424/1038 - Roman lamb stew

Do not let this fairly ordinary picture deceive you! Roman lamb stew is absolutely lovely and quite frankly deserved a much better effort on my part of photographing the result. In my defence it was served at a dinner party and so I was conscious of not spending too much time away from my guests, fiddling with the camera. 

I spent a bit of extra time designing the menu for this event as one of my fellow diners is on a restricted diet for medical reasons; abstaining from dairy, gluten and sugar. I found myself discarding recipe after recipe in search of the perfect menu but got there in the end with a range of dishes I was comfortable would complement one another nicely. 

Apart from cooking two separate loaves of bread, I was keen to ensure the menu was accessible to all, not wanting to serve up two different versions of a meal and make my friend feel different or uncomfortable.

As I generally do when putting the final touches on a meal, I hacked a rather large piece out of my finger while dissecting the lamb shoulder. After this incident I was not keen to go anywhere near the bone and so left that to the side for another day. About 15 band-aids later I stemmed the bleeding and rendered myself presentable enough to greet my guests. 

The resulting stew had the most beautiful flavour (minus any blood, I swear), with the lamb taking in the scent of the herbs and drawing flavour from the simple soffritto which spent some time in the pan first. The meat was also lovely and tender, falling away from itself easily.

My husband had made a Roman lamb stew many years ago, using the recipe from The Silver Spoon, another favourite cookbook of ours. It is probably a good thing that it was too long ago to say which version was better, although if memory serves his was every bit as good as this one.

Conclusion: All Roman stews are fabulous!

My special menu