Lamb - Italian Stew and Spicy Indian Cubes

I never liked lamb. It was one of the first dishes I tried when I started out learning to cook --- in fact, out of Hazan. Surprising, now that I think about it, that it failed --- I think it's the only dish out of Hazan that didn't work for me. It was her lamb stew. I had to go to the kitchen to look up the recipe again, since her book is in the kitchen since I use it regularly. But I haven't looked at this recipe since 2002 or so. So now I see that the reason I chose it was because it had so few ingredients:

Lamb Stew with Vinegar and Green Beans

1 pound fresh green beans, 1/4C olio, 3 pounds (!) lamb shoulder with bone cut into 2" cubes, 1/2C chopped onion, salt, pepper, 1/2C red wine vinegar.

Cut the ends of the beans, heat the oil, brown the lamb, take it out, cook the onion 'til it's golden, put back the lamb, add the salt, pepper and vinegar, boil vinegar for 30 sec while stirring. Add the beans, cover, and simmer for 1.5 hours (!). Add water if necessary.

I might try it again, I remember working on it as when I was a Ph.D. student, I was excited, I decided to learn to cook and decided on learning out of Hazan's Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking and Pepin's Techniques. But I remember that I didn't read the recipe through, I didn't know it would take 2 hours, I'd never prepared green beans. I was working with 3 pounds of smelly lamb! And after all that, when I tasted this lamb stew, it was too gamy. So I avoided cooking lamb since then, though I probably ate it occasionally in North Indian restaurants.

The only time I enjoyed lamb was when this chef visited a friend of ours and made lamb-burgers with mint. They were excellent.

But then I came across Jaffrey's excellent Indian lamb cubes.

Spicy Indian Lamb Cubes

3 tablespoon oil, 1.5" ginger, 4cl fine chopped garlic, 15 curry leaves if you can find them, 1# lamb 1" cubes, 2 teaspoon garam masala, 1 teaspoon ground cumin, .25 teaspoon turmeric, .25 teaspoon pepper, 1 gr chopped chili, .5 teaspoon salt, black pepper, 1.5-2 teaspoon lemon juice

Heat oil in a pan at medium-high. Add ginger, garlic, curry, and stir. Add lamb, cut the heat to medium low. Add the garam masala, ground cumin, turmeric, pepper, chili, salt. Add .75C water, cover the pan, and simmer gently 50min. Then add black pepper, lemon juice and serve it forth.

And they are spicy, not gamy, and delicious.

Supersonic Thai Curry with Jasmine Rice

OK so the cookies are a bit much, I agree. And this is about fast, cheap cooking that is excellent. Well here's a fast, cheap dish that dances in the mouth (not saltimbocca, though)!

I'd always liked Thai curry and Thai food in general. I took a class once at Pasadena City College with Yupa Holzner, and actually made Pad Thai (I haven't really made it consistently since, it seems to me to involve a certain amount of preparation.) She didn't teach me how to make curry either. From Bhumichitra's book, I learned to make a vegetarian curry, and then I simplified it until I've got the cheapest, easiest, and fastest yellow Thai curry. Its a pretty good book but its a little long on ingredients.




If you're in the San Fernando Valley, then most Sundays the Thai Wat of Los Angeles has food stalls, made by members of the Wat. There's some of the best Thai food there, we used to go from West L.A.

So to eat curry, you will need to prepare Thai jasmine rice ahead of time. I have invested in a nice rice cooker, since I eat Asian food constantly. It's a great time saver, especially the programmable timer, but I used to cook rice in a pot for a long time. These recipes are for 1 person. All regular white rices cook according to the same recipe.

Rice in a Pot

Take 1 cup rice into the pot. Pour in water, stir and drain 1-2 times to wash the rice, finally drain it thoroughly. Then add 2 cups water, a pinch of salt, and if you like, some oil. Cover and boil. When it just starts to boil, lower the heat to a very slow simmer. Done in about 20-40 minutes. Check the pot as little as possible --- open it quickly, tilt the pot, and use a spoon to peek at the bottom of the pot, if there's water, put it back, if not, the rice is done.

Supersonic Yellow Thai Curry

You need: a pack of yellow Thai curry, 1-2 cloves garlic, 1-2 potatoes, 2-3 green onions, a can of Thai coconut milk, soy sauce, salt, oil (peanut, canola or olive are best,) sugar

Chop the garlic and fry in oil (about 1 tablespoon) on medium heat. Chop the potatoes into 1/2 inch cubes or smaller. When the garlic is a little transparent and golden, add a tablespoon or so of the curry and stir-fry for 30 seconds --- it may spatter so be careful! Now pour in 1/3 can of coconut milk and let it cook for about 1 minute, then sweep the potatoes in and cook for 5-7 minutes. Meanwhile chop the green onions --- chop the white finely and the green into slanted slices about 1" long or so. Add the green onions to the curry in 5-7 minutes, then sugar, salt and soy sauce to taste. Eat with the rice.