How to cook lamb stew

When winter comes, everyone’s favorite thing is to eat a pot of warm mutton soup. Lamb is not only high in protein, but also high in semi-saturated fatty acids. It also has a stomach-warming effect and has many benefits to the human body, so it is very popular among people. But in fact, mutton is not only delicious when made into soup, but it is also very delicious when braised. But many people don’t know how to cook braised lamb and always feel that it won’t taste good. So how should braised lamb be cooked to make it delicious?

Braised lamb recipe and steps

1. Prepare the ingredients: 2.5 pounds of lamb chops with skin, onions, ginger, garlic, green garlic leaves, a handful of peppercorns, aniseed, cinnamon, bay leaves, 2 tablespoons of cooking wine, 2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of light soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of rock sugar, chicken essence, and salt.

2. Rinse the blood on the surface of the mutton with running water, put it in a large basin, and soak it in clean water for half an hour. Change the water two or three times during this period. After the blood in the mutton is soaked out, wash it, drain it and set it aside. Put clean water in the pot, put the mutton in the cold water, cook over medium-high heat without covering the lid. After boiling, simmer for another five minutes on low heat. After blanching, remove the mutton, rinse it with running water, and drain.

3. Chop green garlic into sections, smash ginger, tie onions into knots, and put garlic, bay leaves, aniseed, cinnamon and peppercorns into tea bags.

4. Heat a small amount of oil in a pan, sauté onions, ginger and garlic; pour in mutton cubes and stir-fry until fragrant.

5. Add enough water to cover the lamb; add 2 tablespoons of cooking wine.

6. Add two tablespoons of dark soy sauce and one tablespoon of light soy sauce; add the spice bag.

7. Add one tablespoon of rock sugar. Cover the pot, bring to a boil over high heat, then turn to low heat and simmer for about two hours until the mutton is completely tender and tasty. Open the lid and turn to high heat to thicken the soup, add a little chicken essence and a pinch of salt to adjust the taste, sprinkle with green garlic leaves, cover the pot and simmer for one minute (this will make the green garlic leaves greener and more fragrant), then open the lid and serve.

   Tips:

1. The role of Sichuan pepper here is to effectively remove the fishy smell from mutton. Don’t worry about the dish having a strong pepper flavor. In fact, the finished product has no pepper flavor at all. You can choose to cook the following ingredients with mutton to remove the fishy smell of mutton: pepper, radish, sugar cane, hawthorn, tea leaves;

2. When blanching mutton, do not cover the pot so that the odor in the mutton can be dissipated during the blanching process. If the lid is covered, the fishy smell emitted from the mutton after heating will be stewed back into the mutton. Meats with strong flavors should be blanched uncovered. Add enough water at one time and do not open the lid or add water in the middle.

3. When choosing mutton, it is best to choose goat meat with skin, which has less mutton smell. Hu sheep meat has a stronger mutton smell. Choose lamb chops or lamb legs with skin, as lamb with skin is more nutritious. Choose mutton that is light red in color and elastic to the touch, as it is relatively fresh.

4. A sure-fire way to remove the odor of stewed lamb: use white radish to help remove the odor. First, poke holes in large pieces of white radish with chopsticks and put them into the mutton and simmer together. When the meat starts to soften, remove the radish and add the white radish again and continue stewing. The large piece of radish with holes used at the beginning can absorb the mutton smell and can be taken out and not used, thus greatly reducing the mutton smell.