Mutton with rice or potatoes in the oven

MUTTON WITH RICE OR WITH POTATOES

Ingredients

1.5 kilo mutton (lamb in the second year of its life)

Salt and pepper

A few sprigs of rosemary or 1 TB dry rosemary leaves

Oregano and savory

1 TB coriander grains

1 TB black pepper grains

One large dry onion

4 large ripe tomatoes

1/2 square cm red hot chili pepper

150 g. olive oil (only when you make mutton with potatoes)

2 cups rice for pilaf or 2 kilos potatoes

Instructions

Buy the meat two days before the cooking.

I buy meat from the front leg and the neck of the animal. But if you prefer another part of the animal, it is okay.

Ask the butcher to carve your meat into moderate portions.

Then rinse the meat with plenty of water, to remove any broken small pieces of bone.

Put on the meat salt, oregano and savory.

Smear all the meat carefully with olive oil all around it.

Put the meat in a pan and cover the pan with plastic wrap.

Put it on the top shelf in the refrigerator to maintain.

Leave it in the refrigerator for two days to marinate.

The evening of the second day remove the meat from the refrigerator.

Put in a pot 5 liters of water and then place it over high heat.

Once the water boils, pour into the pot the onion peeled and chopped.

Add salt, the coriander grains and the black pepper grains.

Pour into the pot the rosemary sprigs.

Let the onion to boil for five minutes and then put into the pot the marinated meat.

When it stars boiling again, reduce the heat to medium.

Cook the meat for at least one and a half hour.After that time chek if it is cooked.

To check if it is boiled, peg into the meat a fork.

If the fork enters into the flesh easily the meat is ready.

If the meat is still very hard boil it more. Turn off the heat.

Let all night the meat into the broth in the pot.

The next morning take the meat off the pot and put it in a pan. Put little salt over it and leave it aside.

Strain with a strainer the broth of meat into a bowl.

Put the bowl with the broth in the refrigerator and let it to cool.

When the broth gets cold, its fat rises on its surface

Wait for the fat to coagulate. Then remove the layer of solid fat that floats on the broth and throw it in the garbage.

 Mutton with rice

Use a round baking pan 36 cm in diameter with a lid.

Measure 5 cups strained broth and put it in the pan.

Put the pan with the broth in the oven, on the first rack from the bottom.

Mash the tomatoes in a blender and pour them in the baking pan.

Wait until the tomatoes boil for 5 min.

Scour the meat from the bones, fat and tendons.

Then cut the meat into pieces. Other pieces have the size of a nut and others are smaller.

Leave the meat aside.

Put the rice in a strainer and rinse it with plenty of water.

Leave it to drain well.

Put the rice in the pan and stir.

Cover the pan with its lid and boil the rice for 5 minutes.

Uncover the pan and pour into it the meat pieces.

Stir the meat and the rice. Cover again the pan with its lid.

Let the rice cook another 7 minutes and turn off the oven. 

Let the food covered in the oven to stay warm.

  

Mutton with potatoes

Peel the potatoes and rinse them well.

Cut them as big as you like them.

Put the potatoes in a pan with dimensions 31CH41CH7 centimeters.

Pour the oil in the pan over the potatoes.

Stir them with your hands to smear all the potatoes with oil.

Pour broth of meat over the potatoes until it covers them. If the broth isn’t enough add water.

Add little salt and red hot pepper.

Put the pan in the oven on the first rack from the bottom.

Bake at 250 C degrees for 1 hour.

Mash the tomatoes in a blender and pour them in the pan.
Let the tomato to boil 15 minutes, and then add the cleaned meat.

Stir slowly and gently to spread the meat evenly.

Let the potatoes cook the time that is needed to absorb the broth and become soft and tender.