Don’t roast it. Braise it! That’s Lenny’s new mantra after discovering the pleasurable results of cooking less-than-choice cuts very slowly in a tasty stock or sauce.
It’s not really stewing – you carve the cooked joint or piece of meat as you would a roast, rather than chopping it up beforehand.
This episode is also a lesson in the hidden perils of pyrex-style cookware. Well, if we’d just googled it beforehand, we would have known the risks of exposing it to a naked flame.
Lamb is available fairly cheaply where we live, so Lenny went on the hunt for value and got a boned-out shoulder for about six quid. She sent me hunting for “kitchen string” so she could roll it up, and I managed to scrounge a couple of metres from a butcher. I must say, she does a fine job of binding a very ordinary looking piece of meat into something that looks like “a bought one”.
Really basic ingredients for this one. Lamb, carrots, onions, celery and simple spices. But that’s the beauty of it.
We reckon the key to braising, as with making a slow-cooked curry, stew, casserole, whatever, is to use meat that is not a select, expensive cut. If you start off with a piece of flesh that is already super-tender, surely it will just fall apart in the cooking process. You want it to end up “fork tender” – that is, you can tear it apart easily with a fork, but otherwise it stays intact.
We must warn anyone attempting this recipe to watch the whole episode first. The aftermath for our kitchenware was rather unfortunate, but it could have been a lot worse and potentially dangerous if things had gone wrong during the cooking process.
The recipe for this episode came from The Joy of Cooking, sent to us by publisher Simon and Schuster. The 75th annniversary edition of Joy comes out later this year and we plan to have some fun and prizes on offer at Crash Test Kitchen to celebrate the occasion, so keep watching us for details.
- Waz
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Love your podcasts!
Have you thought about sponsors, you to like replace the dishes and get you better ones? :~)
That lamb looked absolutely delicious. You couldn’t have asked for better results.
I really enjoy your shows and would just like to say that i am a 15 year old who loves your podcasts – so it’s us teenagers too!
xxx
laura
oh my, i was quite concerned when i saw you put that pyrex dish on the stove. i’m glad you are alll oK.
love the shows! can you make some malyasian food next??
Looked fantastic, I almost went straight and bought the ingredients. Never mind about the dish!
onions celery and carrots are called a mirapua
Mirepoix
I find myself shocked at the loss of your pyrex dish, I own one too, I used it mainly for stews, and, well, I don’t think I ever used it in an oven.. O_O I’m shocked to discover that it shatters on direct heat, and am paranoid now.
Loved it. I am a 11 year old cooking expert and have never tried to make lamb. I might try this one!!
Anyway, that’s too bad about the Pyrex dish. We have a ton of them around our house and I actually made the same mistake a while back.
Cheers and Happy Cooking.
I got a good cast iron Dutch oven several years ago and it’s done me right. So if you can find one get it! It’s a good investment and perfect for dishes like this. Actually they aren’t all that expensive either.
Treat yourselves to a Dutch oven/casserole like a Le Creuset asap – they last for years and you can use them for just about anything, both on top of the stove and in the oven. Mine is easily the most-used piece of cookware in my kitchen!
The only point to make about them is that they retain heat so well I find I need to set a lower oven temp than the recipe says…
It always surprises me how popular lamb is in Australia, but how many americans dont eat it. Probably to do with our wool industry.
Hey Waz and Leny!
YUM.
This look’s so good!
You guys are great. But I do feel sorry for the pirex dish. Hahaha.
Keep it up guys! Hope you post more videos.