First ever lamb stew … also first ever dumplings.

I can’t believe I’ve made it this far in life without ever having made these two very basic things before. It all started a week ago when I was preparing the weekly casa az stew (a tradition I’ve been carrying on since I talked about it over here) but then – eep! – after making up a chicken stew last Sunday night it was left out overnight by accident, which made me wonder if I should keep it as long in the fridge as I usually do (3-5 days).

So I posted what I thought was a very simple question on Ask h2g2 and OMG, you wouldn’t believe it. There were suddenly all these ‘foodies’ telling me that I was about to die, how could I do this, food should always be prepared fresh every day, blah blah blah… but amongst the nonsense there were also a few saner comments, the best ones including other stew suggestions. And one hootooer wrote that one of her favourite things in the world was lamb stew with herb dumplings, which kind of stayed in my mind and so yesterday I decided to try it out.

After googling around for a dumpling recipe it seemed that the recipes themselves were pretty standard – in general it’s just flour, baking powder, butter and water (or milk) with parsley or chives added. And I saw two basic cooking options – cooked on baking tray in the oven before adding to stew, or cooked directly in the stew. But then Delia Smith had a third option – a recipe for ‘crusted dumplings’ that is a combination of both methods – “When the stew is ready, remove the lid, place the dumplings all over the surface, then transfer the casserole to the highest shelf of the oven (without a lid) and leave it there for 30 minutes or until the dumplings are golden brown and crusty.” And that’s the one I went for.

Looks good, eh? It really was quite deliciuos.

But Nog is going to have a helluva time getting that pot clean…