Lamb and Mushroom Red Wine Stew, Dutch Oven
A slow braise of lamb, dried mushrooms, and wine, done in a camp Dutch oven over coals.
- calories
- 1000
- weight
- 14 oz
- cal / oz
- 71
- protein
- 55 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 20 min
- cook
- 180 min
- total time
- 200 min
- water
- 250 ml boiled
- cost
- $$$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Lamb neck or shoulder | 2.5 lb | cut into 3-4 oz chunks at home, packed in wine in a sealed bag |
|---|---|---|
| Red wine | 1 cup | doubles as the marinade in the bag |
| Bacon | 3 oz | chopped; lamb bacon if you have it |
| Beef or lamb bouillon | 2 cubes | makes the 2 cups of stock at camp |
| Cooking oil | 3 tbsp | or rendered lamb fat |
| Dried mushrooms | 1.5 oz | honey, chanterelle, or shiitake |
| Frozen or jarred pearl onions | 8 oz | already peeled, which is the whole point |
| All-purpose flour | 1.5 tbsp | |
| Garlic | 1 large clove | crushed |
| Dried thyme | 1 tsp | |
| Salt and black pepper | to taste | |
| Instant mashed potato flakes | 2 cups | for serving |
Method
- Marinate the lamb in the wine at home, in a bag, in the cooler. It rides that way to camp.
- Build a fire and let it burn down. You want coals, not flames, for three hours.
- Pour off the wine and keep it. Pat the meat dry and salt and pepper it hard.
- Heat the oil in the Dutch oven over the coals and brown the lamb in batches. Crowd it and it steams instead of browning. Set the meat aside.
- Cook the bacon in the same pot until the fat renders. Add the garlic and thyme for thirty seconds.
- Return the lamb, pour in the reserved wine, and add 2 cups of hot water with the bouillon dissolved in it. Drop in the dried mushrooms; they rehydrate in the braise and thicken it.
- Lid on, coals under and on top. Hold a slow bubble for about 2.5 hours. Check the liquid every 45 minutes and add water if it drops below the meat.
- Add the pearl onions for the last 20 minutes.
- Mash the flour with 1.5 tbsp of oil into a paste and stir it in a bit at a time. Simmer 5 minutes until it coats a spoon.
- Make the potato flakes with boiled water in mugs and spoon the stew over.
This is a three-hour braise, so it belongs at a car camp or a basecamp where the fire is going anyway. Neck and shoulder are the cheap, tough, collagen-heavy cuts, and collagen is exactly what makes stew feel like stew. Rush it and you get chewy meat in thin liquid.
Two changes from a kitchen version. Fresh mushrooms are 90 percent water and bruise in a pack, so dried ones go in dry and rehydrate in the braise, which also concentrates the liquid. Pearl onions get peeled at home or bought already peeled, because peeling eight ounces of them by headlamp is a bad night. The flour-and-oil paste at the end replaces butter, and it goes in last so you can stop when the thickness is right.
Packing
Meat and wine go in a double-bagged zip in the bottom of the cooler. Bacon rides with it. Flour, thyme, bouillon, and mushrooms live in one small dry bag so the whole seasoning step is one hand.
Variations
- Swap the lamb for beef chuck and it is closer to the bourguignon this descends from.
- No cooler? Use a can of cooked lamb or beef, skip the browning, and cut the braise to 40 minutes.
- Roasted carrots in the coals in foil take the place of the potato flakes.
https://foragerchef.com/french-lamb-neck-stew