Navarin of lamb - at long last!

Way, way back in the olden days (also known as "when I had horses"), I didn't have a lot of time for cooking but did have a great relationship with my slow cooker.  I would prepare the ingredients the night before, then throw them all into my little slow cooker, turn it on and leave it to chuckle all day while I was at work - much to the annoyance of my dogs, I dare say.  Coming home to a ready to eat meal, usually around 9pm and once I'd walked the dogs and put the horses to bed, was just such luxury.

One of my absolute favourite meals cooked this way was Navarin of Lamb.  However, not the authentic kind of Navarin of Lamb, but a Colman's Casserole Mix - yes, one of those from a sachet, just add water, pour over ingredients and cook.  I would whip up some mashed potato and cook some frozen runner beans and sit down to a fantastically comforting hot dinner.  Just perfect.

Then there came a bit of a hiatus in my lamb cooking as I swapped from horses and one person cooking, to babies and two persons (and a baby!) cooking.  Over the course of this period, eating lamb was a once in a blue moon experience owing to the price - we didn't have a lot of cash at the time.  Well, babies cost more than horses to run y'know.  Who'd have thought it!  So I lost touch with my favourite Navarin of Lamb and in the meantime, sadly Colman's decided to discontinue production of the casserole mix.  I never forgot that particular dish though - and would often hope that I'd be able to re-create it one day.

Over the years, various cuts of lamb came (largely due to special offers and money off counters) and were devoured.  However, none of them were really suitable for a voyage back in time to the lovely Navarin of the past.

I found recipes that seemed as though they would get close to how the casserole mix tasted, but there was always something missing.  I'd think about the recipe and, over the years, had pretty much got the recipe in mind.  All that I needed was the right cut of lamb - for the right price.

Then came Farmer's Choice (Free Range) Limited and as we got to know one another through working together over various recipes, I plucked up the courage to ask for the correct cut of lamb for my Navarin - the fillet (see here for details).  Lo and behold, two perfect fillets arrived for me to wreak creative havoc with.  I was in quiet transports of anticipation at finally being able to (fingers crossed) get back to the halcyon days of satisfyingly lamby deliciousness.

Now, if you look at various recipes and photographs of Navarin of Lamb on t'internet, you will see different cuts of meat, some bone in, some bone out, but largely all in a broth type of liquid, accompanied by spring vegetables of different shapes and sizes.  Yes, I am sure that is a perfectly authentic Navarin of Lamb, but the one I was aiming for was nothing like this.  (As is often the way with sachet casserole mixes).  I make no apology for this, because I was on the trail of a food memory, not authenticity.

My Navarin of Lamb was in a fairly thick sauce, that was orangey red in colour, contained flecks of herbs and tasted very lamby.  Nothing like these Navarins looked.  So I had to back-engineer the flavour that was in my memory.

I will admit that I included one ingredient that wasn't part of my memorised recipe, but was included in most up to date recipes - and that was beans.  Because I was aiming for a real comfort food vibe, I went for butter beans.  Is there anything nicer than butter beans for delivering that comforting substance in a casserole?  I don't think so.

I also wanted the flecks of herbage, but without being inundated with tasty greenness and as most recipes recommended the use of a bouquet garni, it made sense to follow along.  However, I also used some fresh parsley (love parsley) to give that "herbs in here" feel.

The flour in the recipe gave the sauce the opaqueness of the original casserole mix, while the tomato puree gave it the colour.  The real stroke of genius, that made the flavour just right, is the inclusion of the whole shallots.  Over the course of the cooking period, the small shallots just melt into the sauce whereas the larger ones stay around for a supporting role to the lamb once on the plate.

The long slow cook (even though it wasn't THAT long or slow) was perfect for this cut of lamb as it enabled the marbling through the meat to render down, adding its perfect lamb flavour to the sauce.  The meat was as tender as butter and the flavour was sublime.  All those years of virtual recipe development carried out in my head were worth every minute.  It was even better than I'd hoped and so very close to the original flavour that I'd held in my memory for all those years.  Satisfied?  I should say so!

I don't even have any cook's tips for you.  The recipe is so simple, it is difficult to imagine how it could go wrong for anyone, so long as you follow each instruction and include all the ingredients listed.

Even if you've experienced the authentic Navarin of Lamb, do give this one a go.  Comfort food at its best - and then some.

NAVARIN OF LAMB    (serves 2)

Ingredients :

2 tbsp olive oil
300g lamb fillet (neck fillet is perfect), cut into centimetre thick medallions
1 onion, chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, sliced finely
8-10 small shallots, peeled
15g salted butter
20g plain flour
1 tbsp tomato puree
pinch sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
600ml strong low salt lamb stock (Essential Cuisine lamb stock is perfect for this)
2 bouquet garni
400g tin of butter beans
1 tbsp finely chopped parsley.

Method :

1.  Heat the oil in a frying pan until very hot.  Gently add the lamb pieces and leave them where they fall, to gain a golden crust.  Once the crust has formed, turn them onto their other side and cook for another 3-4 minutes.  Remove to a casserole dish.

2.  Reduce the heat under the pan to moderate and add the onions, garlic and shallots along with a pinch of sea salt.  Cook until the onion (not the shallots) is transparent and softened - around 8-10 minutes.

3.  Add the butter and, once melted, the flour and tomato puree.  Stir to combine and cook gently for 2-3 minutes, taking care not to let it burn.

4.  Add one half of the stock and stir well to combine with the flour mixture without forming lumps.  Add the other half of the stock mixture and stir until a smooth, thickened sauce has formed.  You may need a little more stock or a little less, depending on your flour.

5.  Taste the sauce for seasoning and add more salt if required, plus a good helping of pepper, to taste.

6.  Stir in the two bouquet garni plus the drained butter beans and decant the sauce into the casserole dish.

7.  Stir to combine with the lamb, then add the lid and bake in a pre-heated oven at 160degC/325degF/Gas 3 for two and a half hours.  Check the casserole contents half way through, to make sure the liquid level is still good.  You can take this opportunity to give the contents a bit of a stir, making sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the casserole.

8.  Once the cooking time is up, remove the casserole dish from the oven and add all but a pinch of the chopped parsley.  Stir through and taste for seasoning, adding a little more if necessary.

Serve with the remaining parsley sprinkled over, with mashed potatoes, runner beans and carrots.

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Zesty glazed salmon on butter bean mash - the week's unexpected hit!

I love butter beans and I don't mind who knows it.

Now I do know that there are folk out there for whom a butter bean is the epitome of disgusting - strange folk who need to have their eyes opened to the beauty of the butter bean when engaged in the most delicious of things - butter bean mash.

However, I am getting a bit ahead of myself, so let's back up a bit and do a bit of explaining.

I have been looking for carbohydrate alternatives.  It is just too easy to say "hmmn, pork chop.  What shall we have with it?  Oh, new/roast/mashed/dauphinoise/boiled/chipped/Hasselback (and ever onwards) potatoes".  There are so many different types of potato dish that you can choose from!  However, I think I might have exhausted my range of all known potato types and have probably cycled through them all a number of times.

So it was time to try some creative alternatives.

With that in the back of my mind, I was doing my usual thing of browsing the foodie internet for possible dinner ideas.  One dinner ingredient that we all enjoy but we just don't eat enough of, is fish.  Having discovered that Asda's range of frozen fish is compatible with several different methods of cooking, I was particularly after a fish recipe when all of a sudden there appeared a recipe that solved the two requirements in one.  Sara Buenfeld's Sizzling Salmon with Bean Mash, on BBC Good Food.

Mmmmn ... butter (or Lima) beans

Salmon - tick!  Butter beans - tick!

Even better, from a balanced meal point of view, it included wilted Rocket in the mash and the fish was grilled (albeit with a sweet mustard glaze).  Add a couple of likely looking veggies and that is dinner sorted - completely without recourse to a potato.

However, I had temporarily forgotten - in my butter beany enthusiasm - that hubby "isn't keen" on the beautiful creamy giants of the bean world.  For that, read "have yet to sample them in anything that makes them even palatable, never mind edible".  Humm.

I knew that I'd never sampled butter bean mash and I knew that I'd had it recommended to me by more than one person - and more than one of those more than one people were like hubby in their dislike for the ordinary butter bean.  However, they reported that butter bean mash was a definite thumbs up.  My caution went for a fly around in the wind and I put the dish on the menu plan.  *gulp*

Now the naughty boy has been teasing me all day with various comments about the three (THREE!) tins of organic butter beans I'd had him buy in the shopping this morning, but I held out, stood firm and went for it.

Do you know, he likes it!  No, in fact, I'd say he really rather liked it (which is a bit more than your average "like" - in case you were wondering).  We've just finished dinner and having gone from a plaintive "Well if I don't like it, what am I going to eat?" to "This is delicious!  ~suspicious look from me~  No, seriously delicious!", I call that a very definite win.

Son and heir left a little of his mash, but then I did give him rather more - hollow legs and all that.

The salmon was lovely with the lime/honey/mustard glaze and took minutes to cook under the grill.  The butter bean mash was simplicity itself, even with my changing the order of cooking around a little bit to include sauteing the garlic in the butter for a minute or two, so that I didn't get a reaction to it.  They are right in the original recipe when they say that the mash requires a good wallop of seasoning to bring out the flavours - I seemed to be endlessly adding pepper, but once you reached sufficient, you realised why.  The creme fraiche is a master stroke, as it loosens the flouriness of the beans and combines with the butter to make an overall creaminess.  Just so tasty!

I served the fish and mash with some broccoli and carrots that I drizzled with the cooking juices.  Everyone was happy with the quantity of food on the plate and I am quietly cock-a-hoop that it was as much of a success as it turned out to be.

I most definitely recommend this one.  It's a keeper!

ZESTY GLAZED SALMON on BUTTER BEAN MASH   (serves 3)

Ingredients :

3 salmon fillets, skin removed
zest and juice of 1 lime
2 tbsp runny honey
1 heaped tbsp wholegrain mustard
3 x 400g tins of butter beans, rinsed
25g butter
1 garlic clove, crushed and chopped finely
4-5 tbsp creme fraiche
50g rocket
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Method :

1.   Place the salmon fillets face upwards on a heatproof flat tray.

2.  Into a bowl, combine the lime zest, lime juice, honey, mustard and a good pinch of salt.

3.  Spoon a little of the mixture onto the face of each salmon fillet, then turn each upside down and leave to marinate for a few minutes while you prepare the mash.

4.  Drain the beans and place into a flat bottomed bowl.  Using a potato masher, mash until the beans are quite broken up, but still retain some texture.

5.  Place the butter into a saucepan large enough to take all the butter beans and put it on a low heat to melt.  Add the garlic and cook very gently - do not allow it to brown - for a few minutes.

6.  Once the raw garlic smell has dissipated add the crushed butter beans, a large pinch of sea salt, a whole heap (to taste) of freshly ground black pepper and the creme fraiche.  Vigorously mix the combination together - a wooden spoon is good for this as you can crush any randomly whole butter beans as you go.  Heat the contents of the pan until bubbling.

7.  Spoon a little more glaze over the fish fillets and place under a hot grill for 2-3 minutes.

8.  Turn the fillets and spoon the remaining glaze over them, then return them to the grill until done.  The cooking juices should be bubbling and hot.

7.  Just before you are due to serve, add the rocket to the butter bean mash pan and stir through.  You are wanting the rocket to have just wilted and not be cooked.

8.  Serve with steamed broccoli and carrots, with the cooking juices from the fish drizzled over.

Printable version

Lamb & carrot meatballs with butterbeans - quite a surprise!

For really quite a long time - ever since seeing them on the t.v. - I have wanted to reproduce those gorgeous Spanish style tapas meatballs that you see being served in small terracotta dishes.  They look so yummy with their thick tomato sauce that just the sight of them is enough to set my saliva glands tingling.

Well - and purely by accident - I think I've just achieved it.

I didn't set out to make a tapas-style meatball at all.  I'd found a recipe on goodfoodchannel.co.uk probably around a year or more ago, which I'd filed away in my folder of "good ideas" with a view to making some time in the future.  It was a Peter Gordon recipe, so immediately I had confidence in it as Peter Gordon always appears to me to be something of a "serious" chef, as opposed to those who are more keen on the t.v. appearances than making good food.

What made me decide to make the recipe now, though, was entirely down to the fact that I had a tin of Sainsbury's butter beans burning a hole in my tin cupboard.  I'd had a discussion with a friend on Facebook about how much we liked butter beans and she'd recommended Sainsbury's as being good ones of their type.  (Thanks Marj!)  I really dislike soggy butter beans that just fall apart when they're cooked - and these ones definitely don't do that.  They're tender, but still firm enough to cope with being stirred regularly.  Now I really - no, really - like butter beans, so the knowledge that I had a tin of good ones in the cupboard was more than enough enticement.

There was something else about the recipe that tickled my curiosity.  In the meatball method, it said to include four tablespoonfuls of cold water into the meatball mixture.  I so nearly didn't do this, as it seemed as though - with the grated carrot there too - it stood the chance of making the meatball terribly soggy.  However, I decided to place my trust in Peter Gordon's capable hands and complied with the recipe.  What a revelation!

Now anyone who has ever made meatballs from scratch, will know that the blasted meatball mix will stick to your fingers and steadfastly refuse to be moulded into a ball.  I'd read a little tip which said to run your fingers under cold water whilst rolling the ball, which very definitely helped - in fact, it made the task do-able.  However, if you add the water to the meatball mix, you don't need to keep running them under the tap (with accompanying water wasteage and cross-contamination hygiene issues).  The meatball mix just rolls up without a squeak of complaint and - what's even better - is the meatball stays moist and delicious throughout the browning process, right the way to being served!  As I say - a revelation!

The grated carrot was another departure from the norm - and one which worked brilliantly.  The flavours of lamb and mint are traditional and the addition of the grated carrot really brought out the sweetness of the lamb, along with helping to ensure the meatballs stayed moist.
 

As ever, well you wouldn't expect anything else now, would you?  I made a few changes to the original recipe - which I have reflected in the recipe below - both to suit what ingredients I had in the house and to suit our palates.  Amongst a few other things, for instance, the original recipe called for 8 cloves of garlic.  Now we do like garlic - but 8?  Between three of us?  I don't think so - especially as all eight go into the sauce!  Hence, I trimmed it down to a much more acceptable 2.

The quantity of mince is 800g on the recipe, whereas a supermarket pack of mince is generally 600g.  From the 600g, I made 21 meatballs which were a good size - with a bowl of sauce and butterbeans for lunch the following day.  (Which coupled with a fresh baked baguette was just such a stellar lunch!).  So feel free to increase the size to 800g if you've extra mouths to feed.  I found the 600g fed the three of us perfectly.

The recipe also called for 200g of bacon lardons.  Well, I have to admit that I've no time for lardons - not when my local butcher is still selling their wonderful smoked back bacon for a fraction of the price of 100g of lardons!  It's all bacon, after all.  So I swapped those lardons for three large (and I'm talking large) rashers of smoked back bacon, cut into small pieces.  It worked.  It worked very nicely thank you.

Owing to hubby's sensitivity to tomatoes - the acidity tends to give him rampant indigestion if not cooked out very well indeed - I habitually add a little tomato ketchup.  Now you could add a little sugar to do the same job - but tomato ketchup has all those intriguing spices along with the sugar, that add that little je ne sais quoi to a tomato sauce and helps to kill the acidity.

Quite apart from anything else, this recipe is a complete doddle to make.  Apart from forming the meatballs (which really doesn't take very long at all), it's a simple matter of chucking everything in order into a deep pan, stirring occasionally and cooking something to help mop up the sauce.

Speaking of which, I decided to cook some Orzo.  Now I'd only ever used Orzo once before, in my Greek Lamb & Orzo Bake - which we all really liked.  So I knew that I was onto a fairly safe bet there.  Son and heir was momentarily befuddled by it, asking what sort of rice it was, but was satisfied when we revealed that it was a tiny pasta instead.  He commented that it was "odd" and didn't finish his portion - but for the first go in a very long time, plus the first time of having it as a side dish, I think he did pretty well.  He's a conservative ole thing, don'cha know.  I added a few frozen peas to the Orzo more with a view to their colour than flavour, but they added a nice sweetness that the Orzo alone couldn't have delivered.

All in all, I was very pleased indeed with this meal.  Everyone loved the meatballs and to have found a tapas style meatball in tomato sauce is a very definite bonus, as I have a yen to make a tapas style dinner one night.  So, my first dish is tucked firmly behind my ear for later!

LAMB & CARROT MEATBALLS WITH BUTTERBEANS   (serves 3)

Ingredients :

600g lean minced lamb
1 tbsp fresh mint, shredded
1 carrot, peeled and grated
100g plain flour
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil
1 large onion, sliced thinly
2 cloves garlic, sliced
2 tsp dried rosemary
200g bacon lardons
750ml tomato passata
1 tbsp tomato ketchup 
1 tsp lamb stock powder (or half a lamb stock cube)
400g tin butter beans
fresh parsley, finely chopped.

Method :

1.  Make sure that all the vegetables are prepped and ready to go, before you make up the meatball mix, or the meatballs will stick to their plate as they wait to be browned.

2.   In a large bowl, mix the lamb, mint and carrot together with some seasoning and 4 tbsp cold water.  Form the mixture into balls the size of a walnut.

3.  Take a large freezer bag and mix the flour together with some seasoning.  Roll each meatball in the flour until coated.

4.  Heat the oil in a deep frying pan or wok.  Once hot enough to sizzle the meatballs, add them gently and without crowding.  You may need to brown them in two batches.  Brown them all over and remove with a slotted spoon onto a warm plate.

5.  Once all the meatballs are browned, drain the majority of the fat from the pan and add the onion.  Cook over a moderate heat until softened and turning golden.

6.  Add the garlic and rosemary, cooking until the onion is beginning to caramelise and the garlic is softened.

7.  Add the bacon and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until all the water has cooked out of the bacon and it is beginning to turn golden.

8.  Add the passata, tomato ketchup and the lamb stock powder - (I used Essential Cuisine's superb lamb stock powder) - along with 200ml of water.  Stir well, then add the butter beans and bring to a boil, stirring as it heats through.

9.  Once up to temperature, return the meatballs to the pan and coat with the tomato sauce.  Place a lid on the pan and simmer for 35-45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

10.  Serve sprinkled with the chopped parsley.

Printable version

Creamy chicken and butter beans

Not the dreaded cabbage in sauce,
but very similar!

When I was considering what to include on last week’s menu list, it occurred to me that I was quite probably capable of concocting my own dish.  This was a notion that made me sit up and pay attention, as way back in the dim dark days of when I began cooking, any attempt to go “off piste” would be fairly disastrous.  I well remember a dish of turkey breast, red, green & yellow peppers and cream, which I served to my parents.  Quite apart from the fact that my Mum can’t eat peppers, it was a tad one-dimensional to say the least.  I also cringe at the memory of visiting friends in Devon and cooking for them some filled pasta (not made from scratch, of course) with cooked white cabbage and a cheese sauce.  Poor souls, they ate it diligently but never let me cook again, for which I can’t blame them.  

So, many years have passed and many a sausage has gone with them.  It is true to say that I’ve really only fairly recently (like, within the last six or seven years) taken such an intense interest in food.  I think this was largely borne by the requirement to make a very little go a long way (following on from redundancy and pregnancy) and having a child.  There’s nothing like being responsible for someone else’s health, for focusing your mind on what you’re all eating! 

Those were the days!
Having fun hunter trialling with Kellie of Whitefield,
my Highland pony

Another aspect is focus.  For years I ate, slept and breathed my horses.  They were my life and food was simply enjoyable fuel that enabled me to get up at 6am, walk the dogs, “do” the horses (feed, muck out, etc), go to work for 8-9 hours, then do it all again on the way home.  When the horses faded (regrettably, they don’t last for ever), that focus was taken up by the new baby.  In turn, as the son and heir has grown up and become more independent, I’ve obviously been looking for something to fill that gap – and food was an obvious choice.

It was an intriguing notion, to think up a tasty dish that had several dimensions and that catered for all our whims and foibles.  It’s those whims and foibles that more often than not has me tinkering around with other people’s recipes, so I was well used to substituting ingredients or changing quantities.

I didn’t have the confidence to just come right out and tell the boys that this was one of their Mum’s ideas, I talked about it as though it was another recipe I’d picked up.  At least, that way, if they hated it I didn’t have to admit it was mine!

However, lo and behold, they liked it – and everyone cleaned their plate.

There were a few adjustments required to the dish, which I’ve taken into account with the recipe below.   If you decide to have a go at it, do let me know what you think!

CREAMY CHICKEN AND BUTTER BEANS (serves 3)

Ingredients :

3 x chicken breasts

3 rashers streaky bacon, diced

1 onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, grated

1 leek, sliced

100ml white wine

1 small tin butter beans

2 tbsp sweetcorn

salt & black pepper

crème fraiche

200ml chicken stock

1 tsp tarragon, chopped

Method : 

1.  Using a deep frying pan, fry the bacon until the fat has reduced.  Remove the bacon and keep warm.

2.  Fry the chicken breasts until golden, then remove and reserve to keep warm.

3.  Fry the onion until translucent and starting to colour, then add the garlic and fry for 1-2 mins more.

4.  Add the leek and fry until softened, then add the bacon to the mix.

5.  Add the white wine and boil until reduced by half – this only takes a few minutes.

6.  Add the crème fraiche and some chicken stock to let it down a little.  Add the tarragon and season.

7.  Add the butter beans, sweetcorn and the chicken, put on the lid and simmer until the chicken is cooked – some 10-15mins depending on how big your chicken is.

8.  Check the seasoning and serve with tagliatelle.

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