Summer Lamb Stew

At Flor de Cabrera we have no choice but to buy our lamb whole and butcher it ourselves (in the photograph are two of my sous chefs Jairo and Wilson, both excellent butchers), but those of you who live near a grocery store can buy stew meat and quickly make a lovely summer stew that along with salad and a bottle of Rose will make for a lovely evening.

1 lb. boneless lamb stew meat (make sure it has some fat, not too lean)
2 white onion diced
2 clove garlic diced
2 cups of chopped greens: Bok Choy or Swiss Chard or even Spinach
1/2 pound of sugar snap peas
1/2 pound fresh peas (They are best when you shell them yourselves.)
1 bottle of drinkable unoaked white wine (Chenin Blanc does nicely)
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Brown your meat in the oil and remove from pan, saute the onion until very soft add in the meat and the wine and garlic. Simmer for two hours on stovetop or 350 oven.

When the lamb is tender and ready to eat stir in your peas and greens and cook only for a few minutes. Have a good bread to mop up the sauce and a very good wine...Rose, or maybe a Boujolais Village slightly chilled and enjoy the summer night.

how to make a roe butter

In the summer I make a lot of seafood (Summer is year round in the Dominican) and nothing pairs with with seafood quite like a good butter and lemon sauce.  When you want to knock that flavor profile up a notch and give your sauce a little complexity let's talk fish eggs. For this the cheap Roland in grocery aisle or the carp roe from Chinatown will do just fine. No big dollars are needed to get big taste.

For 8 to 10 servings take 1/4 pound of butter and melt it along with 4 anchovies. Add 1/8 (amount can vary) of cheap caviar and pulse the melted butter, anchovy, caviar mix in the blender, put back on the stove and warm just before serving the fish.

Pour the butter on the filet and give it a big squeeze of fresh lime juice and serve. If you have a little parsley or chopped basil toss it on as well.

In a restaurant you could easily pay 30 bucks for something that takes all of 5 minutes to make.

I don't care if you don't like anchovies, they add both salt and a complexity of flavor so stop thinking about hairy little filets and just go for it.