The theme this month – celebrity chef – posed quite a decision making problem. Like many others, my cook book shelves are filled with well known food celebrity names: Delia Smith, Kenneth Hom, Madhur Jaffrey, Nigel Slater, Rick Stein, the late Gary Rhodes, Diana Henry (she is to me), Julius Roberts (he is isn’t he?) and even Jamie Oliver. In the end, I decided to go with an old favourite, Ottolenghi. There are so many of his recipes I return to again and again, and am still working through a few from his most recent book Comfort.
With colder days appearing, on and off I must say, I decided to go for this autumnal dish, braised lamb with butter beans and yoghurt, made with lamb from our local butcher, Gipps Street Butchery.
The ingredient include coriander and cumin seeds, which add a lot of flavour, rosemary and thyme (from out garden – I love writing that), onions, bay leaves, lemon peel, garlic, anchovies, cherry tomatoes, white wine, chicken stock and of course butter beans, lamb and Greek yoghurt.
Tomatoes are still an OK price here, but this won’t be a winter dish when using a punnet of cherry tomatoes like this won’t be so viable. I used Central Otago Pinot Gris for the wine.
The dish cooks in the oven at 170C for 1.5 hours, then the butter beans are added for a further 20 minutes. Before serving, give the stew a good stir and add dollops of yoghurt to the top as well as some parsley. The lamb was so soft that it melted in the mouth, and the flavour combinations went so well together. I served it with potatoes and a spinach based salad.
Verdict? Excellent! Make again? Definitely!
Thistles and Kiwis is a Wellington, New Zealand based blog written by Barbara, who likes cats, summer, good food and pretends to garden.
You can find Thistles and Kiwis on Facebook, and also on Instagram @thistlesandkiwis.
Thistles and Kiwis 
This looks and sounds delicious!
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we don’t eat lamb but we do eat a lot of beans!!
cheers
Sherry (sherryspickings)
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I have this cookbook and have tried a few recipes, but not this one. It looks delicious I will try it when the price of lamb becomes more reasonable here. Thanks so much for sharing. I have shared one of Ottolenghis recipes as well:)
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It is definitely worth trying.
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That last comment was from Pauline at Happy Retirees Kitchen.
https://happyretireeskitchen.blogspot.com
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Beautiful post, Barbara! I went to your butchers website. Looks fantastic. The pictures in your post always make me smile… And get a little hungry.
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Thank you!
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I don’t eat lamb either, yet this can easily be substituted by something else – it looks and sounds delicious anyway. Your photographs are beautiful!
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It is a very good dish – lamb is always available here.
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Like you, I take great enjoyment in saying, “It came from the garden,” which I am on a short break from planting. Wow, you have a lot of cookbooks and many celebrity chefs I’ve never heard of. That dish looks great.
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It is nice to pick things from the garden. Most of my cookbooks are UK/Australia based writers.
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Yum! I look forward to trying this!
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It was very good!
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We don’t eat lamb but I would make this with chicken thighs. Yum! Thanks for sharing.
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I began my Cook collection with a gift: Downtown Abbey Cook book. But I have not cooked any recipe yet. Anyway I’d like to do that. O should search for a club about english ancient food. I’m italian, I love this recipe you do with beans. 😋😋😋
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