Tag Archive for: lamb

Lamb Ciste

Lamb Ciste

Lamb CisteTucking into some boiled mutton last week simply gave me more of a taste for lamb and made me determined to try this traditional Irish recipe for Easter.

A lamb ciste* (pronounced with a hard C) is the biggest festival of meat I’ve seen in a long time and I think we all know I am pure carnivore these days. You layer lamb chops and lamb kidneys with lamb mince and then top it all with a topping of suet pastry and put your hands over the eyes of any passing vegetarians just in case.

I have never heard of the dish before stumbling across it on a random online search for slow cooked dishes and I have no idea if it’s actually that traditional or Irish, but I can tell you that it’s utterly brilliant in every single way.

I used shoulder chops, made the mince rich with a gravy using stock from the boiled mutton and then baked it all in the oven to give that perfect chewy lightness that only suet can give pastry. I served it as Easter lunch and it was fantastic and very easy to make in advance.

Lamb Ciste (serves 6)

  • 8 lamb shoulder or saddle chops
  • 750g lamb mince
  • 3 lamb’s kidneys (optional)
  • 2 carrots, diced
  • 150g celeriac or 3 sticks celery, diced
  • 1 onion, diced (if not fodmapping)
  • 150g swede, diced (turnip for our Scottish and Norn Iron chums)
  • 3 tablespoons plain flour
  • 200ml lamb stock
  • 3 anchovies
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • salt and pepper
  • 450g plain flour
  • 250g suet (not the ‘veggie’ stuff)
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon mustard powder
  • salt and pepper
  • 250ml milk

I made the meat part of this the night before and the suet pastry just before serving as it works best freshly made. It made for a really easy and impressive Sunday lunch which required little effort beyond opening a bottle of something fizzy while it cooked.

Season the lamb chops well and seal in a hot frying pan for about 3 minutes each side. Rest in the dish you intend to serve the ciste in.

Seal the lamb mince in the same frying pan you used for the chops. You might need to do it in two batches to stop it from boiling in its own fat instead of sizzling.

Once it’s about halfway cooked, drain the fat off and then put all the lamb mince together in the same pan and scatter in the tablespoons of plain flour, the anchovies and Worcestershire sauce. Add the lamb stock and allow the mince to thicken into the gravy. Season well.

Tip it all into a bowl and pour the reserved fat back into the frying pan and soften the diced vegetables in it for about 15 minutes. Add the lamb to them all and mix well. Take off the heat

Core the white part out of the kidneys and cut each one into 4 pieces and stir through the lamb mince mix. Spread the mince mix over the top of the lamb chops and allow to cool. Refrigerate overnight if needed.

Allow the meat to come back to room temperature next day and allow the oven to heat to 180C. Put the flour in a large mixing bowl along with the salt and pepper, mustard and suet and baking powder. Add the milk half at a time and bring the dough together until it just comes together cleanly.

Roll it out on a lightly floured surface until it is about 3/4 inch thick and big enough to roughly cover the dish you are using. Drape over the dish and pull any overhanging bits off and patch them onto any gaps. Brush it all with a bit of milk.

Bake for 45 minutes and then turn the heat to 200C for ten minutes to give the top a golden sheen. Serve immediately. Your lamb chops should still be slightly pink if they are quite thick but the mince and kidneys will be smooth and rich.

I served mine with roast potatoes and parsnips but honestly I think some peas or kale would be more apt as it’s a very rich dish. We had generous lunch portions and I had three decent goes at leftovers too. I might have finally reached my lamb limit (for this week at least) but my mince love is back in action for sure!

This post was inspired by #livepeasant for Simply Beef and Lamb. *And I’m told by the fantastic Wholesome Ireland that ciste in Irish means ‘treasure chest’ which fits this dish beautifully!

 Irish Lamb Ciste

boiled mutton

Boiled Mutton

boiled muttonAlright, technically it’s lamb, but boiled lamb probably sounds even less appealing to you. But don’t be misled, there was a reason this dish was a Victorian classic.

You take a piece of lamb (or mutton) and essentially poach it slowly with herbs and vegetables and you end up with beautiful moist meat that falls away from the bone and a deep meaty broth that makes the perfect basis for soup.

I had bought a half shoulder of lamb and was planning to essentially roast it in some way in the slow cooker, but then I happened across this piece on rejuvenating boiled mutton by Bee Wilson and felt inspired to try it for myself instead.

I’ve been having terrible trouble finding a way to make chicken stock taste like anything on the fodmap diet, but recently cracked it by using celeriac instead of celery and am now into broths again in a big way.

Adding it along with carrot, parsnip, fresh thyme, bay leaves, green peppercorns and the tail end of a bottle of vermouth, I popped the well seasoned half shoulder into my 6.5 litre slow cooker and cooked it on high for 8-9 hours.

I lifted it out and rested it for 15 minutes and the meat just slipped off the bone, pulling apart beautifully. I let the broth cool and strained half of it off as stock for a gravy and blitzed the other half up as a soup out of the sheer novelty of being able to eat soup again for once.

Boiled Mutton (serves 3-4)

  • half shoulder of lamb, well seasoned
  • 1/4 celeriac, diced
  • 2 carrots, diced
  • 1 parsnip, diced
  • 1 onion (if not on fodmap)
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2 big sprigs fresh thyme
  • 1 tablespoon green peppercorns
  • 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
  • 3 anchovies
  • 100ml vermouth
  • 1 litre cold water

There is barely any recipe here if you’re looking for something to make as a Sunday lunch that requires absolutely no effort or washing up but looks like you went out of your way to slave over a hot stove. I can’t decide if Mrs Beeton would approve of such inherent laziness or consider me a massive let down to womanhood…

Prep the veg and put it and the herbs on the bottom of the slow cooker crock and set the lamb on top of it. Add the vermouth and the cold water so the lamb is completely covered.

Cook on high for 8-9 hours. To make up for my laziness, I got my timings cock-eyed and ended up having to set my alarm for 6am to get up and rescue the lamb before it turned woolly in texture.

Rest for 15 minutes and then simply pull the meat away from the bone with a fork and serve with a quick relish made from capers, diced cucumber and fresh mint tossed in a little white wine vinegar, sugar and salt and left to sit for 30 minutes before being lightly squished with a potato masher.

I then served half the lamb with this and some roasted tomatoes and the other half as a shepherd’s pie using some of the lamb broth to make a gravy. All that and soup from one piece of meat? Not a bad night’s sleep really!

*This is another entry for the recent #livepeasant campaign for Simply Beef and Lamb, but all content is my own.

Spiced Lamb, Lentil and Tomato Soup

Lamb and lentil soup

Every summer I buy lamb mince with the intention of making kofte with it and every summer I panic and decide that kofte are incredibly difficult to make and I’ll ruin them*. I find myself looking at a bag of lamb mince slightly nervously and then I just make meatballs. Again.

This time I happened to have been flicking through Purple Citrus and Sweet Perfume by Silvena Rowe and had seen a soup involving lamb mince and lentils and thought I could finally branch out of my meatball rut.

Unfortunately I went out and drank a couple of glasses of red wine before coming home to cook it for dinner and failed to notice that Silvena’s recipe was actually for rice, lamb and lentil soup until I had a third glass of wine and couldn’t be bothered to follow the recipe. I took inspiration at that stage from Keith Floyd and went for just making it up as I went along. The result was bowls that were scraped clean and no hangover from the wine either. That’s quite a soup.

Spiced Lamb, Lentil and Tomato Soup (serves 4)

  • 400g minced lamb
  • 1 teaspoon onion seeds
  • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
  • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
  • ½ teaspoon kirmizi pul biber or smoked chilli flakes
  • 1 onion, finely diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, finely diced
  • 200g red lentils
  • 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
  • 500ml chicken stock
  • salt and pepper
  • fresh mint to serve

This is a very easy soup to make. Start by heating a dry frying pan on a medium heat and add the onion and cumin seeds. Allow to fry until they start to smell aromatic. It should take about 30-45 seconds. Watch them with an eagle eye or they burn and become bitter. Tip out of the pan onto a clean plate.

Return the pan to the heat and add the lamb mince. Fry it off until the fat starts to come out of it and then add the toasted seeds back in along with the paprika and pul biber. Stir it all well and cook through completely. It should take about 10 minutes.

Remove the cooked lamb from the pan and using the fat from the lamb which is now infused with the lovely spices, sweat the onion and garlic over a low heat until they becomes translucent. This will take about 12 minutes.

While the onions and garlic do their thing, boil the lentils for about 10 minutes in salted water. Drain them once they start to look softened and return them to a large pan. Stir the lamb and sweated onion and garlic through it all and then season well. Red lentils need a generous hand with the salt cellar for me.

Tip the chopped tomatoes into it all and stir well. Add the chicken stock and simmer it all for 25 minutes until the lentils swell up and the soup thickens. Keep an eye to make sure the lentils don’t burn or start to boil dry. They have a habit of that if left to their own devices. You might need a slug or two more of stock.

Serve the soup in deep bowls. Chopped fresh mint scattered on top and stirred through as you serve complements the smoky spicy flavours of the dish perfectly.

I loved this soup. Easy, flavoursome and incredibly filling, it makes the lamb go a long way and made a real change from my usual lentil based soups which tend to be a little worthy for my real enjoyment. Lots of flavour is obviously what I was missing up until now!

 

 

 

 

Anything but sheepish at Meat Club Manchester #4

Butcher Lee Frost at Meat Club Manchester #4

Meat Club Manchester. I’ll be honest… they got me at the name… combining a no-nonsense northern sensibility with a degree of intrigue. It conjures up mental images of Brad Pitt and Ed Norton bound by secrecy, or a group of meat traders at New Smithfield Market getting together for a few beers. Conflate the two, add a splash of civility and a heady mix of cooked meat and good booze, and you’ve got some idea of what goes on at Meat Club.

Chef and local food authority Deanna Thomas and her husband Patrick started Meat Club at the start of this year, and it’s grown steadily from a small group in intimate beginnings to this, the fourth in the series. The premise is gloriously simple: invite a local butcher to demonstrate breaking down and preparing the meat of choice, cook and serve it there and then, paired with some great drinks and a heavy dose on conviviality. No standing on ceremony, and every chance to get one’s hands dirty. In one fell swoop it helps banish inhibitions, serves up a double whammy of education and entertainment and showcases great food and drink. All on a school night.

Deanna & Patrick Thomas from Meat Club Manchester

Meat Club #4 was held at the award-winning The Parlour on Beech Road in Chorlton. We arrived early but the venue quickly filled up for this private event, with around 50 guests there to enjoy the hottest carnivorous ticket in town that night… Chorlton butcher Lee Frost introducing us to the pleasures of spring lamb. As it was St George’s Day, the whole evening was themed around quality English fare, with drinks and expertise also on hand from Michael Bush of Nyetimber, and Toby McKenzie of Macclefield’s Redwillow.

If you don’t know him, Lee Frost (Frosty) is a staple on the Manchester food scene. W H Frost’s have an enviable reputation as a supplier of quality meat to many of the best-known restaurants in and around Manchester, and also from their shop in Chorlton. Frosty himself’s a larger than life character, and never one to miss a well-placed pun when it comes to meat, or indeed a well-deserved dig at the major supermarkets. If there was a local meat advocacy badge in the Scouts, Frosty would’ve had it… along with another for meat-based smut. He makes for a highly engaging and entertaining compere.

Frosty the Butcher cuts up cutlets and chops at Meat Club Manchester

For a bunch of reasons, life conspired against me going to either Meat Club #1 or #3, but I made it to #2, which was venison-themed and wonderful, again featured Frosty and his knife skills and razor-sharp, smut-edged banter. My better half had to duck out at short notice last time, so I was excited she was able to experience Meat Club herself this time. I reassured her the butchery was not terribly gory, it wasn’t a male-only preserve by any means, and the food would be delicious. Within half an hour of arriving, she was questioning that assertion as the offal flowed.

We enjoyed our first beer from Redwillow, a crisp and refreshing Headless Pale Ale, as the venue engorged like one of Frosty’s metaphors. Outside, faces pressed up to the plate glass windows, obviously curious as to what kind of private function had closed the venue for the evening and involved a sheep’s cadaver in the centre of the room.

Deanna gave a quick introduction, and then out came the offal. I’m a confirmed offal lover and enjoyed the trio of offally canapés: liver with a boozy red onion marmalade on pastry; gloriously spiced devilled kidneys on toast; and bacon-wrapped sweetbreads (glands in blankets?) paired with cauliflower purée. Mrs North is less convinced of the merits of variety meats. She took a short break and paced herself for the less icky bits. Meanwhile Frosty expertly broke down the lamb with his chopper, regaling the crowd with bon mots, impromptu sales pitches and a maelstrom of interesting facts about bits and cuts. Did you know lambs don’t have bellies (at least not as a cut of meat)? Instead, they have breasts, which extend down to their nethers. Insert punchline here…

Michael Bush from Nyetimber

After some audience participation butchery, it was time for a touch of sophistication with a glass of Nyetimber’s sparkling wine – in this case a glass of their 2008 Classic Cuvee – and an introductory talk from Mike about the history and ethos of the vineyard. The bubbles in the wine added to the general levity in the room, and reinforced the revelation that there’s a lot more to English sparkling wine than cheap jokes, cheap fizz, and episodes of The Apprentice. This was dry, fresh, crisp, held a hint of meadow fragrance, and was very refreshing. This wine would be ideally suited to a summer’s afternoon, accompanying the sounds of cricket or tennis and some freshly-picked fruit and cream… though we were more than happy to enjoy it in a crowded room in front of a half-dismembered carcass instead.

Mixing Redwillow ale & Nyetimber wine at Meat Club Manchester

As a local lad, Lee Frost made the case that Cheshire lamb (in this case the wonderfully-coiffured Texel, originally a Dutch breed) is perhaps the finest in the country. As a Northern Irishman now living in the Pennines, and having eaten some superb Cumbrian Herdwick lamb only the evening before, I’d hedge my bets, though there’s no denying this was one seriously tasty animal. I’d be hard-pushed to select a single best breed or location for lamb in this country, but we live in probably the best country in the world to enjoy this wonderful meat.

Lamb (and mutton) is possibly my favourite meat, and although I know its sometimes strong taste is divisive for more finicky eaters, it’s both a versatile dish and a very natural product. The mere thought of Barnsley chops and Scotch pies make my heart beat a little quicker. Unlike some other ‘farmyard’ meats, it’s hard to intensively rear lamb: if they go beyond suckling they’re naturally free range, and stay healthy and well-toned. Farming sheep is a good way of taking advantage of less productive land, and thus using the meat and wool is an excellent option to support local producers. It’s also part of our country’s shared history: from the upland landscapes, shaped by many hundreds of years of sheep farming, to the symbolic nature of the woolsack in parliament, the British Isles are defined at least as much by our ovine as bovine heritage.

Pink sheep near Livingston, Scotland

Living in Todmorden, astride the Lancs/Yorks border and the the middle of the Pennines, one is never far from the impact that the lowly sheep’s had on the social and cultural landscape of the north. It’s Lancashire hotpot to the west, and to the east is the rich legacy of the wool trade, on which Yorkshire’s wealth was largely founded before the Industrial Revolution. And yet despite, or perhaps because of, the ubiquity of sheep in the UK, we don’t embrace how lucky we are to have such good produce on hand. These sceptr’d isles provide such a broad range of breeds and pastures that, if you’re able to source decent local lamb, it reflects the characteristics of the land it was raised in… the breed, the minerals in the soil, the grasses and herbs they graze on, and topography itself. That’s why a good piece of salt marsh lamb from Wales, Cumbria or Dungeness is a truly exquisite and uniquely British delight, as is the wilder flavour of a rare breed from an upland farm or croft. Why people buy New Zeland lamb, shipped halfway around the world, when they could enjoy superlative English, Welsh, Scottish or Irish lamb instead, is beyond me. Support local farmers and butchers, please… and take time to rediscover both the cheap cuts and posh joints which can come from a good bit of lamb.

Frosty the butcher cuts up lamb at Meat Club Manchester

As the main meat cuts were transformed into delicious morsels by The Parlour’s chef Paul and his team in the kitchen, it was hard to dispute this was a superb tasting beast. Delicate slivers of cannon, paired with parsnip purée; chargrilled herb and garlic cutlets, and nut-stuffed breast (not belly, as we now know) provided the meaty accompaniment to the central section of the evening. After nattering about the pleasures of tartare, and how good raw minced lamb can be in Lebanese dishes, Frosty finely diced up some Texel and let me try it. Even unenhanced by seasoning there was a beautifully light grassy flavour, and a sweet note to the meat without any metallic tang you might expect from raw meat. Bloody great.

As we quaffed an introductory bottle of the delightful and very moreable Wreckless Pale Ale, Toby from Redwillow stood up and gave an insight into their beers (I finally found out why they all have names with particular relevance to each type) and how to build an award-winning brewery almost by accident (although I think he’s rather self-effacing… from branding to product quality, this is a seriously professional outfit and they know exactly what they’re doing). We enjoyed a bottle of their Sleepless ale whilst scoffing cute little lamb kebabs and burgers at the close of the evening, before slightly squiffily chatting to others as the crowd dispersed contentedly into the cool night air.

A rapt audience at Meat Club Manchester

Incidentally, ram’s balls (or fries, as they’re more delicately known) were originally due to make an appearance on the menu, but Frosty explained the abattoir had dropped a bollock, so to speak, and so there was nothing testicular to accompany this young female lamb on the night. An audible ripple of relief resonated round the room upon this news…

I’d highly recommend Meat Club: you might never see as many cameraphones in action in one place as you will here, but it’s a great way to find out more about the journey from field to plate, taste great local food and drink, and to share those experiences with a bunch of others. It’s also getting more popular every month, and spaces go quickly. Wild boar’s next on the menu on the 29th at the Yard in Alderley Edge… more details on their website if you fancy some very boss hog…

Nose to Tail at St John…

The restaurant fairy paid me a visit last night and took me to St John, home of nose to tail eating, and the place I have most wanted to eat at in London for years. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a little bit wary of the knobbly bobbly wobbly bits of the beast as they require more cooking skill than I feel I have, so I have always wanted the chance to try the weird and wonderful, but well cooked. And I wasn’t disappointed!
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