsburys Winter Recipe Collection. I love a good hearty stew especially when its a tad chilly outside (and in) and I adore how a pot full of okay flavours develops into a complex explosion of yumminess the longer it simmers away on the stove.
This recipe serves 5 to 8 (gotta love left overs!)
Ingredients
- 700g (1.5lbs) of diced lamb
- 2 onions, peeled and roughly chopped
- 4 carrots, chopped
- 5 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
- 2 sprigs of rosemary
- 1 red chilli, deseeded and chopped
- 1 teaspoon of orange zest
- 750mL (26 oz) bottle of red wine
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2tbsp plain flour
- 2 x 400g (14 oz) can of chopped tomatoes
- 500mL’s (17 oz) of vegetable stock
- 2 teaspoons of Balsamic vinegar
- 2 x 400g (14 oz) tins of butter beans OR cannellini beans, drained
Method
- After dicing all your vegetables places the onions, carrots and chilli in a heavy bottomed saucepan along with the lamb, crushed garlic and the orange zest.
- Pour in the bottle of red wine and give it a gentle stir making sure your lamb is completely submerged.
- Place the lid on your pot and place in the fridge to marinate for a minimum of 30 minutes (preferably an hour or as long as you have time for).
- Remove your pot from the fridge. In a seperate fry pan heat up the butter and the olive oil.
- Using a slotted spoon remove the lamb from the marinade and place in your fry pan. Be sure to reserve your pot of marinade, you’ll need it again in a minute!
- Brown the lamb all over and then add the flour. Stir the flour in for 1 minute.
- Pour the contents of the fry pan into your pot of marinade.
- Add to the pot the tomatoes, vegetable stock, balsamic vinegar and a good sprinkling of cracked black pepper and salt (you’ll be taste testing it once the liquid is heated enough to be safe).
- Heat and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down to simmer and place the lid on.
- Simmer for 45 minutes. I taste tested at regular intervals and salt and peppered as need be.
- Remove the lid, stir well and leave to simmer for another 15 minutes. The flavours should be full bodied and the meat tender.
- Add the beans and cook until warmed through.
- Serve with crusty bread or mashed potato.
OMG, that looks FANTASTIC! I love a good stew myself! I’m not a lamb eater, but I’m wondering if beef would work as well. May have to cook it a tad longer since the cut of beef for stew is much tougher than lamb. Hmm, I wonder if this would work in my crock pot? And I’m going to have to convert your metric measurments to standard (we’re a little behind the times here in the states).
Thanks for sharing! The pictures you took are wonderful!
Thank you
It’s certainly made the house smell divine!
I think this would work just fine with beef. It’s so hard to find affordable and tasty beef in England. A good proper beef steak is one of the things I miss most about Australia!
We’ve learnt to adapt, though pork will never be my favourite thing to serve (the English love their pork! If they are selling “sausages” at a street vendor or in a shop they mean “pork sausage”….took some getting used to as a “sausage” in Australia really means “beef sausage”.
The lamb I used in this recipe was imported from New Zealand, I have no idea why they can’t import some good Aussie beef too. Same region! That would make me a very happy lady!
If your worried about the beef being a little tough, marinating it for twice as long might be an easy fix
I’ve added the U.S measurements just now so you don’t have to go googling everything