A tantalising and deeply gratifying dish, this lamb stew gets a subtle, sweet hint from carrots and a soft velvety touch from the aubergines. It’s warm, comforting and ultimately a nice alternative to your Sunday roast or fufu and soup or tuo zaafi or whatever special meal you indulge in on Sundays. This stew goes extremely well with couscous as you let the gingery stew soak into the delightful yellow pillows of joy.
The aubergine pieces, or eggplants(depending on which part of the world you're from), add a special touch and fall apart in the stew and melt in your mouth. Baking the aubergines in the oven will dry them out a bit but they swell back up in the stew and add a rusticness that is hard to put into words. Salting the aubergines is necessary to draw out the water. Do be mindful of this when you eventually salt your stew because you do not want to end up with a briny stew which will leave you salty all day. (See what I did there?)
The aubergines give off such a lovely and sweet smell while baking. The skin can be a bit chewy in this state but once added to the stew, that becomes soft. I prefer baking them which is a much better option to frying, as aubergines tend to soak up quite a bit of oil and I cannot stand that oily and soggy taste.
For the choice of lamb, this recipe uses bone-in lamb but if you decide to use a boneless cut, then that's perfectly fine too. However, the preference for bone-in for this recipe is that when steaming the meat for frying, I get a more flavoured stock which in turn adds more depth to the stew. If you have some already prepared stock, you could fry your lamb without steaming and add your stock thereafter. Also, I love ginger. Generally, ginger used with any kind of meat, especially pork and chicken, is my favourite combination. Likewise in this lamb stew, ginger and lamb go deliciously well together.
The beautiful contrast in colours, textures and taste is everything you need to know today about this stew. Additionally, if you have never tried couscous then this is a great way to start. You can add more flavour to your couscous, by either cooking it in stock or adding butter when it's cooked. If you want to do something completely different with couscous then this very easy to make and visually stunning couscous salad is also recommended.
Lamb Stew with Carrots and Oven-Baked Aubergines
Ingredients
- 1 medium aubergine halved and cut into ½ cm slices
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil
- 500 grams lamb bone-in or boneless
- 3 tbsp ginger blended
- 2 tbsp onions blended
- 2 scotch bonnets
- 1 large onion sliced
- 1 garlic clove finely diced
- ½ tbsp tomato paste
- 3 large tomatoes blended
- 2 scotch bonnets blended
- 2 medium carrots cut into thick rounds
- salt
Instructions
- Heat oven to 180 °C. Sprinkle salt on aubergines and leave for about 15 minutes.
- Pat aubergine slices dry, arrange on a baking paper on a tray and drizzle 1 tablespoon of olive oil on them. Bake for about 20 minutes or until slightly browned. Make sure to turn the aubergines halfway through
- Steam lamb with one tablespoon of ginger, blended onion, salt, whole scotch bonnets and half a cup of water for 10 minutes under low to medium heat. Add some more water if the contents of the pan get too dry. Set stock aside.
- Over medium heat, fry the lamb for about 5 minutes making sure to get all sides brown.
- Add sliced onions, fry for about 3 minutes. Add garlic and tomato paste and fry for a further 3 minutes.
- Pour in blended tomatoes, blended scotch bonnets and ginger and cook for a further 15 minutes.
- Add stock from meat, and carrots and cook on medium heat for 15 minutes.
- Add aubergines and simmer on low heat for a further 10 minutes or until carrots are soft but not mushy.
- Taste for salt, and if necessary add some more.
- Serve with couscous, rice, yam, sweet potatoes or potatoes.
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