I’ve made this recipe a few times, and it is very tasty. It is a useful one-pot meal, and uses some of the less tender cuts of lamb or mutton.
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 carrots, sliced
- 2 sticks of celery, chopped
- 25g lard, dripping or olive oil
- 8 best end or middle neck lamb chops, trimmed of excess fat
- 2 tsp flour
- salt and pepper
- 200ml water
- 1 tsp rosemary (or similar fragrant herbs – try Italian herbs for meat)
- 125g self-raising flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 40g suet
- 1 tbsp chopped parsley
- a little cold water
METHOD:
- Heat half the fat in a frying pan, and brown the carrots, onions and celery, and put them in the bottom of a casserole dish
- Coat the chops in seasoned flour, and brown in the rest of the fat, and put them on top of the vegetables
- In the frying pan, pour away any excess fat, and then add the tomatoes, water, herbs and salt and pepper, and bring to the boil, scraping in any sticky goodness from the bottom of the pan. Pour this over the meat.
- Cover the casserole, and cook at 180C for 1 1/2 hours
- Make the dumplings. Sift the self-raising flour and salt into a bow, and mix in the shredded suet and parsley. Add cold water very slowly, until you have a soft but not sticky dough.
- Roll the dough into 8 balls. Put them over the top of the hotpot, and cook without a lid for a further 20 minutes until the dumplings are cooked.
If you have a lot of potatoes, this is fine without the dumplings, and served with mash. Next time, I may try slicing potatoes over the top at the start and cooking the whole thing together.
An alternative way of preparing the dumplings: use 125g self raising flour, 125g wholewheat flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 125g shredded suet, 1/4 tsp salt, 7 tbsp mil. Mix together as above, make dumpling balls, and simmer in water or stock, instead of cooking in the stew.