On Saturday, I stopped in at Wellington Farm Shop on the way down to my parents to look for something interesting to cook for Sunday dinner. Wellington Farm Shop is a fantastic farm shop just outside Reading, stocking fresh meat, veg, cheese, and a variety of other cooking goodies. There’s a little cafe there too which I must put on my list to grab a snack at one day.
I’d been reading a bit about mutton over the previous few days and was pleasantly surprised to spy some on the meat counter, next to some pork, leek and ginger sausages I just couldn’t resist (looking forward to them later this week). I picked up about 500g of mutton and headed onwards to decide what to do with it.
Trawling the web for ideas, I came across a recipe for Mutton Cawl (a kind of Welsh stew) from a mutton specialists. After a couple of tweaks simply down to what I had in the cupboard, I settled on the recipe below:
500g cubed mutton
200g smoked bacon lardons
2 onions coarsely chopped
4 carrots
2 parsnips
1 small swede
1 pint vegetable stock
12 peppercorns, 4 cloves, 1 bayleaf and 1 sprig of thyme
2 large potatoes peeled and cubed
4 Leeks sliced
Salt and pepper to season
Method.
1. Brown the meat well, in a large pan.
2. Pour off the excess fat, then add all the vegetables, except potatoes and leeks.
3. Add the stock, peppercorns, cloves, and bay leaf and simmer for about 3 hours (mine ended up being about 4 1/2 hours but if anything it made it even more tender)
4. Add the potatoes and leeks Bring back to the boil then simmer for another 30 mins.
I served it as below with think chunks of crusty bread, in deep bowls, and it tasted magnificent. The mutton just melted as you ate it, the long slow cooking rendering out all the fat and just leaving it tender and delicious.
Mutton cawl
For a first venture into mutton I was very pleased with the results, and will definitely be revisiting Wellington to buy some more and try a mutton curry next!
Tagged: mutton