Lamb Recipe I Enjoyed

I'm not the biggest lamb fan. I like certain dishes, certainly, and while I have friends and family who love lamb, it's not a protein I'm usually rushing out to buy.

But we had Corrie's Grandma June over for dinner the other night, and I cooked a dish I saw on Lydia's Italitan cooking show on our PBS channel (I think her name is pronounced "li-DEE-uh"). The channel is blippy since it's over the airwaves and in HD (one reason the TV is off most times) but I caught the gist.

Ingredients

Lamb meat; cubed; 3-4 pounds
garlic; smashed; 7 cloves (more if small)
green olives, large ones, pitted; halved, drained; an entire 10 oz dry wt jar
fresh rosemary; on the stick; one stick
vinegar; quarter cup; (I used white wine vin; red wine vin is called for by her; I'd suggest sherry vinegar...)
white wine; 8-12 ounces

Method

Season the cubed lamb with salt and pepper pretty well. Heat oil in a large skillet or pot (skillet's best...the largest bottomed fry-type pan will do) and sautee the seasoned lamb meat until the sides or browned.

Add the garlic around the halfway mark, and the vinegar two minutes later, then add the olives right as it's finishing the searing/browning-of-the-sides act.

Add the wine--it should almost cover the cubed meat--and the stick of rosemary. Cover, turn the heat down and simmer. Check it periodically, but it should be done in 30 or so minutes.

How to tell when it's done: I had a problem with mine that my experience in NYC haute kitchens helped me solve. After the half hour, I still had more liquid than I remember Lydia having, and the glazed look of the meat wasn't there. That's how you know it's done; the meat will be dark, tender, and glazed with a yummy wine/olive/lamb-juices glaze. Mine had too much liquid and not enough glazy color. This occurred because my pan was just not quite big enough, and the meat cooked together, but all up on each other, which hadn't given the wine enough room to simmer away. I tasted the meat--it was done--and realized I just wanted the glaze. I pulled another pan out, got it hot, and poured the wine-sauce off the meat into it. Now I had two pans on the stove-top, one with the meat sauteing on a bit higher heat, and another with the wine sauce "working hard", that is, reducing quickly over high heat. I would pour small amounts of the sauce back into the meat as needed by the meat pan until the glaze developed and all the liquid, besides some oil, gradually became the meat's glaze.

It was pretty damn good. After the meat's done, use a slotted spoon to put it into a serving dish and then serve with the same slotted spoon. There is no sauce with this lamb, and the slotted spoon helps reduce the amount of oil on your plate (this isn't an oily dish, by any means).

This method will work for beef, or pretty much any kind of red meat. If you're trying to use the cheapest stewing meat, you definately can, just make sure you get the seariing of the sides accomplished, add a little more wine and cook a little longer on lower heat.