Lamb and kidney casserole

On Wednesday of last week, Jayne the Pig Lady turned herself into Jayne the Lamb Lady and delivered a lamb, ready butchered for the freezer, to The Sidings. The small freezer is now over three parts full, which is nice. I now need to source a supply of beef and chickens and we'll be sorted (although Chatsworth is a reliable source of both beef and chickens so there's no real problem).

Anyway. Amongst the packages was one with three reasonably sized neck chops, together with two butterflied kidneys. The Builder loves kidney (and I occasionally remember to buy some for him for his Sunday breakfast). I don't eat kidney myself. Not for any particular reason other than that I can't get it past my nose. A piece of kidney approaches my mouth on the end of a fork, my nose declares loudly that this is NOT FOOD and my teeth clamp shut. There doesn't seem to be much I can do about this. I have also noticed that when we are out, he will frequently select steak and kidney combinations that he never gets at home. So I decided to make him a lamb chop and kidney casserole as a treat, rather than keeping the kidneys for breakfast.

And this is what I did.

I sauteed some chopped onions and minced garlic until the onions were soft and starting to blacken a little around the edges. Then I put them into a casserole.

I added some roughly chopped carrots, mushrooms and turnips (the turnips were a gift from one of the allotment holders - The Builder loves them almost as much as he loves kidneys) and some small, whole new potatoes.

I chopped the kidneys (having removed the sinewy white bit) and dotted them around the vegetables.

Then I browned the neck chops and put them on top of everything. I have filled the casserole with chicken stock (I didn't have any lamb stock) with a glug of low salt soya sauce, a couple of glugs of white wine and a few sprigs of thyme.

Then I put the lid on the casserole and put it in a low oven for about four hours. I left it to cool.

When it was wanted for eating I heated it in a medium oven until it was bubbling. Then I thickened the sauce (which had reduced quite a lot) just a little and served the casserole with leeky mashed potato and peas and broad beans (it being the start of the pea and broad bean season).

The Builder reports that it was absolutely lovely. He had the left overs for Sunday Supper.

(You could easily do this in a slo-cooker - although I would finish it off in the oven to reduce the rawness of the wine)