I stopped at a very reasonably priced old fashioned butchers and bought some diced lamb. I really fancied an old fashioned scouse tonight. Recipes for scouse vary, some insist on beef, others with lamb and if it is made without meat it is lobscouse or blind scouse. To go with the meat some recipes insist on only potatoes and onions, others include carrots. They used to sell bundles of potherbs or the veggies for scouse on the market when I was little. I am going with the spirit of scouse - whatever meat is to hand and whatever veggies to make the meat stretch. I shall be digging into yesterday's veg box.
My mother always used to do scouse with scrag end of lamb. I haven't seen any in the shops around here, I have moved across the Pennines since I first ate scouse. Even in this day and age, different food is available in different regions, even in somewhere so mechanised and urbanised as the UK. As it was, the diced lamb was extortionate, and I will cook it nice and slowly with lots of veggies and the potatoes going to mush and thickening it all up.
I am really going to have to work on this as meat is getting so expensive. I do pick a chicken, but any time I try and use a chicken carcass to make stock it tastes foul. I do try and eke out stews and soups with lots of veggies and pulses. I have good quality sausages and burgers from the farm shop and serve smaller portions with lots of nice side veggies. I am going to have to have more veggie dishes. Unfortunately darling father tends to head to the takeaway when faced with veggie food. I can add more eggs to our diet, but they are no longer inexpensive, and I would rather pay extra for free range. Cheese would be a great addition to the diet. Unfortunately it makes me sick, makes OH feel ill and bear is just outright refusing it. Darling father doesn't mind, so that is something.
So I will brown the lamb, add lots of potato cut small so that it goes to mush, onion, carrots, parsnip and a lamb stock cube. I shall serve stir fried cabbage as a side. In this weather, it is exactly what we need!
5 comments:
OK - I give up ! what's scouse ? I thought it was someone who came from Liverpool ! and what's lobscouse and blindscouse ! from your other ingredients I'd guess it's some sort of casserole/stew/pot roast ??
Sybs I think if you ask for neck chops you will get what they used to call scrag end.I was brought up on Lancashire Hot Pot which contained Scrag End and know you no longer can get it but since Lamb got so damn expensive and posh I see so called neck chops in the Butchers and they look suspiciously like Scrag End to me, so might be worth a try and they are a lot cheaper than diced lamb
Lesleyxx
Lesley - thanks! I shall look out for them, it will make a much better scouse, thank you WS xxx
Wean
It sounds suspiciously like stovies :)
Mudgekin - I have just looked at stovies on Wiki, and there is a lot in common. I think that they have the same roots - both have ingredients that are cheap, easy to get to in a city, warm and easy to leave on a stove when the cook is doing other things. What is the urban equivalent of peasant cooking? WS xxx
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