LAST WEEK I made a wonderful stew with lamb and The herbs and spices were:
Half teespoon ginger
Half teespoon garam masala
Half teespoon each: Tescos Value, Chinese and Jamaican (Mr Brown's) currypowder
2 tablespoons Lea & Perrins Worcester Sauce
About a third of a teaspoon Chinese five spice seasoning
About three teaspoons "chicken seasoning" (salt, 30% paprika, celery... etc)
Home-dried mint leaves
Mixed herbs
Half teaspoon Colmans English Mustard
I cooked it slowly for at least three hours, after which time the lamb was so tender it was literally falling off the bone. It did taste slightly burnt, which I blamed on the new pan...
The next day I reheated it to add my dumplings. Catastrophe! It came back all burnt! Like a liquid barbecue. Ugh. I could only eat the meat (I quite like incinerated meat). But carbonized vegetables are not to my taste.
It wasn't like everything went black or anything like that. Just this horrible burnt flavour pervaded everything. Not nice. And such a shame as otherwise the spicing, the dumplings... everything was perfect.
Where did I go wrong? Was my new pan too thin? Did I reheat too rapidly?
Or did a goblin sneak into my kitchen when I was too busy losing my old broadband down the loo and mess everything up..??!?
PS- You don't think excessive stirring (well, only once every 20 mins - is that excessive??)... you don't think that might have messed it up, do you...??
Gled,
ReplyDeleteYou might have the heat set too high and your new skillet could be to blame. Next time set the heat lower and watch it carefully.
Janice~
I would use simmer to cook for so long. Also stainless steel pans or a crock pot would have helped.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to think it was the goblins Gleds but I'm agreeing with Janice and Syd simmer on a lower setting*!*
ReplyDeleteJanice: I think I must have been too impatient waiting for it to reheat. Shouldn't have used high heat and turned down. Should have used low heat and kept it that way, like I always used to do
ReplyDeleteSyd: it was a stainless steel pan. A very posh looking one, (I thought)... What is a crock pot?
Bimbimbie: I learned to cook stew in a slow cooker ~~ which eventually died of old age. I think I need a good poke through the Argos catalogue to find a new one!
That's a pity, looks so yummy!
ReplyDeleteHi Gleds ~~ I agree with the others -
ReplyDeleteprobably a much lower heat would have helped and once every 20 minutes doesn't sound excessive to me
Thanks for your comments and I remember The Thorn Birds very well and the story of the unfortunate Thorn Bird. I do hope that leg of yours heals quickly - it sounds very painful.
I didn't know that some birds, (swallows or swifts) could only fly from a perch and what an experience your step-mum had getting one to fly from her hands.
Made my sparrow story very plain
and ordinary. Glad you got your Broadband going again. Nice to see
your little hampsters again.
Take care, my friend, Regards, Merle.
Bummer mate, it sounds like a nice dish! I hope your next attempt will go better :-)
ReplyDeleteoh dear ! what a pity ! it seemed to be so yummy !!!
ReplyDeleteMousie getting back little by little...
thanks for your nice words
Gattina: wat lastig! as they say in Dutch!
ReplyDeleteMerle: but I thought your bird was some type of swallow. I wouldn't call it plain or boring. It's certainly a lot more flash than our plain English sparrows
Vincent: I've cooked it loads of times and never once burned it - except here on this cooker in this new pan, which is why I thought the pan must have something to do with it. The finger of suspicion is now pointing to my own impatience. Turning the heat to max, then turning it low again was obviously NOT the thing to do...
Mousie: welcome back!
Encore bienvenue! (Is that right?)
If you're cooking it on the hob you need to stir it a lot more often and keep the heat low. Personally I would start it off on the hob then transfer it to an ovenproof dish and cook it in the oven for a couple of hours. Shame it burnt, it sounds tasty.
ReplyDeleteI've never burnt it before.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm going to buy a slow cooker. That's where I learned to cook hotpot, and I never went wrong in one of those...
This looks like a real winter warmer.
ReplyDeleteIt WOULD have been really nice. And I've never burnt it before, in the 20 or so times I've made it...
ReplyDelete