Lamb stew type recipes?

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Janne

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Some couples we know are mixed Omnivores/ Vegetarians, and a couple of them ( V.) are fully fine if the pieces of meat are removed from the dish.
Easier on the life I guess.
 

Woody girl

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If you don't like gravy granuals use a few spoonfuls of instant mash. Works a treat and added nutrition. .. well extra potato anyway! Or Use a mix of very floury potatoes that cook down to a mush and add in some harder potatoes for the chunky potato bits. Potatoes thicken a stew nicely.
My granuals are vegetable gluten free from the health food shop. Very expensive so only get used when cooking for friends. Or if I don't have the right tatties or instant mash
 

Paul_B

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 14, 2008
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I totally feel for you Paul. i was married to a veggie for 10 years, and because i did most of the cooking, it was easier to cook 1 dish for 2 rather than 2 dishes. When ever i went out i would meat binge (in fact, since we went our seperate ways, i think i still do, lol) As was suggested above, i used to make large batches of things like bolognaise and stews and freeze them. You're lucky to have Boothes as your local market, i love going there, top quality food (but not at waitrose and m&s prices).
Everyone used to say I must be loaded shopping there but I lived near a booths and a major supermarket. Prices weren't much different, indeed I learnt which was cheaper and it was 50:50 with non meat, deli, cheese counter stuff half the time. They couldn't match the big market xmas malt whisky discount. But boy, how good is the alcohol and NO/LO drinks section there! Plenty of good stuff if you're into it.
 
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Paul_B

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The best bit of a juicy stew is the mashing of potatoes into it then using the mash to scoop up the juice with a fork. It's not something I do in polite company, but with family I've no aires.
 

Janne

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The best bit of a juicy stew is the mashing of potatoes into it then using the mash to scoop up the juice with a fork. It's not something I do in polite company, but with family I've no aires.

Why not? That is better than lifting the plate, in Chinese fashion, and slurping the juices?

I use a spoon for this. Crazy to waste the delicious gravy/juices/sauce!
 

Paul_B

Bushcrafter through and through
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If I run out of potato before the juice i too get a spoon. I just enjoy not using a spoon if I can.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
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There's a variety of flours, rice, wheat, pea and corn to name four common ones, which are used in different dishes.
The main considerations to my amateur ways of thinking are:

1. the variety of proteins in each. People's sensitivities do vary. Rice is the weakest so that's the first as rice pablum to babies.
I ask guests long before a dinner party if they have any food allergies that I need to know about.

2. The starch grains don't cook the same. I'l use corn flour in a DF fish batter because the starch does not hydrate as fast as from wheat.
Thus, the cooked coating stays crispy far longer. All the packaged mixes are the same as this.

3. Taste. I like pakora. I don't mind the mess at all to make a batch. For taste, I can't imagine using anything but pea flour.

= = =
Gravy. I want the starch grains to get wet fast and cook to partly break down, almost gel-like.
I'll use a strong wheat in all-purpose flour (not weak cake flour). Slake that in cold water, add to the hot pan of drippings
and stir like hello with a fork (so it does not splatter).
I prefer to make a roux as Jane suggested. Add the wheat flour to a grease base (melted butter or veg oil can be sutstitued) to make a paste and cook until brown. Then add the liquid/broth/au jous lastly. That’s a more authentic “gravy.” Starting with the liquid and adding a thickener is more properly a “sauce” that a gravy.
 
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Janne

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If I manage to get lumps in the sauce, I just shrug, to be frank.
Tastes the same.

With a Roux, adding a little liquid often, under constant stirring, is the trick. Which I tend to not worry about to much.
 

Robson Valley

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I have a 600W Braun stick blender. It makes very short work of anything lumpy, even bison rib gristle.
I have a Hamilton Beach 500W stand blender which makes plum sauce in minutes.

I'm not a stew fan, not a fan of one-pot-glop, as I've got other ways to cook.

Cook the roux, lots of it, with the curry powder of choice.
Off the heat, add the milk with whipping and a snort of Worchestershire sauce.
Fold in all the cooked fish.
 

Robson Valley

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Santaman:
I consider raw fish to be bait.
However, I have more of an appetite for cooked fish that maybe 95% of the population.
Curried fish is a treat these days. It's a PITA to live so far inland. I can't convince anyone else to eat it
so I have to wait for occassions when I can make supper for myself.

We get Alaskan Pollock which is stained and flavored like crab.
Comes in 227g (7 oz?) packages, just sandwich size for me. Cold, I can eat handfuls of it.
In curry, just long enough to get heated. Same when I use cooked salmon and tuna.
Yes, 5 PM, I do share with Heidi-cat. A frail, little SPCA rescue, she deserves the best of the best.

I can't get that waxy lamb fat taste off my tongue so it's got to be served hot and rendered.
A stew conserves it all. Is there a drink that washes it off? Maybe rum (he hopes?)

BBQ lamb, long, low and slow, is entirely a different matter. Now we are cooking. Entirely.
I have a cookbook from a smoker BBQ joint but you have to read between the lines in the recipes.
In print, they didn't give away the farm. First ingredient is a coarse dice apple tree for smoke.
 

Paul_B

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 14, 2008
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You hear talk of the aussie barbie but imho the land of the BBQ is USA. A country where BBQs come with their own wheels and a crowbar has to have that crown. Is there a single household that's got a backyard that's not struggling to get by without a bbq with smoke box?

A work colleague spent time with a customer and partner company in Texas. Any old excuse to bring their BBQs out (plus cans and guns but the latter is another story). He showed me the pictures. I could have carried my biggest, bulkiest camping kit in one BBQ! They didn't really BBQ cook it was so professional looking it could have been restaurant cooked.

Over here a BBQ rarely has a smoker. It's a few sausages, burgers and chicken wings. Often the chicken is raw in the middle and burnt on the outside. Certainly the sausages get a cremated outer. It's not just us like that, I've been to enough friend's BBQs to know it's a common enough style.

Sorry, I'm for kitchen cooking and one pot is much more convenient. Or oven cooking.
 
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santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
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You hear talk of the aussie barbie but imho the land of the BBQ is USA. A country where BBQs come with their own wheels and a crowbar has to have that crown. Is there a single household that's got a backyard that's not struggling to get by without a bbq with smoke box?

A work colleague spent time with a customer and partner company in Texas. Any old excuse to bring their BBQs out (plus cans and guns but the latter is another story). He showed me the pictures. I could have carried my biggest, bulkiest camping kit in one BBQ! They didn't really BBQ cook it was so professional looking it could have been restaurant cooked.

Over here a BBQ rarely has a smoker. It's a few sausages, burgers and chicken wings. Often the chicken is raw in the middle and burnt on the outside. Certainly the sausages get a cremated outer. It's not just us like that, I've been to enough friend's BBQs to know it's a common enough style.

Sorry, I'm for kitchen cooking and one pot is much more convenient. Or oven cooking.

Which of the American styles did you most like? The Texan? The Chicagoan? Or one of the Appalachian styles?

Technically if you don’t smoke it, it isn’t really BBQ (barbecue is derived from a Caribbean word that actually means slow smoked) what most of us back yard cooks do (even here in America) is more properly named “grilling” although we also usually refer to it as BBQ. And yeah, kitchen cooking is still much easier. I like both.

Santaman:
I consider raw fish to be bait.........
Who mentions raw fish? I said “gumbo.” That’s a Cajun seafood stew. (Also often uses sausage and/or chicken as the meat. Always done with three mandatory ingredients:
1) a roux
2) okra (hence the very name “gumbo” which is Swahili for okra)
3) the trinity (chopped onions, bell pepper, and celery —— this MUST be in EVERY Cajun food)
 
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Janne

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If your stew/casserole is a gloop, you made a mistake somewhere.
If I have different veg or even different meats in a stew/casserole, I put them in with a varying time, before I pop it in the oven. Sometimes I cook them on the side, and mix them in before heating up the last time.

I rate Jamaica as very high on the list of countries where they perfected the cooking over charcoal.
Fenno Scandinavia very, very low.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
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A casserole kinda defeats the ease of a true “one dish meal.” Usually the individual ingredients (particularly any pasta) needs to be cooked separately then added together for the final stage. That said, I do like a good tuna/noodle.
 

Janne

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Or staggered cooking. I do that with my porkolt ( what you guys call a Beef Goulash)

I stagger the Animalia in two or three stages. First is meat less bones, if I have such. Second is Beef Rib. Third stage cubes of pure meat, from top of animal.

I have just told you the secret my Granddad taught me back in the early 70's.
 

Robson Valley

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In the years that I lived in Melbourne, what I experienced is what I call grilling.= fairly fast cooking outdoors over charcoal heat.
Steaks, lamb chops, shrimp & prawns, burgers, those sorts of things. Never a hint of added wood smoke.

Back in Canuckistan, like the USA, BBQ to me means long and low and slow cooking over indirect heat.
The biochemical process breaks down the tough connective tissue. Ineffective to try to hurry this.
I prefer apple wood over hickory and mesquite for smoke flavors. Mystery fruit wood is OK, too.

I think what could have gone into a lamb stew got done in a smoker BBQ for 3 hours with some apple wood for smoke.
For their toughness, the shanks used to be the very last cuts I use up. Now they go first.
Charcoal is good at -20C like today. Propane begins to gel below that.
 
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Paul_B

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 14, 2008
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The Texan trailer BBQs probably meet with your style. Sure, the hot grill but a smoker on the side. Gives you the best of both styles of cooking.

Over here I noticed some amazing BBQs started appearing in local DIY stores. Very expensive ones with grill and smoker. There's also gas BBQs with gas rings on the side for pots I guess. The UK is catching up I think.
 
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