Wyoming · Main
Wyoming Lamb Stew
- Intermediate
- 2 h 30 m
- roughly 3 of 4 for cost
Leads with a floral thread lifting the aroma, aromatics blooming from the first bite, fading in warm spice.
Ingredients
- 1kg lamb shoulder, cubed
- 3 tbsp oil
- 2 onions, diced
- 4 garlic cloves
- 3 tbsp flour
- 250ml red wine
- 1.2L stock
- 4 potatoes, chunked
- 4 carrots, chunked
- 2 tbsp rosemary
- 2 bay leaves
- Salt and pepper
The skills inside
Deglazing & pan saucesSweating aromatics: soft, never browned
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Brown the lamb hard in the oil in batches; set aside.
- Sweat the onions and garlic, sprinkle in the flour, and cook 2 min. 2 min
- Deglaze with the wine, scraping the fond, then add the stock, rosemary, and bay.
- Return the lamb, cover, and simmer 90 min until tender. 90 min
- Add the potatoes and carrots and cook 30 min more. Season and serve. 30 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Deglazing & pan sauces 49 recipes
- The pan still holds its fond. Nothing has been rinsed, wiped, or soaked, and the browned layer is intact on the floor.
- Excess fat was poured off first and the browned layer left behind; the fat is not the flavour and a sauce carrying all of it will not come together.
- The liquid went into a still-hot pan and the floor came clean: scraped while it bubbles, the base goes from stuck brown to bare metal and the sauce darkens as it takes it up.
- The fond was brown and not black. A burnt floor dissolves into bitterness that cannot be seasoned out, and is better washed away than deglazed.
- Reduced first and seasoned afterwards, tasted at the consistency it will be served at rather than at the start.
Where it goes wrong The pan was left to stand and go cold before anybody came back to it. Cold fond will not dissolve, so the scraping lifts nothing, and the sauce arrives thin and pale with the flavour it was supposed to carry still welded to the metal.
Sweating aromatics: soft, never browned 198 recipes
- No colour anywhere: tipped under the light the pieces are translucent to pale gold, with no tan edges, no brown tips, and no browned flecks suspended in the fat.
- The pan is quiet: a low steady hiss, not a crackle. A crackle means the moisture has gone and browning has already started.
- The largest piece pressed against the side of the pan collapses without resistance and with no crunch left at its centre.
- The fat is still clear and loose in the pan and the pan floor is clean: nothing caught, nothing browned on to deglaze, because there was never any fond to build.
- It tastes sweet and mild with no raw allium bite at the back of the throat, and none of the roasted sweetness that belongs to the next technique up the heat scale.
Where it goes wrong The heat was too high and nothing covered the pan, so the pieces took colour before they softened; the finished dish carries a roasty sweetness where it wanted a clean one, and the pieces are still firm at the centre under browned edges.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Cabernet or Rioja Reserva
- Also Right
- Malbec
- From the Taps
- Porter
- Zero-Proof
- Pomegranate spritz
Lamb’s sweet grass-fat wants structure: tannin from Cabernet, smoke-echo from Rioja’s oak, or Syrah’s pepper for the spiced routes.
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