Cordero en Chilindrón – Lamb with Red Peppers

This is a braised lamb dish in a sauce of red pepper, wine, and stock. For my cut of lamb I'm using neck. Neck is a wonderful cut of lamb for stews. It has a lot of fat and convective tissue in the meat. This makes it perfect for a long, slow braising. The cartilage will dissolve into the cooking liquid, which adds body and silkiness to the sauce. Shoulder can also be used, but it is a leaner cut and the finished meat will be dryer.

Cuts of lamb neck

Pick A Pepper

You need a sweet red pepper, and Spain has four to offer. Dried, fresh or canned will work. If you're using fresh peppers, you need to roast, seed, and peel. With the dried peppers you will need to rehydrate by boiling in water for 20 minutes. Then you scrap out the flesh and discard the seeds and skins.

The choices in Spain are:

• Choriceros (dried) are from the province of Vizcaya in the Basque region
• Ñora (dried) are from the region of Murcia
• Piquillo from the Navaro region in northern Spain are sold in cans roasted, peeled, and seeded
• Pimieanto Rojo is like a red bell pepper and sold fresh at all major markets

Ingredients

• 2 lbs./900 g Lamb neck cut into 1 inch/2.5 cm slices
• 1 Yellow onion, diced
• 60 ml/2oz Olive oil
• 5 Choriceros peppers, medium size dried
• 2 tablespoons/30 ml All-purpose flour
• 1.5 cups/350 ml Dry white wine
• 1 cup/250 ml Lamb stock
• Salt and Black pepper

Mise en place (left to right) Front row: Dried choriceros peppers, flour with salt & pepper, peeled garlic Middle row: Diced onion, olive oil, lamb neck. Back row: White wine, lamb stock

Hydrated and scraped choriceros peppers

How To Put It Together

Start by making the stock. Remove the bones from the meat. Roast the bones for 20 minutes at 350° F. Remove the bones from the oven and cool for handling. Then coat the bones with tomato paste and return to the oven for eight minutes. Place the roasted bones in a stock pot with ½ onion roughly chopped, 1 small carrot roughly chopped, sprig of thyme, two parsley stems, one bay leaf, and three crushed pepper corns. Add two two liters of cold water and bring to a simmer. Simmer for four hours; then strain through cheese cloth.

While the stock is simmering prepare the dried peppers.

When the stock and peppers are ready:

1. Heat the oil in a deep frying pan over medium high heat.
2. Saute the onion until translucent (do not brown).
3. Remove the onion and reserve.
4. Saute the whole garlic cloves until golden.
5. Remove the garlic and reserve.
6. Dredge the lamb in the flour, salt, and pepper, shaking off excess flour.
7. Brown the lamb pieces in the hot oil (may need to do in batches).
8. Add the wine and deglaze the pan.
9. Add the stock, peppers, onion, and garlic.
10. Give it a good stir.
11. Lower heat to simmer and simmer for 1.5 hours.
12. Remove the meat and pass the sauce through a fine mesh strainer.
13. Return refined sauce and meat to the pan and bring back to temperature.
14. Serve with boiled potatoes, rice, or pasta.

Almost done

Plated and ready to serve

Review

• Shirlee - Liked It

• John - Liked It

• Do Again - Yes, with minor modifications

• Leftovers - None

What I'll Do Next Time

Shirlee would like a leaner cut of meat so next time I'll use shoulder.