Lamb Braised in Milk & Fennel like things!

The recipe which I was going to try this evening was Simply Recipes' Lamb Braised in Milk with Fennel, however fennel was missing from my food delivery so I'm just going to try it with a variety of different fennel like things, namely fresh garden herbs, dried tarragon and fennel seeds.

Here is the original recipe:

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 1/2 pounds boneless lamb shoulder, trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
• Salt and pepper
• 1 fennel bulb, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced (or chopped)
• 1/2 cup finely chopped parsley (or whatever fresh herbs you have)
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed (use mortar and pestle, or chop finely with a chef's knife)
• 2 cups milk (or one mug)
• 1/2 cup (small pot) heavy cream (or single)
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 1 onion

• 2 cups farro (can substitute brown rice) - one mug of brown rice served two adult portions + two lunch/child portions
• Salt and Pepper

Method

1 In a large (5 to 6 quart) thick-bottomed Dutch oven, heat 2 Tbsp of olive oil on medium high. Pat dry the lamb pieces. Season well with salt and pepper. Working in batches, place lamb pieces in the pan (do not crowd). Do not stir. Turn only once a side has browned. Brown all sides. Remove from pan and set aside.

2 Reduce heat in pan to medium. Add remaining 2 Tbsp olive oil. Add the diced fennel and cook a few minutes until softened, scraping up any browned bits from the pan. Add the garlic, onion, parsley, crushed fennel seeds. (I shock up my fresh herbs, jarred tarragon, fennel seeds and a little olive oil in my flavour shaker here until they were a paste before adding them all to the pan)

3 Add the meat back into the pot. Add the milk and cream. Bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low, add the sprig of rosemary, cover. Cook for 1 1/2 to 2 hours until meat is tender.

4 While the lamb is cooking, prepare the farro (or brown rice). The farro will take about 45 minutes (brown rice takes 25mins) to cook, after which it can be kept warm, so time accordingly. Rinse farro through a sieve until the water runs clear. Add it to a large, thick-bottomed saucepan. Cover with about two inches of water and add about a tablespoon of salt. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a low simmer, partially cover and let cook for 45 minutes or until tender. Drain of excess water and set aside until you are ready to use it.

5 Once the lamb is tender, remove the pieces from the pot and set aside. Discard the rosemary. Bring the milk cream sauce to a boil over high heat and reduce to about 2 cups. Working in batches, purée in a blender (or with an immersion blender) until smooth. (When puréeing hot liquids in a blender it's best to work with relatively small amounts, filling just maybe a quarter of the blender. Otherwise the pressure can blow the top off the blender and make a hot mess.) Return the sauce and the lamb to the pot and if needed heat until warm through.

 Step 5 is optional...

Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Before serving, stir in the fresh chopped parsley.
Serve the braised lamb over warm farro.

I will let you know how I get on....

The trick is, no matter what you are cooking/ planning to cook never panic, improvise instead!

I saw this recipe through a posting on Facebook and I liked the idea of it. That was enough to make me want to cook it. 

I, as I said before, initially planned to cook as per the recipe but the fennel was missing from my food delivery, so I had to get creative...I know what sort of taste fennel is, it's like an aniseed sort of flavour, so I started thinking about what I did have. I did have the fennel seeds, as per the recipe, and I did have jarred tarragon so I knew I would use those. Again I didn't have the specific fresh herbs listed in the recipe but I did have some other ones, so I went out to my garden and cut myself some oregano, thyme and rosemary, and I knew these would work together so that is what I have used instead.

Here are my ingredients for tonight:

This mentality goes for equipment too, always ask yourself; "what do I have?" rather than the opposite. Think about what you have used in similar recipes which worked well and have the confidence to give it a go. 

More examples: I don't have  a mortar and pestle but I do have a Jamie flavour shaker which I barely ever use so I decided to use that.


I don't have a dutch oven/ on hob casserole pot but I do have but I do have a tagine, and I know how delicious dishes are cooked in my tagine so again thought I'd give it a go.

 

This was delicious. The one tip I have is to add the cream at the end as I found that by adding it with the milk, as it said in the recipe, it curdled somewhat when I did it.