Recipe - Margos Lamb Stew

3 tablespoon Olive oil
1 lg Onion (thinly cut or sliced up )
4 Garlic cloves, minced
3 pound Lamb cut into
stewsized cubes and
carefully trimmed of fat
4 pound Tomatoes, cooked
(2 large cans)
3 Bay leaves
Lemon juice
1 tablespoon Hungarian paprika
1 teaspoon Celery salt
One half teaspoon Cumin, ground
1/8 teaspoon Cayenne
1 ds Allspice
1 ds Cinnamon, ground
1 One half pound Green beans, fresh,
washed and trimmed

In a steeped, saute onion in olive oil on mediumlow heat until golden
brown. Add garlic in the last 23 minutes. Add lamb cubes and saute until
brown. Add tomatoes and simmer until meat is tender. Keep an eye on the
liquid; add water or red wine if it becomes dry.

Add bay leaves, lemon juice and spices. Simmer on low heat for at least 2
hours. About One half hour before pronouncing it done, add the green beans.
Serve with plain yogurt and pita bread.

NOTES:

* Fragrant lamb stew This recipe comes from Margo Kaiser, with whom I
used to work. It's a delicious stew, spiced fragrantly but not hot. It's
one of my favorites. It's also very easy. The most tedious work is trimming
the lamb, and you can get the butcher to take care of that.

The spice mixture is my attempt to recreate Margo's "secret spice" (she
didn't offer that recipe). Feel free to try your own variations. If you
hit on one that you feel is particularly good, please let me know about it.
Yield: serves 6 to 8.

* I prefer to cook to the point of simmering, refrigerate overnight, and
then finish cooking the next evening. This greatly enhances the flavor.
When you take the stew from the refrigerator, skim any lamb fat that has
congealed on the top before continuing.

* I find that many butchers don't understand that I want good quality meat
in stews. I get better quality, more carefully trimmed meat by telling them
that I want lamb cubes cut for shish kebab.

: Difficulty: easy.
: Time: 20 minutes preparation, several hours cooking.
: Precision: measure the spices.

: Nancy Mintz
: UNIX System Development Lab, AT&TIS, Summit, New Jersey, USA
: ihnp4!attunix!nlm

: Copyright (C) 1986 USENET Community Trust

From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini