Persian lamb & vegetable stew - worth every second it is in the oven!

The blame for this recipe lies fairly and squarely with my birthday.  You see, I was lucky enough to be given "The Saffron Tales" by Yasmin Khan, which fired up my already well established liking for and curiosity about Persian - or Iranian - cuisine.  As you'll probably have gathered, I really like lamb and saffron and pomegranate molasses is no stranger to my ingredients cupboard, plus I love using fresh herbs in my cooking, so I was part way there already.

Having lapped up every word of the recipe book, my imagination had been captured.  I wanted to make something for dinner that would encapsulate some of the cooking techniques and flavours I had read about.  Right up there on that list was lamb, which was a fine if somewhat expensive place to start.  However, I discovered that Asda do a bag of frozen diced lamb which gave sufficient quantity for the right price.  I just hoped that the quality would be good enough!  (Which, as it turned out, it was!).

Dried limes at a market in Bahrain c/o Wikipedia

The second essential was that this dish should include Iranian dried limes.  I was SO curious about these little black apparently hollow little ping-pong-ball-alikes.  I really like lime - which helps - and using these odd little creatures was a curiosity all of its own. What would they smell like? (Vaguely liquorice-like).  What do they taste like?  (Aside from the obvious citrus effect, I have never tasted anything quite like them to be able to give you a "tastes like" point of reference).  What effect would they have on a stew?  (A quite incredible and delicious effect, as it happens!).  So they had to be done.

The third essential was that this stew had to use fresh herbs and lots of them.  I'd seen the Gormeh Sabzi, which is a stew made almost exclusively from an assortment of herbs such as parsley, leek, coriander and fenugreek which looked great, but I was a bit nervous about diving straight into a herb stew.  I felt that something a bit more familiar - meat with vegetables and herbs - would be a little less of a challenge to the family.

As a result, I incorporated the best bits of two recipes in order to make this one.  I took the cooking instructions for the lamb from this recipe from House to Home and took the vegetable and herb influences, along with the dried lime cooking advice, from this Ottolenghi recipe.

My only regret was that they both used turmeric instead of saffron, but hey - you can't have it all and turmeric is so good for you!

So it turned into a three stage, three hour process.  Oh boy but it was worth it, though. Each stage is achieved relatively easily and if you do all your chopping and peeling to begin with, that makes the process a whole lot easier.

I was so curious to taste the gravy at the end of the first hour and a half of cooking, as the soft herbs had all gone into the pot for this stage.  Mmmmnn, I could easily have just thickened that gravy and eaten the lamb as it was.  It was tender, the gravy was delicious and the herbs had amalgamated with the spices (turmeric, cumin, chilli) into incredible layers of exotic flavour.  You can only imagine how butter soft the lamb was by the end of three hours!  I had to resist though, as the dried limes had yet to be included.

Now nobody had mentioned how, even though you poke a thousand holes into each dried lime - to let the gravy in and the flavour out - they insist on bobbing about on the top of the casserole's contents and will NOT submit to being submerged.  In the end, I decided to give the contents a stir at 45 minutes, in the hope that they would have softened enough to sink.  They did - so there's a tip for you!

With the addition of the vegetables - and most especially the butternut squash - the gravy began to sweeten somewhat.  (Yes, I did have a taste at the 45 minute mark - well, it was for research purposes as much as anything).  Now the interesting thing is that with the addition of the lime juice (you squeeze each lime against the side of the casserole dish before removing it) which is gloriously flavoured and mahogany coloured, it doesn't wipe out that sweetness.  Yes, there is a citrussy element to the flavour of the dried lime, but it just adds another layer to an already multi-flavour layered concoction, without knocking any particular flavour out of the melange.  Their astringency also has the effect of cutting through the richness of the fatty (no matter how hard you trim it, it's still fatty) lamb.  I am seriously impressed with these dried Iranian limes and can't wait to use them again - perhaps in some rice to accompany a curry.

The final three flourishes - some chopped fresh tomato, currants soaked in lemon juice (I hadn't been able to source any barberries) and the very last minute addition of spinach leaves - were sufficient to just add a freshness to the dish.  So often, casseroles cooked long and slow can become a little muddy-flavoured as they progress.  Not this one - and with the last minute additions, it makes sure of it.

Tasting the stew as it progressed through all the different stages was a real education in flavour development and I encourage you to do the same.  I think by doing so, you will understand how each ingredient is working with the others a lot better than just sampling the end result.

I wasn't brave enough to attempt the traditional Tahdig (golden saffron flavoured rice that forms a crisp crust in the making), I'll leave that for another day.  Instead, I served the stew with simply cooked white basmati rice and a hearty dollop of plain yoghurt.

It really doesn't describe the dish sufficiently to call it a simple "stew", as being English that evokes thoughts of thick gravy and dumplings.  However, I'm hoping that the "Persian" in the name will stop such thoughts in their tracks and send you down more exotic lines of thought!

As my first even half-serious voyage into Persian (Iranian) cuisine, I'm feeling quite satisfied that I did it some justice.  I just hope you will feel the same way.

I have linked up this recipe with the excellent Sneaky Veg Blog

where you can find other interesting recipes.

PERSIAN LAMB & VEGETABLE STEW   (serves 3-4)

Ingredients :

2 tbsp vegetable oil (I used rapeseed)
500g diced lamb
1 large onion, diced
pinch of sea salt
2 large garlic cloves, chopped
half a tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp tomato puree
20g fresh coriander, roughly chopped
10g fresh dill, roughly chopped
10g fresh tarragon, roughly chopped
1 litre of lamb stock, made using two stock cubes
1 whole red chilli, pierced all over
4 dried limes, pierced all over
1 large waxy potato, peeled and diced very small
1 small butternut squash, peeled and diced
4-5 mushrooms, quartered
3 vine ripened tomatoes, pips removed and chopped
15g barberries or alternatively currants soaked in lemon juice
a large handful of baby spinach leaves.

Method :

Pre-heat your oven to 140degC/275degF/Gas 1.

Heat the vegetable oil (I used rapeseed) over a high heat in a large frying pan until almost smoky hot.  Add the lamb (gently!) and sear on at least two sides.  Using a slotted spoon remove the lamb to a lidded casserole dish.

Reduce the heat under the frying pan to moderate and add the onion, sea salt, garlic, turmeric and cumin seeds.  Fry until the onion is transparent and just beginning to caramelise but stir often to prevent the turmeric from burning on the bottom of the pan.

Add the tomato puree and stir through.  Cook on for another 3-4 minutes, until the ingredients are well combined.

Gently stir in the lamb stock and add the three fresh herbs.

Decant the mixture into the casserole dish, give everything a stir, whisper some words of encouragement and put the lid on.  Place the casserole dish into the oven and forget about it for the next hour and a half.

Remove the casserole dish from the oven and remove the lid.  Give the contents a stir and have a taste of the cooking liquid, to check for seasoning and to admire how it tastes at this early stage - seriously lovely.

Add the red chilli, the dried limes (which will insist on bobbing around on the surface, because they're so light), potato, butternut squash and mushrooms and stir through.

Replace the lid and put the casserole dish back into the oven for another hour.

At the end of that hour, retrieve the casserole dish and remove the lid.  Stir in the tomatoes and barberries or currants.  Replace, uncovered, in the oven for the remaining half an hour.  (The sauce is fairly thin and of a broth-like consistency, but amazingly flavoured.  If you prefer your sauce thicker, simply stir in a little cornflour mixed with water at this stage, which will thicken the sauce).

Ultimately, once you have finally removed the casserole dish from the oven (and cooked some white rice to go with it), stir in a big handful of baby spinach leaves and serve along with the cooked white rice and a healthy big dollop of plain yoghurt.

Tuck in!

Printable version

Slow Cooker Beef Stew with Herby Dumplings

I was shocked to realise, a few days ago, that it was (very) early Spring and I had yet to make a beef stew with dumplings in the slow cooker!  Just goes to show what a relatively mild (albeit horrendously wet) winter we've had.

Now I absolutely adore beef stew - and a beef stew made in the slow cooker (the right way) is right up there amongst my favourites.

I can hear you all asking what I might consider to be "the right way"?  Well, those of you who have been reading along all these years (well done, if that's you - and thank you!) will recall my saying that I went through a phase of getting lackadaisical with the slow cooker and expecting miracles from it - and not getting them.  You see, to successfully cook in a slow cooker is all about what you put into it - and I'm not just talking the quality of your ingredients (although that does feature, but in a rather smaller way than with other situations).  No, what I'm talking about here is your preparation.  Meat has to be seared, or at the very least browned for additional flavour before being added.  Onions need to be sweated at the least and caramelised at the most, all for additional flavour.  The size of the pieces of meat and/or vegetable that you include, makes a huge difference to the flavour of the end product.

I began to think that you could throw a quartered onion in the slow cooker with a sliced carrot and some chunks of beef and expect a stew at the end of it.  Well, I dare say what I got had definitely been stewed - but was it "a stew?".  No, very definitely not.  No flavour, just hot and wet.  Bleugh.

Whatever you are cooking in the slow cooker - pretty much without exception, savoury wise - needs to have the meat seared or browned.  The difference in flavour for such a simple action, is incredible.  I opted to use beef shin for this stew as I knew the slow cooker would be on for best part of the day (we were visiting my parents so would be out for the day) and such long slow cooking is just perfect for beef shin.  Plus, it is one of the least expensive of all the beef cuts.  We managed to pick up around 500g for £5 - which is perfect.  Yes, shin requires a fair amount of trimming - especially when you've got menfolk who are as sensitive about finding "globby bits" in their stews as mine are - but it is so worth it.  Plus dustbins 1, 2 and 3 (the dogs) are always happy to take care of the trimmings.

Below, I talk about "big" and "small" pieces of vegetables and their role in the creation of the stew.  The same applies to the meat.  Pieces of beef that are relatively lean are kept for the "big" pieces - slightly smaller than 1" square - whereas any pieces that are shot through with impossible to remove sinew and/or fat, are chopped into tiny pieces to dissolve into the gravy.  Nothing gets wasted - it all adds to the glorious flavour.

So having said that, whenever I'm including vegetables, I sort them out into the said "big pieces" and "small pieces" - some of which, like carrot, celery, onion, potato and mushroom, will qualify under both categories.  The "big pieces" go into the slow cooker straight away, without any further preparation than peeling and cutting to size.  However, the "small pieces" vegetables get chopped finely with a view to their disintegrating as they cook (which you definitely don't want the big pieces to do!) and adding their individual gorgeousness to the whole that is the gravy.  Not only that, but the "small pieces" get pan fried - most especially the onions - before being added.  Raw onion added to a stew continues to taste like raw onion.  Even when adding whole shallots, I still pan fry them to get some colour on the outside - which lends flavour to the sauce or gravy and prevents them from tasting too "raw" at the end of it.

In the case of this stew, the "small pieces" I included were onion, garlic, carrot, celery, mushroom and potato.  Everything excepting the potato was there to add to the gravy, the potato was there to add to the thickening.

The "big pieces" included potato, carrot, mushroom, turnip, parsnip and butternut squash.

I also added a whole plethora of other flavours, all of which were there to bump up the gravy from just "gravy" to "WHOA! Awesome gravy!".  I started off with a Knorr Rich Beef Stockpot - just invaluable for dishes like this - then included some horseradish sauce, wholegrain mustard, Bovril, Essential Cuisine's veal stock, tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and to thicken the gravy just before serving, some of Bisto's "Rich and Roasted" Best beef gravy granules.  Oh - and a good pinch or more of freshly ground black pepper.  Now, because of ingredients like the stockpot, the horseradish, mustard, Bovril, Worcestershire sauce and gravy granules, the requirement to be super-careful about using salt is paramount.  In fact, I resisted adding any additional salt - and just left it to all those ingredients to do my salt seasoning for me, which turned out very successfully.

 
As for herbs - can't leave out the herbs! - I used a couple of tablespoonfuls of finely chopped fresh parsley with the stalks included and a couple of bay leaves.

Yes, I threw pretty much everything except the kitchen sink at the stew - and it was fabulous.  The slow cooker went on at 9.30am and we came back late in the afternoon to a house filled with the gorgeous smells of stew cooking and with next to no preparation required other than to mix up the dumplings and warm a few bowls.

So, hopefully, you will see that using a slow cooker - or crockpot - is one of life's Very Good Things, however you can't expect it to do your flavour creation for you.  You get out of it what you put into it.

Now, where the dumplings are concerned, I decided to make them herby as the stew only had two herbs in it.  A chicken stew tends to have more in the way of herbs, so I like a plainer flavoured dumpling in that instance.  With a beef stew, the world is your oyster where flavouring your dumplings is concerned.  Pretty much anything goes - horseradish, cheddar, herbs, chillies - get creative!  I went for oregano, thyme and parsley and they were gorgeous.  The recipe is simple - just 100g of self raising flour, 50g of suet (veggie suet is fine), a pinch of salt and whatever flavours you're using.  Add 4-5 tbsp of water in stages and mix together to form a soft, but not sticky, dough.  Divide into six evenly sized spoonfuls and either roll into balls or simply drop into the gravy with an hour to go, for more freeform shapes.

I haven't written out a stew recipe here, because other than beef, the remainder of the ingredients are entirely up to you.  Just remember the "big pieces/small pieces" rule, the pan frying advice and remember that if you use any tender vegetables like cabbage, peas or cauliflower, to add them half way through the cooking period or they'll just disappear to mush.

Try not to drown your stew in gravy to begin with, as the veggies will give off a lot of liquid.  You can always add more water or stock as you go through the cooking period, which is a lot more satisfactory than winding up with a gallon of gravy!

Now if you've not got a slow cooker, by all means assemble the stew in a large casserole dish and cook it in the bottom of a low oven - but make sure you leave it there for a long old time.  My slow cooker version was cooking for around 9 hours - just to give you an idea of how long we're talking about.  I should think a minimum of 6 hours at 120/140degC would do the trick.  Oh - and don't forget the dumplings.  This stew needs dumplings.

Be aware, you've not got very long until the full loveliness of Spring is upon us - and barring more eccentric weather (please, no!), your window of stew opportunity is shrinking.  So don't delay - your slow cooker (not to mention your belly) needs this beef stew!