A Warming Winter Stew For A Very Cold Day.

It is a proper winter's day here on The Farm.  Cold and raining.  Given that I am married to a farmer, I know there is nothing better than a good rain in June.  To celebrate and increase the cosiness quotient, I have decided to put up my favourite winter stew recipe.  I call it my winter stew because it uses lots of winter vegetables.  It is wholesome, hearty and super yummy.

Winter Stew

I use the same basic recipe for whichever type of meat I choose to use. I have tried lamb, beef and pork, all with excellent results.  I change the seasonings slightly but more about that later...  The recipe below is the lamb version.

Winter Stew

Ingredients:

• a Soup Pack (or a swede, turnip, onion, celery and some carrots if you can't find one)
• 1/4 of a cup of flour
• salt and pepper
• olive oil for browning
• 1kg of stewing lamb/hoggett (eg shoulder) cut into 2-3 cm cubes
• a small tub of tomato paste
• a litre of beef stock
• 2 tablespoons of Worcestshire sauce
• 2 pieces of lemon rind
• 1 tablespoon of brown sugar
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 sprigs of rosemary
• 1 teaspoon of cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground corinader
• 1 smallish cinnamon stick

This stew is the sort of thing that should be slow cooked and is perfect to make on a wintery weekend afternoon.  By dinner time your kitchen will smell fantastic.

OK - first of all pop the meat in a plastic bag with the flour and a shake of salt and pepper.  Coat the meat.  Heat a couple of tablepoons of olive( or canola) oil in a heavy bottomed pot and brown the meat in batches.  Whilst that is being done, chop the contents of the soup pack. Now this is not the time to use your best Masterchef chopping technique.  I say rustic and uneven is the way to go (and not just because I have no cheffy type technique).

See.

We Love Rustic

After all the meat has been browned, pop the vegies into the same pan (you may need to add more oil) and stir until they have softened a little.  Then shake in any flour left in the bag from the meat, add the stock, tomato paste, sugar, lemon rind and herbs and spices.

A little bit more on the herbs/spices.

Flavourings

For lamb stew I use what is in the ingredient list.  For beef or pork I do the same except omit the cinnamon, coriander and cumin.  I am sure it would be fine to still use them but I tend to use the Moroccan type flavourings more with lamb for some reason....

Anyway - once everything is in the pot I bring it to the boil and then turn it right down, pop the lid on and simmer it for 2-3 hours. I give it the occasional stir.  Then I serve it with rice, couscous or potatoes. (If I have made the lamb version I put some yoghurt on top too.)  I can't say how yummy it is.