Recipe: Ground Lamb Stew

Recipe Source: Mesfin, D. J.  Exotic Ethiopian Cooking.  Ethiopian Cookbook Enterprises, Falls Church, 2004 p. 108. 

I feel kind of funny calling this an Ethiopian dish, despite the source.  My biggest complaint about this book is all the ingredients that I simply cannot find here.  Sometimes, as in the "bishop's weed" mentioned in the original version of this recipe, I simply omit it.  (Someone is going to let me know that "bishop's weed" is just another term for cilantro, aren't they?  Fine, fine.  I can take it.)  And sometimes, in the case of the awaze called for in the original, I have to make substitutions.  Awaze is just red pepper paste.  The book has a recipe for awaze that calls for 15 pounds of New Mexico chilies.  Really.  If I could find New Mexico chilies in such quantity for a non-exorbitant price, I would cheerfully make it.  Since I can't, I substituted a Korean red pepper paste that I happened to have on hand.  It didn't have all the herbs and spices included in the original, and I probably should have found some way of approximating them, but I didn't. 

I halved the original recipe, since there are only two of us.  I also changed out ground beef for ground lamb.  The price was the same that day at Whole Foods, at least to get it in the quantity I needed, and I really prefer the flavor of lamb.  I reduced the amount of butter still more, and I omitted the spicing of the butter.  While I'd like to try the spiced butter sometime, we don't tend to use butter in most of our cooking so it would probably go to waste.  I used fresh ginger in place of the powdered ginger and I increased the amounts of both ginger and cardamom.  I also made a few procedural changes to avoid setting off the smoke alarm. 

So ultimately, my ground lamb stew bears almost no resemblance to the original zigni wet that I started with.  It's still probably the fastest stew you'll ever make, and while I couldn't call it "hot" despite the label on the jar of pepper paste it was still full of flavor.  Serve this up with some bread to dip in the juices. 

Ground Lamb Stew (serves 2; approx. $2.66/serving)

1/2 pound ground lamb

1 red onion, chopped

1/4 cup Korean hot red pepper paste

1 cup water

1/4 cup butter

1 teaspoon cardamom

2 tablespoons minced ginger

Kosher salt to taste

Equipment:

• Large saute pan or wok

1. Melt the butter in the wok.
2. Add the onions and saute until browned and softened.
3. Add the red pepper paste, water and a little bit of salt. 
4. Sprinkle the ground lamb into the pan, stirring. 
5. Add the cardamom and ginger.
6. Cook until the meat is done.
7. Serve. 

Comments

[Chris]

I was meant to see this. I have a lb of ground lamb in the fridge right now and a jar of something my inlaws brought back from Spain called "Mojo Artesano Destiladera" that looks like some kind of red pepper paste (picon shcarf hot is on the label with a picture of a pepper). I might just have to give it a shot;)

[Fearless Kitchen]

Chris,

Actually, the Spanish pepper paste might work even better than the Korean. Let me know how it turns out, please!