On my last trip to France before the pandemic, I had a truly spectacular lamb stew. The spicing
was reminiscent of a Moroccan tagine with notes of cinnamon, cardamom, and cumin. So
today, we are recreating that melt in your mouth dish and learning all about stewing
and working with one of my favorite cuts of meat -- the lamb shoulder.
If you want to get away with 1 cutting board, chop all your veggies first and then do your
meat. I like to use lots of shallots for this dish, but you can certainly switch that up
for a yellow onion. A student asked me recently, what size should a medium onion or a medium
garlic clove be. To tell you the truth, I have no idea. Precision in measuring your
onions and garlic is not at all important if you are planning to cook them. They become
so mild that it’s difficult to have too much of them. Asking how big an onion should
be is a bit like asking how far your nose should be from a rose bouquet for optimal
aroma. Just try things and adjust to your liking next time.
But in case you want a number, I ended up with 220g of shallots and 10 grams of garlic.
The reason it looks like a lot of garlic is because I am chopping it up for 3 different
dishes. I’ll only use a third of it in the lamb stew.
Now let’s talk about the meat. The best cut for a lamb for stew is the shoulder. I
feel like it’s the most under-used cut of lamb in America. Have you noticed how every
store has a leg of lamb? I don’t know why. I hate that cut. It has a few good parts,
but most of it is too tough for medium rare, but too lean for a stew. The lamb shank, which
is the bottom of the leg, is indeed lovely. Lamb shanks would work great in this dish
if you can’t get a shoulder. You can brown and cook the shanks whole.
The two things the shanks have going for them is that they are widely available and make
an impressive presentation with their huge bone. But they are way more expensive than
the shoulder once you take into account that at least half of the weight in the shank is
the bone and its texture is good, but not shoulder good. When the shoulder is done,
it tastes like silk. The fibers are so fine, they just melt in your mouth.
The good news is that many stores actually carry the lamb shoulder, they just don’t
put it out into their meat case. I asked my local Whole Foods and the guy went in the
back and brought me this beauty, nicely debones and all. Why do they hide it? I don’t know.
I am guessing it sells a lot better as ground lamb, so maybe they keep it for that.
Stews and braises shrink a lot, so plan on buying about 10 oz per person. This 3 and
a half pound shoulder will feed about 6.
I prefer to trim the fat cap a little bit. A boning knife comes in handy for this. A
thin layer of fat is wonderful, but I prefer it to be no thicker than a couple of millimeters
because big slimy chunks of fat in the finished dish are unappealing.
Let’s cut up this unruly piece of meat into some logical parts. I like to switch to the
chef’s knife for this. This is also a good time to dry the meat. If your meat sticks
to the pan and doesn’t brown well, it’s because it’s damp. You can certainly do
this after you cut it up into cubes, but I find it a lot faster and easier to do this
when the meat is still in big chunks. Make your cubes twice as big as you want them to
end up. Because this... will turn into this.
If you notice big chunks of fat that were hard to access before cutting up the meat,
switch back to the boning knife and trim them.
Let’s set a large, heavy, oven safe pot over high heat. I am using a dutch oven, but
it’s not absolutely necessary. A nice stainless steel pot would work too.
Preheat your pot over medium-high heat. When it’s hot, add about a tablespoon of neutral
oil, like canola, and place a single layer of meat into the pan. In case your meat has
a leaner and a fattier side, place it fattier side down. We’ll have to cook our meat in
2 batches because I have too much of it to fit in a single layer. Let it brown without
disturbing until it releases easily from the pan. If it’s not releasing, it’s not brown
enough.
You might be wondering why I didn’t salt my meat. You could definitely salt it before
browning, but you have to be careful to place it in the pan as soon as the salt goes on.
If you wait, the salt will draw the moisture to the surface and the meat will become damp,
reducing browning and encouraging sticking. Since I am cooking my meat in two batches,
it’s easier to brown everything and then salt everything. The long and slow cook that
we have ahead of us, will give salt plenty of opportunity to penetrate.
Don’t get overzealous with browning. Turn down the heat as necessary. You don’t want
the heat so low that the meat starts to sweat, but you don’t want it so high that the brown
bits on the bottom of the pot start to burn. If that happens, you’ll have to wash out
the pot before proceeding, which would be a shame since the brown bits pack so much
flavor. I find that the first side usually needs a pretty high heat, but once the pan
establishes some brown bits, I can lower to medium.
Our first batch looks good. Let’s get it out and put the rest of the meat in. I don’t
brown more than 2 batches of meat in one pan. Even if you use a moderate heat, by the third
batch the brown bits start to burn. So if I want to double this recipe, I’ll set a
skillet next to my dutch oven and will brown the other 2 batches in the skillet, then combine
all the 4 batches in the dutch oven, deglaze the skillet with whatever liquid I am using
for my stew so that I don’t waste those brown bits, and pour them all into the dutch
oven.
When your second batch is almost done, turn down the heat to low. This way your pan will
have a chance to cool off a bit before you cook the shallots. Get the second batch out.
This is the happiest sight in all of cooking for me. The beautiful brown bits, stuck to
the bottom of the pot. Put your shallots in. A generous pinch of
salt. Stir them around, cover and let them sweat on low heat for 5 minutes. This is a
good time to preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
While the shallots are cooking, season your meat with salt and pepper. I goofed and forgot
to hit the record button for this step, so by the time I remembered, the meat was mostly
seasoned. You’ll need more than the tiny pinch that got recorded, but not as much as
you would use for a medium-rare cut. During the long slow cooking, the meat will shrink
in half, so use about half of the salt you’d use on this amount of steak. Keep in mind
that adding more salt is very easy in the end of cooking since it will easily dissolve
in the sauce, but taking the salt out is kind of impossible.
When the shallots are translucent and tender, give them a stir, add the garlic and let it
cook for a minute. Then add whatever spices you want to use. I like to add cardamom,
coriander, cumin,
turmeric, smoked paprika,
and a grating of nutmeg. I’ll also add a cinnamon stick later, but you can replace
it with a teaspoon of cinnamon. Stir all the spices together for a minute on low heat to
wake them up. Add a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste. Mine is frozen -- that’s
why it looks so weird. Alternatively, you can add a cup of chopped canned tomatoes and
boil them down until pasty. Add a couple of cups of dry white wine. I am using Charles
Shaw’s Sauvignon blanc from Trader Joe’s. Turn up the heat and bring to a simmer. At
some point give it a good stir to dissolve the tomato paste. Add a tablespoon of pomegranate
molasses. It wouldn’t be a Helen recipe without it. If you don’t have it, replace
it with half balsamic vinegar and half honey or maple syrup.
Add a bay leaf and a couple of cinnamon sticks. I forgot the cinnamon sticks till later, but
movies are magic so we can pretend like I added them now. Add the lamb with all its
juices. Now we need enough stock to just cover the lamb. If your stock is not the homemade
gelatinous type, it’s a good idea to spike it up with some unflavored gelatin. Sprinkle
7 grams of gelatin over 1 cup of stock and let it sit without disturbing for 5 minutes
before adding it to your pot with lamb.
Push the meat into the sauce so that it sticks out as little as possible and if necessary
add more stock. Don’t worry about the gelatin in the final splash of stock. 7 grams that
you’ve added will be plenty to give you a nice sauce. Having the meat stick out a
tiny bit will help it get nice and toasty.
If you have some thyme on hand scatter it on top. Cut a circle of parchment paper to
fit your pot and press it into the sauce. Tuck it in with a spoon so that it makes a
bubble over the meat. This will allow the sauce to reduce nicely, but will protect the
meat from drying out. You can certainly cover the pot with a normal lid if you don’t have
parchment paper. The main difference is that the parchment results in a more gentle simmer
since it doesn’t allow the steam to build up, but it’s a very forgiving dish and will
taste great either way.
Place the pot in the oven for 2 and a half hours.
Let’s see how our lamb is doing. It’s done when the meat pulls apart with no resistance.
Don’t undercook, or the meat will be tough. Remove and discard the thyme and the cinnamon
sticks, and let the stew cool for a couple of hours. As all stews and braises, it will
taste a lot better the next day. Letting the meat cool in the cooking liquid will allow
the meat to reabsorb some of the moisture it expelled during cooking and will give you
a much better texture. After a few hours, remove the meat from the sauce with a slotted
spoon and pour the sauce into a container. This will make it a lot easier to de-grease
the next day after the fat solidifies.
You can keep the stew in the fridge for up to 5 days or freeze it for a few months. To
warm up, combine the meat and the de-greased sauce in a pot, cover, and simmer gently until
it warms up, 10-15 minutes. You might want to give it a stir once in a while. Taste and
correct for salt. I like to finish it with a teaspoon of cream and a teaspoon of butter
for each portion that I am warming up, but that’s up to you.
Today I am serving it on top of saffron rice with raisins, but it goes great with every
starch imaginable. A little cilantro or mint is nice on top.
Forget the fork, this meat is spoon tender. I love braised beef and pork, but the lamb
has a really incomparable texture. This is that part of the video where I am supposed
to come up with the best superlative to use, but all I can say is yum.
Here are more very detailed culinary tutorials for you to check out and a link to my online
classes is in the description below.