As I've mentioned before, it is not always possible to find lamb cuts here and even rarer to find any that resemble a British lamb chop. However, the costate available in the supermarket last weekend were pretty near so I decided to buy some to try out a recipe idea I had:
Long ago, when, back in Britain, I cooked my way through Valentina Harris's Southern Italian Cooking, I learnt that lamb and olives are a good combination and for a while now, I've been wondering if I could use black olive pâté, which we can buy cheaply in tubes here, in a lamb dish. This is what I did:
Heat 3 tablesp olive oil in a fairly deep pan and cook the lamb chops on all sides. [I used 6 for 2 people as there tends to be less meat on the cuts available here.] When the lamb is brown, add a roughly chopped red onion with 2 chopped red peppers and continue cooking until these soften. Then add 1 tablesp black olive pâté plus 1 tablesp 'strattu [tomato paste, not purée] and stir everything around until both are dissolved. Now add 5 ml white wine, two or three large, unpeeled potatoes, cut into cubes, and season to taste. For me any dish containing lamb and potatoes also has to contain rosemary so I added a few sprigs and some fresh thyme while I was at it. Put the lid on the pan and simmer for 1 hour, stirring now and then and adding a little water if necessary.
Serve with a green salad to which you have added fresh mint.
8 comments:
Hello Pat , I love Lamb and this seems like a great dish to do for this time of year. I know we can get Olive Pate here .. but not sure about Stattu .. but we have a new deli here, selling Italian foods, just maybe !!
Hope you are well and little Simi x
Simply irresistible! We had a dish in my hometown, a casserole of lamb and potatoes, with rosemary sprigs, olives, onions and a glass of white wine. The casserole is sealed with foil and baked for an hour. Your dish takes me right back to those times.
It sounds an interesting combination.
Molto Mediterranean. Don't suppose you'd get out the mint sauce for that
It's so amusing. I googled "Where to buy Olive Pâté?". And it sent me to Sicily Scene and your recipe. I'm on my way to your store, Pat!
Of course, I'm sure I'll find it here. And for Stattu, I'll use Hunt tomato paste. Your recipe is fantastic. I'm adding it to my collection. Merci, mon amie!
My parents who live in Italy do miss lamb. You can get hold of older mutton but even that's fairly rare.
I love lamb, and olives and cooking with wine, so all in all sounds yummy. I'm going to try it now.
Hi, Anne. You should be able to get Greek tomato paste there. Glad you like the idea of the dish. x Hi, Rosaria. Your dish sounds wonderful, too. Thanks, Cherie. I don't think so, WW!
Hi, Claude. That is funny! I am, again, flattered. Hi, Daydreamer. I am honoured that you want to try the dish.
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