Week 20: Spezzatino Di Agnello E Patate (Lamb and Potato Stew)

"Make this stew in early spring, on a day when the weather is chilly and damp. The spicy sauce will warm you right up."

My friend CK wanted to come visit this weekend from downstate (near St. Louis), and she wanted to see some of our other friends and go watch our softball team play Friday afternoon and two games Saturday. The weather forecast was for high temperatures in the mid-30s with a chance of snow and rain, so she said if the games got snowed out, we could watch basketball and I could fix soup. She added that she loves soup. I asked her what kind(s) she likes (and doesn't like), but then I said maybe it would be easier if we looked through my Soup cookbooks when she got here and picked something out then. 

She arrived Friday afternoon, and that evening when we returned from dinner with some of our friends, she looked through The Glorious Soups and Stews of Italy, and she was intrigued by a couple of the Christmas soups, but I encouraged her to look through Chapter 4: Primavera (Recipes for Spring) instead. She said it feels more like winter as cold as it is, so I suggested she look through the Spring soups and if she didn't find one she wanted to try, then she could look through the winter chapter (but not pick one with Christmas in the name). She found the perfect Spring stew for a chilly and damp day: Spezzatino Di Agnello E Patate (Lamb and Potato Stew). We read through the whole recipe (as I've learned to do) and added up how long we thought it would take to cook so we could plan our weekend activities accordingly. We were going to go grocery shopping for the ingredients Saturday morning so we'd have that done before the first softball game at noon. We decided to plan to eat around 7:00 Saturday evening, so we thought I should start cooking around 4:30. CK asked if I have a Dutch oven, in which the recipe said to make the stew, and I said I wasn't sure. I pulled out a big pot and asked if that's a Dutch oven, and she said no, it would be a heavy cast iron pot, which I said I didn't have, but I could go get one while we were out shopping for groceries.

This morning we went to Farm King and I bought a Lodge Dutch oven (which I was almost as excited to get as I was the dark green anti-gravity lawn chair I found on the way to the kitchen aisle on sale at an amazing discount!). We then went to the HyVee and started out in the produce aisle where I got celery, carrots, and Yukon gold yellow-fleshed potatoes. I realized I hadn't read closely enough to see that the garlic cloves were to be passed through a garlic press, which I don't have, but CK said I could get minced garlic instead. As I went to get canned whole tomatoes, I read the recipe more closely and it said they were to be "passed through a food mill fitted with the plate with medium-sized holes," which I don't have, so CK said to get diced tomatoes. I found diced Italian Style Tomatoes, and the recipe called for two cups, but the cans were each 14.5 oz. instead of 16, so CK said to get two cans and save the almost full can of unused tomatoes for another time. We went looking for oregano in the spice aisle (along with red pepper flakes, which we got), but then we realized it was supposed to be minced fresh oregano, so back to the produce/fresh herbs aisle we went to find that. The recipe called for minced fresh flat-leaf parsley, and I remembered I still had enough of that left from last weekend's Asparagus Soup, and CK said that should still be fresh enough to use. The recipe called for "boneless lamb stew meat (leg or shoulder), cut into 1-inch cubes," so we went to the meat counter to ask if they have lamb, and they pointed us to the case that has the packaged chicken breasts, pork, beef, etc. The only lamb we found was still on the bone, but the woman who worked at the meat counter (the Lamb Lady, as CK calls her) advised us it was more bone than it was meat. Then she showed us a 5-pound package of fresh boneless leg of lamb (which was full of fat and $8/pound), but we only needed two pounds, so she asked the butcher and he said he could trim the fat, cut the lamb into 1-in cubes, and package it in the 2-pounds we needed, which was great. The recipe said to serve "Italian Country Bread alongside," and after much debate, we settled on Savory Parmesan Rolls. Finally, the recipe called for a half a cup of dry white wine, so we stopped by the liquor store and picked out a Gallo Chardonnay which we thought would be good in the stew and for drinking while cooking and with the meal.

After a full day of fun activities (including a brief and VERY chilly stop at the softball game to cheer on our team), we returned to my house at 4:00 and began preparing the veggies and meat. As I arranged the lamb cubes on the bottom of my new Dutch oven to sear them in olive oil, I commented that I've never seared lamb before, and CK asked, "Have you ever seared ANYTHING before?" Well, now that you mention it, I can't say I have. CK watched a basketball game while I fixed the stew, though she offered to help and did peel the yellow potatoes, bake the bread with olive oil, butter and garlic drizzled on it, and offered helpful tips throughout the process. Everything went very smoothly, except that I burned my left index finger and thumb three times trying to take the lid off the Dutch oven without a potholder (I'm a slow learner).

The stew and bread were ready at about 6:15, so we had an earlier dinner than we had planned (which I'm pretty sure was a first in the history of "The Soup Diaries"). We sat down to eat and I held my breath and waited for CK to take the first bite and pronounce the verdict, which was that it was tasty, and she really liked it. I took a bite and was pleased to find it surprisingly delicious!

A couple of hours later, after the remaining stew had cooled and I went to put it in the refrigerator, I realized I had forgotten to add the parsley. I was soooooo disconcerted, but CK said no worries, just put a couple of leaves in the pot and they'll make the leftovers all the better, so that's what I did and am looking forward to yummy leftovers tomorrow. Just like the recipe said, this was the perfect soup for an early spring day when the weather was chilly and damp, and the spicy sauce warmed us right up!

"I like to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food."
~W.C. Fields