Lamb Casserole with Olives
Lamb cooked slowly with green olives, lemon and rosemary — a Mediterranean casserole classic.
- Time
- 120 minutes
- Serves
- 4
- Level
- Medium
- Cuisine
- Mediterranean
Lamb and green olives meet on both shores of the Mediterranean — from Morocco to Crete, from southern Italy to the Aegean. The reason is straightforward: lamb has a distinctive, slightly fatty and assertive character, and the salt of green olives, the acid of lemon and the resinous scent of rosemary balance that assertiveness.
The difference from beef is time: lamb is younger meat and gives way in seventy-five minutes rather than two hours. Overcooked, it shreds and loses the very quality that makes it lamb.
Directions
- Bring the meat to room temperature and pat it dry — wet meat steams instead of browning.
- Heat the olive oil well in a casserole and sear the lamb in batches until browned on all sides.
- Add the onion and garlic and cook for 5 minutes.
- Add the rosemary, thyme and bay leaf; pour in the hot water and bring to the boil.
- Cover and cook over low heat for 75 minutes.
- Add the olives, lemon zest and juice, and cook a further 20 minutes.
- Serve hot with bread or bulgur pilaf.
Tips & storage
Adjust the salt at the END. The olives release salt into the liquid, so salting early makes it too salty — the easiest mistake to make in this recipe.
Let the meat come to room temperature. Cold meat straight from the fridge drops the pan temperature and will not sear. Twenty to thirty minutes is enough.
Drying is the condition of browning. Wet meat boils. Pat it thoroughly dry with kitchen paper; this step decides whether the sear succeeds.
Add the lemon zest late. Zest simmered a long time turns bitter. Going in for the last twenty minutes preserves its aroma and avoids that bitterness.
Use rosemary on the stem. Chopped rosemary stays dominant and needle-like over seventy-five minutes; a whole sprig added and removed at the end leaves its aroma without ending up on the plate.
Don't skim the fat. The lamb fat rising to the surface is part of the sauce; take it off and the dish dries. If it bothers you, chill it and lift off some of the set fat.
Storage. Three days in the fridge. Lamb reheats well, preferably over low heat.
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