The vegetables and lemon disintegrate during the long slow cooking time to make a rich thick sauce. The salt from the preserved lemon, olives and capers mean that no further addition is needed.


Serves 4

1 kg lamb from shoulder or leg, cubed and trimmed of excess fat
half an onion
2 medium courgettes/zucchini
12 cloves of garlic
half a preserved lemon*
handful of black olives
tablespoon of salted capers
tablespoon of Olive oil
tablespoon of fresh lemon juice
handful of fresh oregano

Soak the capers and rinse off the salt. Finely chop the onion, peel and chop the courgettes, and peel the garlic cloves but leave them whole. In a large heavy pan brown the lamb in the olive oil over high heat. Reduce the heat and add the vegetables, olives, capers, and the preserved lemon pieces (four eighths). Add enough water to come half way up the meat. Cover the pan and simmer for about two and a half hours, checking occasionally and adding more water as necessary. When the meat is soft and the sauce is thick and unctuous, remove the pan from the heat and leave for 10 minutes to cool slightly. Just before serving stir in the lemon juice and scatter the top with chopped oregano.

I used to add a can of drained cooked chick peas to the stew about 10 minutes before serving. I still do if I'm low on carbs that day, or if guests are being served too.


* Preserved lemon

4 organic unwaxed lemons
sea salt
extra lemon juice
1 litre Kilner jar

Cut the lemons into half crossways, and squeeze out the juice into the kilner jar. Remove any pips you spy along the way. Quarter the squeezed lemon halves and pack them into the jar, adding a modest handful of salt rocks every layer.
Top the jar up with extra lemon juice to cover all the lemon pieces if necessary. Seal the jar and leave out on a sunny window for a week, shaking and turning every day. Make sure the lemon pieces stay submerged. The salt will gradually dissolve.

Put in the jar in the fridge and leave it to mature for 4 weeks before using. The lemon juice will turn into a strangely wonderful salty syrup.

How many carbs in this recipe?

You pulled up a recipe from September 2004. I think you'll need to calculate the carbs. The OP probably isn't still monitoring the thread.

I was hoping that she would receive an email and reply. :-)

Do you know about fitday.com? It's an excellent resource. It's a free online nutrition calculator. Just plug in the ingredients in your recipe and all the carbs, fat, calories, etc., get calculated for you. Just be careful with the quantities. For example, if you put in butter, it will default to 1/2 cup of butter, so you have to remember to put in the quantity that you want.

I think I just made it sound hard, but it's very easy to use. Most people here use it to keep track of their daily totals.

I don't subscribe to any threads, so I only just came across this thread resurrection.

I just ran the recipe through myplan. It comes out to about 8 net carbs per serving as written. You can save some of those carbs by not using so much garlic. Garlic is roughly 1 carb per clove.

Thank you so much for your reply. I'm going to cook this this weekend.

I just recently saw that lamb stew recipe in the Food & Wine newsletter I get by e-mail. Now I want to try it! It was one of several winter stew recipes they presented.

What newsletter is that? Its my own recipe; only been published here.

Sorry, I think I copied YOUR recipe. There's a recipe for Lamb with Lemon stew on Food and Wine but it is different. That's a good newsletter - they recently had a series of winter stews that all looked good.
Here's a link that's an example:
http://www.foodandwine.com/slidesho...-michelin-chefs

The lamb stew they have is more complicated and sounds like an eggy greek lemony thing. Your's sounds easier and just as yummy!

Hmmm .... that preserved lemon sounds like a really useful concoction. Even if I don't do the lamb stew, I think I'm going to make some of the lemon thingy!! Is that part your own invention too? If so, I'll make a note in my recipe list so that if I ever copy it to anyone, I'll give you credit!

By the way, what is a "kilmer" jar? Is that like a preserving/canning/Mason jar?

Preserved Lemon is a traditional recipe, in no way do I claim it as mine.

Kilner jars are preserving jars with a rubber seal and wire closure. You can preserve limes in the same way as lemons. A very useful store item, and they keep for years in the fridge.

Thank you! As I suspected, a different term for the same type of jar. I had planned to buy some extra lemons today while grocery shopping but I see by the long range forecast that we have at least a week of cloudy, rainy weather coming up in this part of the world - I guess I'd better wait until we have some nice days coming so I have a sunny window! Darn!!