Lamb Hotpot

Ok, so Lamb is a spring menu item, and it's almost November. But it's spring in New Zealand... and I have some happy memories with this recipe, going all the way back to my first weeks of marriage. Twelve years ago, when I was a new bride living with my husband's family in England. I had the job of being the family cook for a house of eight. I didn't really know anything useful about cooking when I was 24, and suddenly having to produce large meals for people in a culture that was still foreign to me was...educational.

Lesson number one: If you are making dinner in England in the fall or winter, or any other season for that matter, you must make gravy. If you don't, they will likely head to the kitchen to make it for themselves. This is reasonable, but also mildly entertaining for me, being from California where gravy is not so common at the table.

Lesson number two: The request, "please will you prepare a joint of meat?" is really one that will strike fear in the best of young, naive, newlywed novice cooks. So get a good cookbook and hope for the best.

Lesson number three: Don't forget the gravy.

Fortunately, one of our wedding gifts was a charity cookbook called "More Than a Meal: A Cookbook in Support of the Homeless." The irony of it all was not lost on us. So in this book I began...and there I found many useful recipes from Margaret Thatcher's stuffy and complicated "Calvados Phesants" to Mr. Bean's...what else..."Beans on Toast." There is enough tongue-in-cheek to keep one looking through the pages, and enough yummy stuff to keep me using it a dozen years later.

Which brings me back to my original point...Lamb Hotpot. Mike Picken, listed as the Executive Chef at Gleneagles Hotel, Scotland, saved me from humiliation that cold winter's night in England. I didn't even know what a 'joint of meat' was, much less where to find it and how to cook it. Turns out it is found wrapped in white paper and stored in a freezer...and when it comes to leg of lamb...well, I think this is the best way to have it. I have made a few changes over the years, like more wine and fennel. But who wouldn't want more wine and fennel anyway? So we'll call this the USA adapted version of an already superb recipe.

(...and it's a hodgepodge of weights and measures, so I do apologize for thoroughly confusing everyone)

Lamb:

3 lb diced leg of lamb

1 stick of butter, divided

1 lb chopped carrots

1 large onion, diced

2-3 bulbs of fennel, chopped or diced

3 oz tomato paste

2 oz flour, plus extra for dusting lamb

650 ml lamb stock

16 oz red wine

Salt and pepper to taste

Season and lightly flour the cubes of lamb. Melt 1/2 stick of butter in a large cast iron dutch oven, and fry the lamb in two batches over high heat until they are browned. Remove from the dutch oven. Sweat the vegetables in the dutch oven with the other 1/2 stick of butter. Add the tomato paste and cook a few minutes longer until the mixture deepens in color. Mix in the flour and cook a few minute more.

Add the lamb, wine and lamb stock to the pan. Bring to a boil, then cover and bake in the oven at 325 degrees for two hours.

Dill Soda Scones:

5 oz plain flour

4 oz whole wheat flour

1/2 oz baking powder

Salt and pepper to taste

1 small bunch fresh dill, chopped

1 heaping spoon of crisco

1/2 stick of butter

Buttermilk

When the hotpot has been in the oven for nearly two hours, mix together the plain flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt, pepper and chopped fresh dill. Rub in the butter and shortening, then add enough buttermilk to make a light dough...not too dry and not runny. (Sorry about not having specific quantities...I make them like southern biscuits, and my mamaw never measured.)

Remove the hotpot from the oven and give it a stir to dislodge anything stuck to the bottom. Drop large spoonfuls of the batter onto the top of the lamb. Place the hotpot back in the oven without the lid, and increase the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Cook until the scones begin to brown a little. It takes about 30 minutes in my oven. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.