Recipe: Lamb and Mushroom Ragu

This used up the last bits of meat hanging from a leg I bought earlier in the week – three meals from one leg! This turned out to have a very deep flavour with very little effort – I just threw the ingredients in a casserole and used the oven – no browning the meat or sweating the onions!

Being frugal I put the bones in with the Ragu – to waste little (there is no room in the freezer  for stock) and to add flavour!

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 500g Lamb – I used leg
• 1 Onion – chopped
• 3 cloves garlic- crushed
• 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary,
• 1 tsp. dried Oregano
• 1 stick of Cinnamon
• S&P
• 2 tbsp. Olive Oil
• 150g sliced chestnut mushrooms
• 1 x 400g tin of plum tomatoes
• 200 ml red wine
• Water – to top up

Heat the oven to 180C

In a casserole add the meat (plus any lamb bones you have), onion, garlic, rosemary Oregano, Cinnamon and S&P.  Pour over the olive oil and stir then when the oil is well mixed in place in the oven for 45 minutes – stirring twice.

Then add all the rest of the ingredients  – topping up with the water so the liquid just covers the ingredients, put on  a lid and back in the oven it goes – for another 11/2 or 2 hours.

Take out of the oven – and using a ladle or spoon, take out any fat that is lying on the surface and the bones – use a fork to get the last morsels of the bones if they haven’t dropped off already –  and the cinnamon stick.

It should be very gloopy and rich – I use penne pasta, but you could use rice, wet polenta or mashed potato.

Cooked on Thursday 21st December 2017