Thai Chicken Curry and Savory Lamb Stew

If there is anything I hate about cooking it's when a recipe I am trying turns out really wrong.  Sometimes it's the recipe and sometimes it's me but either way it is frustrating and annoying to work so hard and have so little to show for it.  Fortunately, tonight was not one of those nights.  Yup, it was a double header and I banged homeruns in both games! 

I have been struggling to master Thai food recently.  I love it, especially the curries, and have tried several recipes on and off over the past year or two with varying results.  My last curry attempt was horrid; I think the recipe was actually printed wrong because it had a hugely disproportionate amount of water to coconut milk ratio.  The result was very watery and so bland it wasn't worth the effort of swallowing, much less digesting.  T doesn't like Thai food so he was spared the experience and A doesn't eat meat so that automatically disqualified her.  That left the sampling to E and C who ate it, and like the troopers they are, didn't offer any criticism stronger than, "It's really not that bad."  Uh huh.  It was really not that good either. 

Tonight's recipe came out of a book entitled Simply Thai Cooking and it was a definite hit; a mild red curry that was creamy, smooth, and flavorful with tender chicken strips and crunchy slivers of bamboo shoots and red bell pepper.  Very nice.  Both E and C had two bowls each and this time, they weren't just being kind.

Lamb is one thing I do feel fairly confident about.  I have grilled it, roasted it and made it into stew on a number of occasions.  This time I did a sort of combination of things; I cut the boneless leg of lamb into chunks and marinated it overnight.  Today, I cooked a few strips of bacon, drained most of the fat and substituted olive oil before I tossed in the drained and flour-dredged lamb chunks.  I let the lamb brown up a bit before I added chunks of onion then deglazed the pot with a good sploosh of red wine and the rest of the marinade.

I added chicken broth, a couple of bay leaves and a good sprinkling of dried thyme and let the whole thing simmer for about an hour and a half.  I thickened the broth with some of the flour that was left after the dredging, added chopped carrot and potatoes and simmered it until everything was cooked through.  The broth is rich and savory and the lamb is falling apart tender.  E, C and I were too focused on the curry to get to the lamb stew tonight but there is always tomorrow; lamb stew is one thing that just gets better overnight.  If I am patting myself on the back over these culinary triumphs tonight, just wait till tomorrow's dinner.  I'll be insufferable by then.  :-)