Slow Cooked Lamb and White Bean Stew

 

I picked up one or two of those recipe cards on the way out of Waitrose the other day in the hopes of inspiring me to try a few new recipes, and this one caught my eye. I, as usual, changed the quantities to bulk it out a bit, adding an extra carrot and celery stick, and a leek: I also never have lamb stock so substituted a little veg. but mostly beef stock instead. And the spinach was baby red chard.

Cheat: Use a pack of pre-prepared winter root casserole vegetables and ready-made stock.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil
350g  British Lamb, diced
2 rashers smoked streaky bacon, roughly chopped
2 onions, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 carrot, diced
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 tsp fennel seeds
2  potatoes, peeled and diced
400g can Borlotti Beans, drained and rinsed
2 tbsp Tomato Purée
500ml lamb stock
260g Spinach

Method:

In your new purple cast iron pot – oops, sorry, that’s just me finding more ways to use mine! - heat the oil and cook the lamb, bacon, onions, celery and carrot (and leek) for 5 minutes until lightly browned. Add the garlic and fennel seeds and cook for a further minute.

This casserole doesn’t need thickening with cornflour or plain flour as the potatoes and beans release enough thickener of their own! Stir in the potatoes, beans, tomato purée and lamb stock. Now, the real recipe says to cover and simmer gently for 50 minutes until the lamb is tender, but if you want even better flavours and lamb that falls apart, I’d say two hours on a low simmer is a minimum. Mine bubbled gently for about three hours, then I turned the heat right down to keep it warm until I served it.

Just before serving, stir in the spinach until wilted. Serve with chunky bread to dip!