Tuesday, May 18, 2010

LOVELY LAMB




I wondered why there were no photos of this dish in Tamasin Day-Lewis's "Simply the Best" - and now I know!!!  Although not the prettiest meal you will ever serve up - it could well be the tastiest (certainly if you take work/taste ratio into account!!!)

TDL calls this Estouffade d'Agneau, but it is called the "nice lamb" here!!!  It is so simple that you will find it hard to imagine how good it tastes - no wine, no garlic, no herbs - just a really good quality olive tapenade (TDL specifies Carluccio's crema do olive nere - this is what I usually use, but I have used my local delicatessen's home made tapenade and it was really good too).

She also specifies lamb shoulder - but I have such fat averse people in this house that I always use a leg of lamb, and it works perfectly. 

Lamb with olive

1kg/2 1/2 lb         cubed shoulder (or leg) of lamb
200g/7oz              Carluccio's crema di olive nere
                                               or
                             Excellent quality black olive tapenade with 1 tsp capers and pinch oregano.

Preheat oven to 150 C

Put the cubed lamb in the bottom of a heavy casserole
Empty the jar of tapenade over the meat.
Cover with a greaseproof paper lid and then the casserole lid.
Leave in the oven for 2 hours.
That's it !!!!!!!

I served it with mashed potato (to get maximum soakage!) and these veggies:



I fried a punnet of mushrooms in olive oil and a small amount of butter, then added asparagus, spinach and some left over cabbage - delicious (and worked really well with the lamb).

P.S. The photo of the lamb was taken after a couple of servings - you get more than that from 1kg meat!!!

7 comments:

Rhyleysgranny said...

Isn't it hard to get casseroled meat to look good in photographs? If you look closely at pics in the books the casseroles aren't cooked. Just browned meat LOL. Your lamb looks and sounds so delicious. I have some black olive tapenade in the cupboard...............That's tomorrow sorted. Thank you BVG x

La Bella Cooks said...

I love the idea of the tapenade. The dish looks so rich and comforting.

Lucie said...

This does look so, so good... homely and delicious! Lucie x

Brownieville Girl said...

That makes me feel much better Granny ... tried my best to make it look good!!!

Thanks so much Bridgett and Lucie :-}

Coby said...

Ohaah the tapanade looks almost purple:) Quite eye-catching BG:) Thank goodness you confirmed that you don't have to use the exact specific product as I doubt there is much chance of me finding it here;) I love lamb, I want to try this recipe and soon!

Saffy said...

The veg sound fantastic too! Yum. Go tell your family how very lucky they are!!! :)

Unknown said...

I love lamb, and I happen to have some really excellent tapenade that I bought from Harvey Nichols :)
*kisses* HH