Red wine and lamb stew with herby dumplings

I knew we were going to be out this evening so I took the opportunity a few days ago to do some batch cooking so we could have something tasty and hearty when we got in from this freezing cold weather. I have to admit to having a total sense of humour failure about the continuous Baltic temperatures, but the one major (and only) win about the situation is the continued presence of stews and red wine in my life. Hurrah!

This was escalated today by the last minute addition of dumplings. Taking advantage oh the longevity of suet, that I've had lying around since Christmas. I haven't had dumplings in about 15 years and the question I had tonight was, 'Why on earth have I left it this long?!' They were awesome!

I've cooked this lamb stew before but with lamb shanks, which was delicious. This time I did it with pre-diced lamb from the supermarket, which was fine but I missed having the big chunks of meat which balanced out the rich slightly sharp sauce. If think it might have been nice with lamb steaks too.

Ingredients

400g of diced lamb
1 carrot, finely diced
1 stick of celery, finely diced
1 red onion finely diced
1.5 sprigs of fresh rosemary, chopped
olive oil
1 garlic clove, sliced
50mls balsamic vinegar
250ml red wine
1 tbsp tomato purée
1 tbsp red current jelly
1 tbsp plain flour
Half a chicken or lamb stock cube
For the dumplings
85g Self raising flour
45g veg suet
1/2 tsp of baking powder
handful of parsley
pinch of salt
water

Method

Splash the olive oil into a large heavy based frying pan and add the carrot, celery, onion and rosemary. Pop on a low heat and cook for ages until the veg starts to caramelise and go brown. The rosemary will go fragrant and they will start to look really appetising  Don't cook too fast because they'll burn and turn bitter. Chuck the garlic in for the last minute.

Once the veg are cooked tip into a casserole dish and use the pan to brown the lamb well in batches. Browning meat is all about intense heat and giving the meat room to get really hot without sweltering and sweating. You need to get a good colour and scorch on it to give it flavour and that needs room. If there are brown bits left in the pan tip some cold water in and scratch them off. Tipping the water over the browned lamb which should be added to the casserole with the veg.

Once the lamb and the veg are in the casserole dish stir in the flour and tip over the red wine, balsamic, tomato paste, red current jelly and some salt and pepper. Top up with water if needed to cover the lamb and pop into an oven at 150c for two hours. Once cooked remove the meat and veg from the sauce and reduce down until the sauce is good and tick. At this point I added some water and chicken stock as the flavour was a bit strong but that's up to you.

To make the dumplings blitz the self raising flour, salt and baking powder with suet then add enough water to make a scone like mix. Blitz through the parsley and then form into about 10 balls. Pop back in the oven at 180c for 20 minutes. I then took the stew out of the oven, painted the dumplings with melted butter and popped under a grill until brown.