Celebrate Oven Season With A Bowl Of Succulent Lamb Stew And Polenta

Hello my baby little lambs. It's Carla and you know what it is? It's oven season so I am getting ready to make a stew. And what is a stew if not a kind of a wet braise that you eat in a bowl? That's what I came to because I know that people have debated stew versus soup but I really think that like a stew is a braise and so we're gonna braise some lamb. It's gonna be in a delicious liquid. It is really easy. I'm starting with some lamb stew meat which I went into the butcher they had lamb stew meat already cut and I was like where is it cut from and he said the leg and I said this is at Paisano's of course the greatest butcher on Smith Street in Brooklyn and I said do you have any cut from the shoulder and he said do you want me to cut some from the shoulder and I said yes please and he said will you wait a few minutes and I said of course and he went back and he cut me shoulder meat. The reason I wanted shoulder was just it's a little bit fattier and we love fat in this house. Fat is flavor. Fat is also going to give like really beautiful texture and it's gonna like enrich the braising liquid in a way but if you don't have a Paisano's just get lamb stew meat and that will be fine. All right so I'm gonna salt and pepper and this could be done like a couple days in advance if you wanted to. If you do say your market trip on Friday afternoon and you have your stew on Sunday supper you could just like knock this out. The other seasoning that I'm doing is coriander seed which they're so bouncy. Look what happens but I'm just gonna crush these. I don't want to bite into a whole one and if you crush the pod open they'll kind of start to fall apart in the stew. If you don't have coriander you could use cumin. You could definitely use fennel seed. If you didn't have fennel but you had anise you could substitute that. If you didn't want to use black pepper you could use a red pepper. So I have my crushed coriander and I'll do half on this side and like coriander and lamb cilantro and lamb those flavors go really well together. I'm kind of doing another little it's not a cheat it's just a strategy of using another very flavor packed ingredient that's going to deliver a lot of other spice so I can keep this simple and that's this lamb merguez that's also going to go into the into the stew. So I'm just going to toss these over. Hands are for doing things we love that. I was talking to Ross who you guys know from other videos my coach I was like should I get a hand tattoo next like a palm tattoo and he said not great if you do if you keep doing kettlebells and lifting your hand tattoo is going to get messed up because hands are for doing things therefore I don't think I'll be getting a palm tattoo. I have a feeling there's going to be more tattoos just don't know where. Okay so second side for three pounds of meat you would be aiming for about three teaspoons or one tablespoon of salt. I don't feel like measuring it it's just going to look like very well seasoned. I'm seasoning my entire cutting board as we go and that's that. We'll do another little tossy toss. Okay great the step after the seasoning is the browning and I'm going to use the browning time to do other prep. I'm not going to front load all that prep when I could just get this into my dutch oven. So this is a six to seven quart somewhere in there dutch oven. You want a heavy pot with a lid if you don't have a dutch oven but you have another kind of heavy pot with a lid that is what you want to choose and this braise I'm actually going to do in the oven. So I'm putting the oven to 325. Join me while we pause briefly to once again talk about my bra and how happy my boobs are right now. You guys know that I'm like multi-talented and multi-faceted right because I can host and I can write but what you might not know about me is that I am also the sound guy on my videos and one thing anyone who has been felt up by a sound guy knows you want to be wearing a bra if someone's going to clip a mic onto you and even though I'm clipping the mic onto myself I need the bra and I need the architecture of the bra to create what we call around here the chamber of secrets. See see down below that is tucked behind the center of the bra we're in the valley here and my wire my mic wire is actually threading underneath tucking back up here going around the back that's a lot of architecture for something that I don't even know that I'm wearing that is not slipping off my shoulders that is not puckering and bunching not only do you not see the microphone I don't think I think you would just think that these were my natural boobs and what a day today would be. So I've got my favorite new bra the fits everybody plunge bra this is the one I'm wearing the most right now although they've all been winners it just feels like nothingness it's also that sheer stretchy buttery nice one no no digging no line we don't have a line here no and it's an underwire but do you see gapping no you don't see gapping you see flush this is what everybody wants their bra to feel like I'm wearing it under the quite snug and fantastic fits everybody t-shirt the reason it's called skims fits everybody is because all of these garments are engineered to be like proportionally excellent and architecturally excellent and comfortable excellent they also fit everybody because they're all available in sizes 30a to 46h so that is the range and the design that fits everybody but why should I be the only one who is comfortable and happy and not hating on her bra I want everyone to feel that way so clearly as soon as you watch this you are going to go to skims.com you're going to order some fits everybody and when you do please make sure they know that I sent you so choose youtube from the little drop down menu and then choose my channel carla's cooking show for the show and that way skims will know that I sent you and we will be bosom buddies forever more and if you're looking for the perfect gift for the whole family skims.com just launched their biggest holiday shop ever also available at skims.com me and my boobs are gonna go brown some meat so let's get back to the show preheat a pan good amount of olive oil especially if you're using all like leg of lamb meat which is leaner and I'm gonna work in batches and the meat can be there it can be touching each other but just don't pile it on top of each other because it will create too much steam and you won't get nice browning and what's funny is as I am like coming over here and I'm squeezing my tongs and I'm going over there and I'm coming over here and I'm coming over here guess what's not slipping my bra straps safe secure in place so depending on like the real estate of the bottom of your dutch oven this is gonna take like two to three batches but normally what happens is that it's rolling and browning and some people pieces are coming out sooner than others so as they come out I'll put more meat in and just keep like fueling the fire and while I do that I'm gonna get my basic braising vegetables going so for the veggies I want them in kind of a medium dice you don't have to be completely crazy about it or too perfect about it because I'm gonna kind of mash them down when they're nice and soft and the vegetables are gonna thicken the braising liquid in the end but try to get them around even sizes so that they cook at a similar rate all my veggies are done the lamb is still going so the other little bit of prep that I'm gonna do up at the top here this is merguez merguez is a lamb sausage it is usually spiced with some kind of spicy chili cumin sometimes oregano um delicious has a lot of flavor also sometimes has like uh more of a sweet spice like allspice black pepper so very aromatic very delicious sometimes they're gonna come in a coil like this sometimes they're gonna come more like your traditional looking you know like four ounce shorter link um and if you cannot find merguez I would substitute with a fresh chorizo so not like a smoked and cured Spanish chorizo but a fresh Mexican chorizo and I'm just gonna take off the casing because what I'm looking for is really for the meat to be there as flavoring as additional fat almost like I'm using it as an aromatic ingredient and I don't want the casing like to harden in the stew and I don't even want like necessarily to know that there's pieces of sausage in there so obviously if you're in a butcher that has merguez without the casing this will save you that tiny and kind of gross step last batch of lamb is coming out beautifully and brown and now that we're in the bottom of the pan you can see like there's really beautiful brown drippings and you want all of this this is going to dissolve and become part of the base of the stew I'm actually going to bring the heat down to medium and start building the base of the stew with the mirepoix so we adjusted the camera angle over here but you know what I didn't have to adjust my bra straps because they're exactly where I want them to be okay warm pot over medium now first thing I'm going to do is add that merguez out of the casing pressing down on the sausage to kind of smash it break it into smaller pieces I want to turn it into like a flavorful meat paste that flavors up this fat and melds with the vegetables when they get added and if you get a bite of merguez in the finished stew it's going to be like this little silky tiny like nubbin and I'm going to cook this until the sausage is brown so the sausage could not look better as far as I'm concerned and you know what goes great with lamb is anchovy so this is going to add depth to our stew and saltiness it's just really complimentary with lamb with all of these seasonings and the saltiness of it and the umami of the anchovy you're not going to know what's there it's a classic combo but also like this veg this carrot onion celery is going to deliver quite a bit of sweetness so having this base layer of of spiciness having this base of saltiness is really important for for balance and it's just a single ingredient that's going to pay really pay off okay so now this is this like freaking incredible looking sludge that honestly I would put on a piece of toast and eat the way it is this is what the mirepoix goes into and I'm going to season the veg with a little salt I'm kind of relying on the rest of the spices I guess I could put black pepper but in this moment I don't feel like it but I do need to salt those vegetables coat them with fat get everybody warmed up we've been in the steaming era and like leaning into the beauty of building up pressure and building up steam it's a good volume of vegetables and I want it really cooked down and tender throwing the lid on and again I'm over lower heat than I was when I was browning the lamb and this is going to take about 15 minutes to get to where I want it to be which is like smushable 15 minutes has elapsed oh veg has come down a lot from where it was originally still like really juicy in there there's no danger of burning and then I'm just going to use the spoon to like smush yeah carrots are smushable which is what we want I want a smushable carrot this is like jump starting the cooking process it's also obviously about flavor development getting all of those flavors like osmosis into the vegetables themselves the vegetables have released a lot of their liquid a couple tablespoons of tomato paste and I'm going to cook this until really till the vegetables are coated with the tomato paste and I'm seeing the color darken just a tiny bit takes like two minutes so now I've got two cups of wine in the recipe I call for white wine which is what I used in the first version I thought I had another random bottle of white wine I did not but I did have a random bottle of like really light-bodied rosé that has been sitting in the house for no less than eight years so great time to use that up and I'm going to bring this up to a boil and just cook off like some of that winey flavor briefly before adding the lamb back in so now the lamb with any of the juices that are on the tray are going to go back in here I'm getting all of that off and I want to add enough additional liquid which I'm just going to use water if you happen to have some chicken stock that you want to use you definitely throw it in there or beef stock or veg stock whatever but I'm adding liquid to come right up underneath the top layer of the lamb so almost submerging it and that's going to make sure that all of the lamb is like touching liquid in a wet braise when it's in the oven as it cooks it's going to lose volume as well so the oven is at 325 before I go directly into the oven I need to see this liquid back at a simmer if I were to just go straight into the oven because it's at a moderate temperature it would just take so long for it to simmer that said while it's cooking every half hour or so I want to go in I want to take the lid off and I want to make sure that my braise is not at a rolling boil because a rolling boil is going to be too much evaporation too quickly and can make the meat get tough so it needs to be at a simmer before going in you know this dutch oven is a little oven and every dutch oven is going to be slightly different so you have make sure that the oven inside the oven is also at a moderate temperature let's take a look at the lamb how it should look when it is ready yes my mascara didn't melt and my bra straps didn't slip so I'm winning all right so what I want to see the liquid has changed color there is enough liquid the vegetables are super soft everything is falling apart and then the lamb if you're to take like a piece of tongs and just squeeze you want to see that shred shreddy this has a piece of collagen holding it together so you want to get to that point where it's totally pulley a party but still is juicy you shouldn't really need a fork to eat this whole dish with the plant and everything and just because this is screaming hot right now I'm going to set it to the side and I'm going to get my polenta into the oven so this polenta method don't need to be whisking stovetop the entire time start it up here boiling water add the polenta a lot of polenta recipes that you've maybe seen in the past or been like intimidated by or even the idea of polenta is having to whisk and thing and babysit and stir the entire time you really don't have to so I'm just gonna season this water a little salt and pepper and the ratio that I use is one cup polenta to five cups liquid I like using water polenta cooked in milk to me is like it's just too it's too fatty it's too heavy but like I like my oatmeal cooked in water too so this could be broth but I really think it's just totally great just with seasoned salt and pepper water the only trick with this is do not buy quick cooking polenta because it'll cook in five minutes and you'll just end up with sludge I think regular polenta tastes better and that's why I use it the other thing I'm done here is raise the oven temperature up to 350 we're at a simmer so this is your active time right now whisking the polenta into the boiling water make sure it's all in there so we're boiling away tight fitting lid this is off and this goes in lamb out polenta in so I'm going to finish the lamb and come back okay hot stew coming right up I'm going to take the lamb pieces out so that I can smash up the veg I'm not going to be absolute in either department so if some veg comes out with the lamb that's okay if some smaller pieces of lamb stay in this liquid that is also okay and as I take the lamb out it's just like some of them are just like this guy is just like falling apart that's what you want when it's like cold you just want I don't know you just don't want a lot of utensils you just want a spoon because you're upset and you probably shouldn't be holding sharp objects because it's dark out and it's upsetting great so these are gonna sit here for a sec and then the next thing I'm gonna do is skim some of this fat if you were making your braise ahead which is a fantastic idea and something great to do you could skip skimming when it's hot chill it all of the fat is going to rise to the top it will solidify and then you can just take it off like a little fatty saucer but that's not what I'm doing strain this refrigerate that gorgeous and then this next part like I want things to kind of hold together and be a little creamier and the texture of this is very like piecey with pieces of vegetable sort of suspended in brothiness if you like it that way you can skip this part I'm just using a potato masher to go in and kind of crush that veg up so it makes the broth have more of a puree texture like a little veggie puree puree and it will help thicken it as well with the lamb itself I'm just going to return it to the pot and any like especially big ones I might just pull apart it's hot but seeing all of the feeling that they're going to have and now and now I crave the feeling of burning hot lamb in my hands so I can feel something again lamb back in okay so now this feels together like the lamb is in pieces there's body to the liquid it's not crazy fatty anymore this is amazing and delicious so we're gonna set this guy aside so even though this has polenta I was craving like a not Italian sort of finishing flavor and that's why the merguez is in there and that's why for a finisher something cool something creamy something herby something bright is going to be like such a nice way to finish off a nice rich stew so I'm starting with a cup this is like just shy of a cup this container of plain yogurt not Greek so I want something that's like a little more fluid if you already have like a big container of Greek yogurt in the house of course use it maybe add a couple tablespoons of water to it so that it's a little bit closer to this texture so to this teaspoon of Aleppo or any mild chili flake that you want to use I have an entire shallot which this could just as easily be half of a small red onion which you do the same thing too so I'm gonna dice this I went back and forth about like slicing or dicing I wanted the little like bite of the shallot and I didn't want a floppy slice so I went with dice I'm like in the habit now of just buying a bag of shallots at a time when I see them because I don't always see them so if I do it's just nice to have them around and they're so good in bitter grass and they're like smaller than onions so I feel like I waste less and then finally I've got a mix of tender herbs dill mint and parsley it could be dill or mint or parsley it could be dill and mint it could be mint and parsley it could be only one okay I'm gonna fold this all together and once it sits for a few minutes the shallots gonna release some liquid so this is gonna like open back up again and be more dollopy but again you can always adjust that with a little water and I'm gonna give it a taste mmm yum it's really good a little bit of vinegar love the mint love these three herbs together it's very salty it's sour it's got the sharpness it's got the brightness I love the texture I'm gonna add a little bit of sugar just to round out the edges and help balance some of that sourness but like really a small amount of sugar and if you don't want to add it don't and if you want to put a drop of honey in it you could do that okay we love joining us for stew enjoyment ceremony is young cosmo this is the oven polenta and it has to be whisked so it's gonna come out of the oven looking like separating like too much liquid is on top like that crazy woman did it to me again or it's like that peanut butter before you mix it think about it like that because who doesn't like peanut butter natural peanut butter natural peanut butter you feel strongly about this ladle I feel incredibly strongly about this ladle I think that it makes me feel like it's so much cooler than I am the two ounce ladle the power of the two ounce ladle I just feel like I just feel like I have so much power you know what I mean I'm like yeah you get the food but you don't I don't know what it is um no but I feel like I need like a hairnet I said that said it before and I'll say it again that looks like a good amount this guy looks like they have less but that's okay okay then I forgot to do this part here take a spoon we'll each taste this taste the liquid and let me know if you feel like it could use a little dash of um vinegar dash of vin here I'm gonna put a dash of it in mine okay here come on over and see if you like with the vinegar yeah I'll keep mine with that no van okay great and now do you want the the tangy dollop I'll partake in that I'm not a man to decline such a generous offer this is the part where I need you to give me honesty because when I when I developed this I served it for our dinner and you took a couple bites and I looked at you and I said you don't like it and you were like no no no it's great I just feel a little funky right now funky alley but but but I don't but I don't think that was what was your feeling then and are you still feeling it now um what can't they'll do well you know those videos of guys and they have like the frequency things and they're like yeah that sound is so cool that I get that how do you feel about the dollop great podcast oh this one this one's good too I also like how tender it is tender the the lamb the lamb it's cold outside the oven is on the oven does double duty the oven makes stew the oven makes polenta we make a dollop everything is tender the hearts are tender the children are tender and their little minds are so tender one more thing when babies are just born yeah also have very tender skulls that's a fact no for real I want to know is it something you like or not it doesn't have to be but is it something you like I like it