SG Archives: Lamb Daube

Call Me Sentimental



It's lambing season. At least it is in Missouri where, last Sunday, Clare, one of Susan's ewes, gave birth. Call me sentimental, but when I see a cute little lamb like that it immediately brings to mind images of fields turning green, new buds on trees, daffodils, birds calling for mates, and dinner. Somehow piglets don't affect me the same way — I go straight to thoughts of dinner.

For some reason, a lot of Americans don't like lamb — or at least they think they don't. I suspect they've just never had well-prepared lamb. We don't have a tradition of eating it here and so many people have no idea how to fix it. And, too, lamb has a slightly gamey taste and, for palates used to the insipid blandness of most American beef and pork, lamb is like granola when you're used to shredded wheat.

For palates used to the insipid blandness of most American beef and pork, lamb is like granola when you're used to shredded wheat.

This isn't the case in the Mediterranean countries where lamb and even mutton have a long and honored tradition. Spain, Greece, Morocco, and Turkey are all big on lamb, as is France. For instance, the LaRousse Gastronomique lists more than 130 ways of cooking lamb from the mundane lamb chop (Cotelettes d'Agneau) to lamb's head (Tête d'Agneau a l'Écossaise) — and that's not counting mutton.

I know this because I was looking for a traditional French lamb recipe. In addition to checking LaRousse I did the usual Google scan and looked though Julia Child, Patricia Wells, and the handy-dandy, full-color, for-a-limited-time-only Time/Life Book of Lamb that I got for 95 cents at a used book store. I finally settled on making a daube. You can't get much more traditional than stew because stews have been part of most cuisines since pottery was invented. In addition, it's been cold and snowy here — good stew weather.

Daubes are a distinctly French take on stew. In a daube the meat is marinated with vegetables and herbs in wine for some period of time (I have a beef recipe that calls for marinating for 48 hours). I wanted to do a daube with a Provençal accent and found a number of ideas on the Web and in my books. Lemon is the most common citrus used in Mediterranean cooking, but I found one recipe calling for orange peel that sounded interesting and Child suggested capers and anchovies. I decided to skip the capers and but go with anchovy paste.

To accompany the daube I made mashed rutabagas and fixed an apple crisp for dessert. And wine. I needed wine for the marinade and, just to be contrary, I decided on a New Zealand Pinot Noir. Specifically, I bought a bottle of Dyed-in-the-Wool — it just seemed appropriate.

Daube d'Agneau a la Provençal
Serves 6.

2 lb lamb — cut into 3"4" cubes
1 lg onion — peeled and diced
3 carrots — peeled and diced
2 cloves garlic — smashed
1 orange — zested
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp dried Herbes de Province
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 btl red wine
6 slice bacon
1 can diced tomatoes, 15 oz
1/2 c flour, for dredging
1 c beef stock
1 tbsp anchovy paste

Mix together lamb, onions, carrots, garlic, orange zest, bay, herbs, olive oil, salt, pepper, and wine in a large Dutch oven. Allow to marinate for 3 hours, mixing occasionally.

Heat oven to 325F.

Drain and reserve marinade. Separate meat from vegetables (reserving vegetables) and pat dry. Dredge lamb in flour, shaking off excess.

Lay three strips of bacon on the bottom of a Dutch oven. Sprinkle with half the veggies, add half the tomatoes including juice, add half the lamb. Repeat. Pour in marinade and add enough beef stock to almost, but not quite, cover the mixture. Bring to a simmer on top of the stove and then cover and place in lower third of oven.

Cook for 1 1/2 hours. Remove cover and stir in anchovy paste. Return to oven and cook, uncovered, another 1/2 hour.

The daube was outstanding — seriously good. As expected the anchovy disappeared as an identifiable flavor but brought depth and savor to the dish. (Anchovies can be sly little fishies.) The orange zest was best described as seriously fun. It didn't particularly stand out, but it did quietly and firmly make its presence known and it made me smile every time I noticed it.

The rutabaga, simply seasoned with salt, butter, and a couple of tablespoons of maple syrup, was an excellent accompaniment — a combination of bitter and sweet to supplement the savory stew. The wine? Oh well. It worked fine in the daube but as for drinking it was a bit closer to dye than I would have wished. Drinkable, but only just.

Originally published in February 2006.

Try this daube with...
Mashed Rutabaga with Maple Syrup and Bourbon
Spiced Apples
Potatoes Parmigiano

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Beef Stew

Hearty Fare

Beef stew is an American classic. A cheap cut of meat (chuck roast is best) is cut into chunks, dredged in flour then browned. Some liquid is added, a few vegetables are tossed in and voila (or "viola," as my buddies and I used to say) supper in a pot. This version is pretty standard (albeit with a few key tricks) and although it requires time, it's way easy. As with so many of the dishes featured on Cooking for Two, it freezes well thus saving you the effort of cooking at some future date and, again like many dishes here, it's better on the second day.

Recipe here...

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | cooking for two | main dish | beef | stew

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Lamb & Barley Stew

Bah, Bah, Black Sheep



A few weeks ago I bought some lamb stew meat from my local meat producer, Tracy Monday. I bought three pounds to make lamb daube for a dinner party I was catering. Tracy now has a retail outlet in a shop he shares with several other local producers. Although the shop is 30 minutes from my house it's a lot more convenient than having to show up at 3:00 PM Friday afternoon in a parking lot to buy meat from him.

Tracy's meat isn't cheap — the stew meat was $7/pound, but it's mighty good and I buy from him whenever I can. I'd called Tracy the night before to make sure he had the meat ask him to save it for me. I bought a duck for an article I was writing at the same time and when I drove out to get my meat Tracy was there and threw in an extra pound of lamb. Although a pound of lamb stew meat doesn't begin to cover the additional cost of buying meat from Tracy or the other local meat supplier, the recognition means a lot.

I have a personal relationship, a genuine connection, with Tracy and other local producers.

No supermarket would ever give me something. I have to pay for the pork fat I sometimes get at the grocer for making sausage and confit — even though the fat would be pure waste if I didn't want it. But I have a personal relationship, a genuine connection, with Tracy and other local producers.

I brought my bonus lamb home and froze it until I figured out what to do with it. Lamb and barley stew seemed like a good idea — lamb is particularly good with barley. I wish I'd had some lamb bones to make stock from, but I didn't, so I used homemade chicken stock. I should give Tracy a call and ask him for some lamb bones to make stock with. He probably wouldn't even charge me for them.

Lamb & Barley Stew
Serves 4.

1 lb lamb stew meat — cut into 1" pieces
2 tbsp olive oil
1 sm onion — peeled and diced
1 cup red wine
2 cups chicken stock
2 sm turnips — cut into eighths
2 carrots — cut into 1" lengths
1/4 cup pearl barley
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 tsp juniper berries — smashed flat and then chopped finely
1 tsp red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper

Pat lamb dry and season liberally with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a soup pot over medium-high heat, and brown lamb. Reserve meat, reduce heat to medium and brown the onions.

Increase heat to high, add wine and reduce by half, deglazing pot. Return meat to pot along with all other ingredients. Bring to a boil them immediately reduce heat to low and cover pot, leaving a 1/2" gap.

Simmer for 1 1/2 hours, taste and adjust seasoning.

Try this stew with...
Spiced Apples
Braised Red Cabbage
Bread Pudding

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | seriously good | main dish | lamb | stew

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Paisano: Guazzetto

Gesundheit!



Paisano and I were cruising through the meat department trying to decide what to fix for dinner when Paisano cried "GwaCHETto," to which I responded with a polite, "Gesundheit."

"No, no, no. Oxtails! GwaCHETto!"

"Ok, so what's that?"

Turns out it's a pasta sauce, or soup, or maybe stew made with oxtails, or fish, or maybe beef or pork ribs. I even found a recipe for frog legs. As I later learned, guazzetto as it's actually spelled means "splashed" and specifically splashed with wine and tomatoes.

Paisano cried "GwaCHETto," to which I responded with a polite, "Gesundheit."

So we bought the oxtails and returned to his friends' house and made guazzetto, pasta, and baby artichokes. Oddly — well, maybe not so oddly, he is the Paisano after all — he served the guazzetto over browned cubes of stale bread. Pretty damned tasty.

Guazzetto
Serves 6.

1 1/2 lb oxtails
1/2 oz dried porcini
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion — finely chopped
1 carrot — finely chopped
3/4 c red wine
15 oz can diced tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 tsp anchovy paste
2 bay leaves
1 whole clove
3 - 4 sprigs fresh rosemary
4 - 6 sprigs fresh thyme
2 c homemade beef or chicken stock or 2 c canned chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oven to 275F.

Bring 1 cup of water to a boil, remove from heat, and add dried porcini. Allow to rehydrate for 15 minutes. Remove mushrooms and reserve. Strain the water the mushrooms soaked in though cheese cloth or a coffee filter and reserve.

Generously season oxtails with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a dutch oven over medium high heat and brown oxtails on all sides. Set oxtails aside.

Wrap clove, rosemary, thyme, and bay leaves in a small cheescloth sack ad tie with string.

Reduce heat to medium low and sweat onions and carrots for 10 minutes with a generous pinch of salt. Increase heat to medium high, add wine, and deglaze pot. Add all remaining ingredients including oxtails, mushrooms, and mushroom liquid. Add enough stock to just cover the oxtails.

Bring almost to a boil and transfer to a lower rack in the oven. Cook for three hours, topping up liquid with water or additional stock as necessary. Remove from oven. Remove oxtails and shred meat, reserving. Place pot on stove top and reduce to about 2 cups over medium-high heat. Add shredded meat and serve over polenta.

Paisano is a ficticious character.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | seriously good | guazzetto | oxtails | italian | stew | braise | paisano

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Paisano: Boeuf en Daube

Paisano: Beef en Daube



My "Paisano" column on Gather.com is focused on peasant dishes from around the world, but you may wonder what constitutes a peasant dish. First and foremost, the ingredients are local and cheap. The food is grown on the farm, or the farm next door, and it's often food that either can't be sold, or isn't worth selling. Offal — heart, liver, pig ears — is a common ingredient as are the tough cuts of meat like shoulders, shanks, and ribs. The vegetables are also, often, of relatively poor quality: bruised onions, partially rotten potatoes, and bug-infested fruit are all made-do with. The style of cooking is designed to take these grade-B (or -C) ingredients and transform them into something not merely edible, but actually delicious.

One technique for improving the taste of borderline ingredients is marinating. A marinade can do a great job of hiding and even transforming the flavor of a cut of meat that's going off. Keep in mind, too, that in Europe prior to the 19th century (and even into the 20th century in some rural areas) meat was often intentionally allowed to age far beyond what we would consider edible, so by "off" I mean seriously off.

French daubes are a perfect example of a peasant dish that deserves a place of honor.

Another common technique was cooking low and slow. Stews and braises made tough cuts more tender and, properly seasoned, would hide and even transform the flavor of impending rot. Particularly if gently simmer for two to four hours. Note: When making a stew or braise the cooking liquid should be brought just to the boiling point and then reduced to a simmer. Boiling the meat will make it even tougher, the opposite of what you want.

These days we avoid ingredients that are beginning to rot and we often don't have access to local ingredients. But we still have tough cuts of meat that need transformation into something tender and delicious. So both marinades and braises still have a place in every cook's repertoire — and during the fall and winter such dishes are particularly welcome.

French daubes are a perfect example of a peasant dish that deserves a place of honor. These are stews or braises where the meat is typically marinated in wine with aromatics for 12 to 48 hours before being gently cooked in the marinade.

Boeuf en Daube (Beef Daube)
Serves 8.

3 lb beef chuck roast — cut into 1" cubes
Marinade:
2 carrots — finely chopped
1 lg onion — chopped
1 stalk celery — finely chopped
12 peppercorns
3 sprigs fresh thyme — bruised in your hands
2 sprigs fresh rosemary — bruised in your hands
3 cups robust red wine (I like an Australian Shiraz)
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
three strips orange rind
Daube:
1 tbsp olive oil
3 oz salt pork
1 c beef stock
1 medium onion — diced
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

Place meat and all marinade ingredients in a large zipper storage bag, and place int the refrigerator to marinate for 8 to 48 hours. Turn bag over and mix up a bit every four to six hours.

Pour marinade through a strainer into bowl and set aside. Discard everything except the meat. Pat the meat dry and season with salt and pepper.

Heat oven to 325F.

Cut salt pork into batons about 1/4" square in cross section and 3/4" - 1" long. Place a large dutch over medium heat and add the pork, cook until fat is rendered and pork is crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon and reserve. Increase heat to medium high. Brown beef in three or four batches (to avoid over-crowding) and set aside.

Reduce heat to medium low and cook onions stirring occasionally, until they begin to brown. Return beef and salt pork to pot and add reserved marinade, beef stock, bay leaf, and saly and pepper to taste. Increase heat to high, bring just to a boil, then immediately cover and place pot in the oven and cook for 2 - 2 1/2 hours. Note: the liquid should not quite cover the meat.

This is one of those dishes that is significantly better the day after cooking. I usually serve over mashed potatoes or soft polenta so I don't lose a drop of the sauce.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | seriously good | beef daube | beef stew | french

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