Tag Archives: Stock (food)

Slowly cooked lamb shoulder and cauliflower soup

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Last night after making a pot of cauliflower soup I set about preparing to cook a shoulder of lamb for my lunch this week at work. Having now seen the result I think I’m going to swap around and have left over cauliflower soup for lunch and lamb for dinner when I’m at my place this week.

Yesterday afternoon I returned to Canberra from Brisbane and immediately started shivering on leaving the aeroplane and walking on the air bridge at Canberra airport. My mind immediately went to warm comforting foods hence the need for soup and a joint of meat.

The cauliflower soup is pretty basic. I sauté some onions and bacon pieces and get the bottom of the saucepan nice and sticky. Once the onions are soft I add a splash of white wine, some diced potato and the cauliflower florettes. To this I add some chicken or vegetable stock and then enough water so that after 30 minutes of simmering it has reduced to enough to blend without being too watery. I know what you’re thinking, I’ve spent most of my career in a laboratory; I should be able to be more precise than that. Like I explain to my medical students, medicine and pathology included is like a main meal, experience is what is needed. That is different to dessert and pastries where you need precision. Once the cauliflower and potato is soft I use my trusty Bamix® to blend the contents into a smooth soup. To this I add a few generous lumps of blue cheese and some pouring cream. This gets heated through and then served with crusty toasted bread and butter (or as some tweeps have commented served with butter and some toasted crusty bread).

Cauliflower soup with bread and butter (iPhone)

For the lamb I wanted to cook it slowly without a slow cooker. I decided on a large casserole and a low oven and a cooking period of about six hours while I slept. The preparation is pretty basic with onions, celery, carrot, tomato, red wine, beef stock, bacon pieces and the lamb. In my refrigerator I also noticed some old lup cheong and I thought, why not? What I enjoyed most was getting my boning knife out and having some fun dissecting the joint of meat.

When I woke up this morning my apartment was filled with the aroma of slow roasted lamb. It was amazing.

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) I wanted to capture a rustic look

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) Vegetables have been cut

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) I love a bit of blunt and sharp dissection

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) Everything tastes better with bacon and lup cheong

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) You should have smelt this when I opened the lid

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) I could just devour the meat, it was falling off the bones

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) Oh look vegetables too

Tomorrow I head off to Darwin for a night. I’ll be back late Wednesday night for the second half of the second State of Origin match and I’ll be enjoying some lamb stew. Yum!

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