oh my word, made the most delicious lamb casserole on the weekend...

[OhBling]

If anyone is interested, I can provide full exact recipe but in a nutshell:

Lamb shoulder cut into chunks (not too generous per person) browned and removed to a casserole/baking dish.

Then add chopped onions and garlic, fry for a minute then add about a teaspoon each of cumin and coriander, then a bit of flour, which once absorbed pour in (slowly) one cup cup stock and a tin chopped tomatoes and half a cup wine (which I'd added together). When boiling, add a tablespoon of honey, a tablespoon of tomatoe paste, a stick of cinnamon and a couple of bay leaves.

Pour over the lamb with one small chopped and peeled butternut, cover and put in oven at 160 for 75 minutes. Then open, stir and put in a tin of drained chickpeas and cook again for 30 minutes.

Oh my word. Meat was tender. Sauce was sticky and delicious. And definitely felt that the 380g of meat could easily have done three people rather.

[the butternut almost disappears, so if you prefer chunks I guess you could put it in with the chickpeas and cook for a bit longer]

Ooh, that sounds good! I would love the recipe please!

Yum - will try it this weekend. Did you serve with bread/couscous/rice?

Couscous AND rice! - we had rice left over but enough so used couscous for seconds.

King - will try remember to bring exact recipe tomorrow. You can probably wing it with what I've got but the exact one is probably easier.

that's "not enough" rice so couscous for seconds.

Ooh, sorry, one thing - all the amounts I've given are as per the recipe, except for the meat as DH and I halved the recipe for ourselves. So actually, I'd say use at least 600g meat and as per the rest I've written and that would feed four people.

Ok, I may try to wing it - although I am not very good at that, I am a bit of a disaster area in the kitchen sometimes

I'll do the full recipe for you - I promise. Might take me a day or two to be at home with the recipe, but will do it!

Aww, thanks Bling! It sounds really nice, I love chick peas and don't think they are utilised often enough!

in that case, I'll dazzle you with the chickpea "curry" recipe out of the same book...

Ooohh.. that sounds great too! DD and I both love chickpeas and curry so I could make it for our next "'grown ups' stay up late with a movie" night

This all sounds very niceWhich book are you using OhBling?

Also, I'd be cooking for 5 (feels like 5000 some days), I'd have to up the quantities?

OhBling - that sounds delicious - I'm going to put it on my list for next week!!

I think the original recipe would EASILY feed five. So all the ingredients as I've aid, and then an appropriate amount of meat for five. But we found that the sauce is so thick and yummy, we didn't need too much meat. We had just under 200g each and found it way too much.

Can't remember the book but it's a SA one that you can't buy here - a friend recommended it for when I was home.

Thank you Bling! The sauce part sounds so delicious

Might it be nice with chickpeas in - if you wanted to use less meat and bulk it out a bit?

It already has chickpeas - probably why we did find the meat too much.

Ah. Memo to self - read the OP properly before posting.

I was wondering if I had shown myself up by missreading the op!

How about lentils, I love them too, do you think you could add a few and reduce the meat?

The sauce is very thick and heavy, I'm not convinced about lentils instead of chickpeas. I'd say rather just up the chickpeas. But overall, between the chickpeas, the butternut and the sauce, it doesn't need much bulking up anyway -it's made to use less meat in the first place.

I didn't mean to bulk it, just to use lentils cause I like them

I may try it twice, once with chickpeas and once with lentils to see how it goes! (I am actually excited at the prospect of cooking for once!)

I cooked this today, but left out the chickpeas as I'm not keen on them. It was gorgeous and even very fussy dd2 ate it and enjoyed it (although I did tell her that the squash was carrot ).

I cooked it for longer than you said (3 hrs on gas 2) as I went out and left it in the oven. I then stuck it in the hostess trolley before giving it to the dds at 5pm and then dh and I had it at 7.30pm. I served it with rice pilaf for dh and I - yum.

Big, big hit, I can see this becoming a regular in our house - thank you!

So pleased! I'm about to start making big batches for freezing!

OhBling, what's the name of the cook book? My friend is going to SA for the Easter holidays and if possible I would like her to get me a copy of the book.

It's called Fabulous Food by Lyn Bedford Hall.

I was just looking and there are some Amazon sellers who sell it too here. But should be easily available at any good book shop in SA. Not the cheapest cook book you will ever buy - books in SA are very expensive (they claim it's the import taxes but that theory falls over when it's a South African book! That's another issue for another day though). It's about R220 which is about £17.