Braised Lamb shoulder Abruzzen style

An other region of Italy is this Sunday the main part of our cooking, the mountain area of the Abruzzen.

Serve with the grilled veggies

Lamb is one of the things, you find there in many dishes. We made a filled polenta strudel as a side dish and served everything with grilled vegetables.

Preheat the oven 150 C

recipe for the lamb:
1,5 kg of lamb shoulder
salt and pepper
2 carrots
1/4 celeriac
2 onions
150 g leek
3 cloves of garlic
1 dried chili
2 bay leaves
3 tbsp of flour
4 tbsp oil
750 ml Italian wine from the Abruzzen
250 ml lamb stock
2 stalks of rosemary
3 stalks of thyme
2 tbsp whole grain mustard

In some oil brown the seasoned lamb shoulder from all sides, add the veggies and the flour, add the lamb stock and all the other ingredients and bring to a boil. Put a lid on the pot and place it into the oven for 2 hours, ladle some of the broth over it every 30 minutes, then after 2 hours lift the lid off and bake for 30 minutes more. Take out the meat to rest and take a stick blender to the sauce, fish out the bay leaves, the chilli and the rosemary first. Reduce the sauce to the thickness you like.

use a stick blender and make a smooth sauce, then reduce until you have the consistency you like

The polenta is filled with creamy cheese like Mascarpone, breadcrumbs, shallots, fresh herbs and lemon zest and seasoning. A strudel dough with no rising agent, that is stowed in vegetable oil for 30 minutes is rolled out very thin and the filled with a line of cold cooked polenta, a line made in the middle and the mascarpone cream is pressed in and a bit covered with more polenta. Then wrapped into the strudel dough and baked about 30 minute at 220 C on a pizza stone if you have one.

Polenta recipe:
170 ml milk
25 g butter
50 g polenta
salt, nutmeg, pepper
2 egg yolks
cook the polenta and let it cool completely in the fridge, only then you can use it and mold it.

now wrap it into the strudel dough

 

 

some char marks are great for taste

recipe for the strudel:
150 g flour
1/ 2 tsp of salt
2 tbsp oil
65 ml  water
and a bowl with enough oil to cover the dough to rest
filling:
2 tsp fresh thyme
2 shallots
75 g Mascarpone
lemon zest
salt and pepper
2 slices of plain toast
1 tbsp mustard
1 egg white
1 tsp butter
fry off the onions and let them cool, blitz the bread and mix everything together