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Lamb En Casserole
6 slices of lamb 2 tablespoons melted butter or other fat 2 cups brown stock 1 pint vegetable balls 12 small onions Seasoning Cut thick slices from a leg of lamb and sear, browning both sides. Brush with melted fat and place in casserole with one-half to one cup of brown stock. Cook on top of the stove or in a moderate oven (350 degrees F.) until tender, then add potato balls, carrot balls and onions, which have been previously cooked. Add more brown stock, salt, pepper and paprika.
A straightforward braise of leg-of-lamb steaks with vegetables cut into balls and added at the end. The only real decisions are the thickness of the meat and keeping the vegetables from disintegrating.
- The hinge: vegetables go in cookedThe potato, carrot and onion balls are boiled separately and added only once the lamb is tender. If they go in at the start they will collapse into the stock and the dish loses its point.
- "En casserole" hereThe recipe offers a choice of burner or oven for the braise, which points to a lidded pot that can take direct heat rather than a shallow baking dish. A Dutch oven or heavy braiser suits it.
- Cutting the lamb"Thick slices" from a leg means crosswise steaks, which will carry a section of bone; roughly an inch is a reasonable reading. Six such slices come to somewhere around 2 1/2 to 3 lb. Ask for leg steaks, or cut them from a whole bone-in leg.
- Brown stockA dark meat stock, traditionally beef bones roasted before simmering. Unsalted beef stock works; reduce a boxed stock by a third to get some body, since the sauce is not thickened.
- Oven temperature and time350F as given is right. Leg steaks braised in a shallow inch of liquid need about 1 to 1 1/2 hours, covered, turned once, until a fork goes in with no resistance.
- A pint of vegetable ballsAbout 2 cups by volume, cut with a small melon or parisienne scoop from potatoes and carrots. Reckon on two large potatoes and three or four fat carrots, plus the 12 peeled small onions.
- Liquid managementStart with the half to one cup of stock only. The 2 cups in the ingredient list covers the topping-up at the end, when you want enough to come partway up the vegetables and serve as sauce.
- FinishingAfter the vegetables and extra stock go in, give it 10 minutes covered to heat through and let the seasoning settle. Taste then, as the added stock will have diluted the salt.
- YieldSix servings, one slice each. Bread or a green vegetable is all it needs alongside.