Lamb Meat Pies

Best Leftovers EVER! – So Far.

These take some work – but freeze wonderfully – so make a double (or more) recipe, and have quick suppers or party food on hand.

Lamb Meat pies... & Yogurt Sauce

Equipment :

Cookie Sheet/½ Sheet pan

Rolling pin

4 – 5” circular cookie cutter

Large bowl

Dish towels (non-fuzzy)

Spoon (regular size)

Small sauté or sauce pan

Whisk

optional - collander

Ingredients:

Leftover roasted potatoes

Leftover Lamb stew  

(actually any hearty filling works… don’t be scared - 

the British go with corned beef and smashed potatoes)

2 Tbs flour

1 Tbs butter or oil

1 tsp yeast

1 tsp salt

3 Tbs sugar

1 C warm (105˚F) water + another ½ Cup

4 C AP flour + more for dusting

Non-stick cooking spray

Optional for yogurt sauce:

½ C plain yogurt

a large handful of thinly sliced cucumber

1 tsp salt

fresh herbs (mint, parsley, basil – any combination to your taste)

1 – 2 cloves crushed garlic

more salt to taste.

Prep:

Mix yeast, salt, sugar & 1 C water.  Set aside until it is a little frothy.

Pour as much broth out of the stew as you can – at least a cup.  If it is more – great.  If less, make up to at least a cup with water or vegetable or chicken broth.

Chop the meat up into smallish pieces, add it and the roasted potatoes into your stew.

Optional yogurt sauce: thinly slice cucumber, sprinkle with the tsp of salt  - let sit for 10 – 30 min.

Rinse off the salt, lay the cucumber on one of the dishtowels.  Roll up and squeeze mercilessly.  It is now drained and ready for the yogurt sauce. (can be refrigerated for later at this stage)

Cook:

 In a large bowl, stir the yeasty water into the flour.  Stir with a fork – or your hands.  Add a little more water until it starts to hold together in one dough ball.  Work on a floured counter – kneading to make a stiff dough (or use your mixer with a dough hook).  When it has all come together, divide into 2 balls, cover with a clean towel and set aside for 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350˚F

Make a roux from the broth from the stew.  A roux, you ask, what’s that?*

In a small sauté pan over med high heat, add the flour, stir it gently to toast the flour lightly (it will start to smell a little like… toast), add the butter or oil, stir to coat all the flour particles.  Let the mixture froth for about a minute. 

While whisking the mixture, pour in your stew liquid, a dribble at a time, making sure to stir in each dribble.  

When all the liquid is stirred in, set aside, let it cool, and admire your roux.  Taste it, and see if it needs salt.  Correct any deficiencies. It will help make your meat pies extra delicious.

After you finish your roux, the dough is ready for the next step.

Roll out one dough ball to about 1/8” thickness (this is a workout) and cut out circles.  Lay them out on your baking sheet – do the same with the other ball.  Combine the scraps, and make a few more rounds (expect 12 – 16 circles).

Cover with a clean towel and let these rise for 15 more minutes.

Set up your meat pie assembly station:

The stew with the chopped meat + potatoes

Your tasty roux

Dough circles

A baking pan with non-stick spray (or a Silpat)

Layout your dough circles – place about 1 tsp of roux on the bottom, and a heaping tablespoon of stew in the center. 

Pinch together the circle half way up one side, then bring the other side up to make a triangle – or something that looks like a three cornered hat.  Squeeze the seams together leaving a little space for steam to escape at the top.

Place these on the baking pan – pop in the oven.  Cook for about 30 minutes – until they start to take on a lightly toasted appearance - if you are planning on serving right away.

If they are headed for the freezer, stop the cooking at 10 minutes, cool, freeze on a flat pan, and seal in a zip top bag or other airtight container when they are solid.

Reheat at 350˚F in a baking pan covered with foil for about 25 minutes – when they take on a light golden color, and the gravy is bubbling inside.

If you’d like the yogurt sauce, combine the yogurt, drained cucumbers, herbs, garlic and salt to your taste, and serve with the meat pies.

Excellent party food!  And from stew – who knew?

*Cajun cooking may have made roux famous – in its variety (white, brown, brick etc…) but roux comes from French cooking, the stodgy grandparent of Cajun Cuisine.  Really, it’s just a quick way to thicken or add body to any sauce.  Get the hang of this technique – and gravy at Thanksgiving will be something you can do with one hand tied behind your back.

Farmers Market Lamb & Mushroom Stew

My summer cooking motto continues to be – Farmer’s Markets make us all better cooks. 

Whatever you pick up at a farmers market will do their best to make you look like a super star.  This Mushroom-backed Lamb Stew is the perfect example of how fortuitous shopping and cooking up front can build you many meals into the future, and each one of them is luxurious in its tastiness. 

Last time it was lamb sausage - and so good I couldn't leave the lamb out this time.  But this recipe wouldn't have been anywhere near as roll-your-eyes-back-tasty without the mushrooms.

Pacific Crest Foraging
I got there late - note all the empty bins in back!
I'll have to get there earlier next time if I want fresh mushrooms.  

Summer Lamb Stew with a Mushroom Base and a Farmer’s Market Supporting Cast

(Lamb Meat Pies for leftovers follows)

It takes a while to cook…. but most of the time you get to ignore it.

Equipment:

Soup pot or Dutch oven – it MUST have a lid

Tongs (optional – but helpful)

Long Spoon for stirring soup

Spatula for sautéing onions & shifting potatoes

Cutting board

Knife

Plate/shallow pan

Bowl that can hold about 4 cups

Cookie sheet/ Half-sheet pan

fingerling potatoes
worth a little special treatment

Ingredients:

1 lamb shoulder cut (approx. 2 lbs) (Our local lamb grower is is Martiny Livestock)

¼ C flour

a few tsp oil (nothing fancy)

1 bunch sweet carrots – cut roughly into small bite sized chunks

2 shallots – sliced thin

1 sweet onion - quartered and sliced thin

3 cloves garlic - crushed/chopped fine

1 Tbs tomato paste

1 pkg. Pacific Crest dried mushrooms (I loved the Wild Mix in here)

2 cups boiling water

¾ lb fingerling (or other waxy*) potatoes – cut roughly into small bite sized chunks

a few sprigs thyme

2 more tsp oil

salt & pepper as needed

Prep:

Boil 2 cups of water, pour over the dried mushrooms.  Set aside until they are well hydrated.  Save the water!

Sprinkle salt and a little pepper all over the surface of your lamb shoulder.  Cut into 4 - 6  large pieces, of roughly equal size.  Trim off any tough membrane, and large chunks of fat.  Leave in the bones and interior pieces of fat.  Both of these add flavor you really want in your stew – bones can be removed before serving.

Spread the flour on a plate/shallow pan.  Dredge the lamb in the flour, so it has a light coating all over.

Use the necessary tools -
garlic press & a favorite knife are a big help

Cut up all the vegetables as needed.

 Toss the potatoes with a tsp of salt, the thyme and the 2 tsp of oil, and spread out on the half sheet pan.

Cook:

Set your soup pot/dutch oven over medium-high heat with a drizzle of oil in the bottom.  Let this heat for a few minutes – until a piece of onion sizzles in the oil. 

Brown the lamb in the pot – let it sit still until the flour starts to brown – then turn.  Set aside on a plate.

Add another small drizzle of your oil, turn the heat down to medium, and drop in the shallots, half the sweet onion and all the garlic.  Add a half tsp. of salt, and stir.  Cook over medium heat until translucent and “sweaty” (moist and smelly).  Stir occasionally.   This will take awhile, so….

Remove the mushrooms from the water, squeeze well, and chop fine (about ¼” pieces or smaller).  Save the water!  Strain that through a strainer/paper towel/coffee filter to remove any grit.

When the shallots etc. are tender, stir in the tomato paste and a spoonful of the mushroom water – to loosen the mixture.  Cook this until the tomato paste darkens a little.

Stir in the mushrooms, and let the mixture thicken slightly.

Add the lamb back in, add the mushroom water, and maybe a little more water to just cover the lamb.  Lower the heat to med-low or where you need to to get the very lowest boil/simmer COVERED for 1.5 – 2 hours. (You can also place this in a preheated oven at 250˚F – 300˚F - check to see that the mixture is simmering)

While you are waiting on your lamb to stew – roast your potatoes (this can also be done while you reheat the stew, if you made it the day before.)

Preheat your oven to 425˚F

When the oven is hot, roast your potatoes for about 20 minutes (until they are delicious), be sure to shift/toss them at 10 minutes.

When they get a little crusty skin - yummy!

When the lamb seems almost done, add in the carrots and the rest of the sweet onion for the last 20 minutes.  Taste and add salt/pepper to make it just right.

(Remove bones if desired)

Serve over the roasted potatoes.

P.S. You can also cook the potatoes in the stew – just let them cook 15 minutes longer than the carrots.

Next up – Lamb Rissoles (fancy word for Meat Pie)

CSA veggies + Farmer's Market Sausage

.... 2 Great Tastes that Taste Great Together.


This week the CSA bag was enormous.  The fruit is rolling in, and they sent it all to us in one day!


But fruit for dinner wan't going to cut it, I needed something more.


Last Sunday, I had picked up so beautiful lamb sausages - mixed with plum & dill.  It sounded vaguely Eastern European, or Scandinavian (all that dill).  It needed salad and the potatoes I still hadn't decided what to do with were the obvious choice.

So.... Link Lab's Plum and Dill Sausages,


with Roasted Dill Potatoes


& Fennel and Purple Cabbage Slaw












The best order to do this all, so everything’s ready together –

 

1.     Slice all the potatoes & veg,

2.     Start the potatoes roasting,

3.     Start the fennel softening,

4.     Start the sausages grilling,

5.     Make the dressing

6.     Get everything on their way to finishing

7.     Quickly soften the cabbage

8.     Serve it up hot!

But to keep you from going bananas (Yes, I’m looking forward to the new Planet of the Apes movie… I admit it.), I’ll separate the recipes in the usual way.

The beginning of this recipe is the best – 

Grilled Lamb, Plum & Dill Sausages

Find really good sausages.  Poke em’ so they don’t explode.  Grill ‘em.

If you can’t find these specially, get something else  - and mirror that herb in your roasted potatoes.

I stumbled upon these by Link Lab, 

sold by the sheep farmer at the 

Lake Forest Park Farmer's Market

I love lamb and herbs, so the Plum & Dill
was worth a plunge into the unknown

Here's Linda Martiny herself!
Provider of Tasty Lamb.
Know your farmer.

Poke them liberally to let the juices run (instead of exploding) out.  Grill them up by marking then at high or medium high heat, and then cover and let them cook at medium heat the rest of the way through.

You can check by eye (peek inside and make sure they are cooked through), or poke them with a thermometer, and make sure they are 160˚F (since they contain pork as well).

Roasted Dill (or insert herb) Potatoes

Use 1 medium, or 2 small potatoes per adult

Ingredients:

Potatoes

Per each medium potato -

Large pinch of chopped dill (or other herb)   

Pinch of salt & ½ a pinch of pepper

½ tsp of oil (nothing fancy – the flavor will mostly get cooked out)

Prep:

Start the oven heating to 425˚F

Cut each potato half so it gives you 2 blocky pieces (rather than 2 thin flat pieces).  Cut into slices as skinny or skinnier than your pinky.  Toss with oil, salt pepper and herb.

Spread out in a large flat pan with a lip (large baking pan/half-sheet pan/cookie sheet with a lip).

Cook: 

Slide the potatoes into the oven for 10 minutes.  Pull out the pan,  jiggle, toss and turn the potatoes with a metal spatula to release any stuck ones.  Return the potatoes to the oven for about 10 more minutes.  They are done when they are easily pierced with a fork (hence, fork tender), and maybe have a few crispy edges.  How long they take will depend on the age and variety of the potato, and the size you cut the potatoes.

Fennel & Purple Cabbage Slaw

(Green works fine too, but I had purple)

I made a black bean & garlic dressing to add to make it extra savory, instead of the regular creamy or vinegary dressing.

Ingredients:

1 fennel bulb, stalks removed

1 tiny head of cabbage, or half a small head.

½ a regular sweet onion

2 tsp oil (I used bacon drippings…. Extra yum!)

½ tsp salt

¼ C water - optional

1 tsp Chinese black bean & garlic sauce

1 Tbs rice vinegar (+ more to taste)

pinch salt& a few grinds pepper

1 Tbs olive oil (or canola)

Cute tiny purple cabbages

 Prep:  Cut the cabbage and fennel into quarters, through the stem, and slice out the hard core piece from both vegetables.  Then thinly slice the onion, cabbage and fennel.

In the bottom of your salad/serving bowl, with a fork or whisk, briskly combine the black bean & garlic sauce, rice vinegar, salt & pepper.  Continue to stir, and slowly add in the oil. (all dressing ingredients can be placed in a tightly sealing container and shaken.)

Toss with ½ of your sliced onion – and set aside.

Cook:

Heat a sauce pan over medium-low heat with the 2 tsp oil.  Stir in the fennel and ½ tsp salt, and let this begin to sweat and soften the fennel.  This will take a little while, so keep checking in with it.  If it is getting brown, turn down the heat.  Keep stirring occasionally, and checking for softening.  You are going for something that still has a little crunch and plenty of body. 

If after 8 min or so, the fennel is still tough, add the water, and turn up the heat to medium-high and let the fennel simmer. 

As the fennel approaches done, put ½ the sliced sweet onion, and continue to stir to soften.

Right when the fennel and onion are just about done, add in the cabbage, and stir to combine everything.  Let this sit over medium heat for about 5 minutes to just soften the cabbage.

Add this mixture straight from the stove to the dressing and onion mixture, stir to combine. Add any extra vinegar, salt or pepper. Nom!

Ta-Da!

Sizzling sausage, toasty potatoes and irresistible slaw.

Cumber and Summer Squash Salad

I had this BRILLIANT idea to make lamb sausage wontons. I started with Lamb Sausage from my butcher (Double D Meats, 5602 232nd St SW # 104, Mountlake Terrace, WA (425) 778-7363) that already had garlic and mint. Not to be out done I added mint & yogurt cheese (will discuss soon - a treasure at our disposal). I folded about a teaspoon into a wonton skin and froze on the spot.

I only had ONE package of wontons. Apparently you need about 4 (or 5!) packages to use the whole 2 pounds. Now that I had used slightly less than 1/2 of the mixture, for some reason I felt adding par-cooked potatoes (cubed) and browned onions would be a good idea. I know not why, for it brought the volume of stuff back almost the the original amount. Maybe the lamby & starchy & with the spicy, minty, sweet & oniony are just So I made Lamb Sausage Rolls (in frozen puff pastry). I made pastry dough and created empanadas... and in desperation, little mini burgers. There's no doubt it's all tasty (I checked by cooking a teaspoon in a fry pan), but so much lamb burger STUFF!

OK so now... lamb something from the freezer for the next 6 weeks!

But what to eat with that?

Summer squash and Cucumbers... thats what!

The Easy Part: Slice a medium sized cucumber in half and then into very thin slices.

then a small yellow or green summer squash (zucchini count) also in thin slices. Thinly slice in a mixture of herbs (any and all you have on hand... chives, basil, oregano, cilantro, mint (only a little), sage (also only a little)... etc.

The Hard Part (well the slightly harder part): Dressing. Vigorously stir together 2 Tbs Apple cider vineger 1 Tbs white wine vinegar (champagne, rice... whatever you have). 1 heaped tsp Dijon mustard, a good squeeze of honey, 1 large garlic clove crushed and salt to taste. A few (well, many) dashes of Green Tabasco sauce gives it that something... extra.

Then, stirring hard with a fork or whisk... time to gently pour in some sort of olive oil. Keep stirring and make an emulsion. When you have enough dressing to generously to cover the cukes, squash & herbs, taste JUST TO MAKE SURE IT is tasty... but a little too strong. (or dump everything into a tightly lidded container and shake-a shake-a)

Pour over your pile of thinly sliced herbs, cucumbers and raw squash. Stir REALLY well. Hear your son say it is better than plain, raw cucumbers (high praise in my world).