of lamb.

Oh I see.. typo...

lamb stew in a shepard's pie is wonderful

but the recipe is middle eastern. Here is a how-to video. Hope this helps!

http://www.vickismenu.com/vickismenu/?p=480

...or kabob-roasted in a shwarma-like yogurt sauce. On a pita bread.

My favorite stew in the world!! AKA Persian green herb stew. I first ate it at a Middle Eastern restaurant in Watertown, MA (now out of business ). After the restaurant went belly-up, I searched for almost 20 years before I found another restaurant that served it - this time, outside of Denver, CO. It tasted exactly as I remembered it. I loved it so much I scoured the internet and tried several recipe versions before I found this one which tastes exactly the same as the stew I fell in love with. I made it for my Persian roommate several years ago and he told me it was better than his mother's recipe!

You'll need to find some dried limes, they can be hard to find unless you have a Persian/middle eastern market nearby. If you have a Persian market, the herb mix can usually be found pre-made in the frozen section. But if your local middle eastern market doesn't carry it (I have to drive 50 minutes to get to my "local" Persian market that sells it), the herbs can be found in any grocery store and it's totally worth the prep. This stew melts in your mouth, tastes divine!

The quality of a cut of lamb can vary widely. To be on the safe side, I would treat it like an inexpensive piece of beef and stew it until it is falling apart.

Go ahead and treat the meat the same as beef stew meat for cooking.

Lamb is also excellent with a blend of lemon, garlic and oregano - this will give it a very Mediterranean/Greek type of flavor. Penzey's has a very good blend that works well.

For the cumin lamb I used a mix of crushed cumin seed and Chinese chile peppers. Dredged the lamb in flour, then browned it in some peanut oil - added the cumin & chile as it was browning. Put in the slow cooker with celery, onion, and some extra cumin, along with some more chile, a few crushed garlic cloves, and some fresh ground ginger. The flour dredge supplied the thickening as it cooked.

Served on brown rice with peas. We just finished it today.

(One thing about the cumin - you almost always need WAY more than you think you do if you want a strong, spicy flavor. I am going to do the next batch as a high-heat stir-fry with extra cumin and chile to try to replicate a cumin lamb recipe that a local Szechuan restaurant used to serve.)

Lamb is tender, but can be relatively flavorless. It lends itself well to curry dishes. Since most lamb cuts are tender, if you make stew with it start it out by adding the meat at boiling temps to kill surface bacteria for a minute or two, then lower the temp to a slow simmer quickly by adding cooler liquid. It won't take long to cook and there isn't much connective tissue to break down so don't stew it very long. If the pieces are larger, kabob or rotisserie is the way to go, perhaps with a short marinade for an hour or three first.