Braised mutton (lamb) with Chinese herbs

Sometimes, I strike on a right combination and came up with something delicious. Today is one of them. I surfed The Star’s site and read two recipes, from Amy Beh and Majorie Chiew. I combined both ideas and make use with whatever I have in my fridge and came up with this recipe.

muttonstew

BRAISED MUTTON WITH CHINESE HERBS
About 500-600gm mutton or lamb, cubed
1 piece of fuyi (red fermented beancurd)

Rub the meat with fuyee and leave to stand for a while.
Use a little oil and fry the meat till the water comes out.

Pour the water away, rinse meat.

Put meat into the slow cooker (crockpot)
Add:
Just enough water to cover the meat
Add in the following Chinese herbs (photos can be seen here) :
10 red dates
small handful of wolfberries
1 small piece dongguai
small handful tong sum
thumb size ginger, smashed
1 piece fuyi
*optional 2 tablespoon rice wine

Leave to simmer for several hours (3-4 hours or longer) until the meat is very soft. Taste for flavour. I did not use any salt as the fuyi is already salty.

One can add some fuchok (dried bean curd sticks) which had been deep fried for extra ‘meat’. Add in just before turning off fire.

Serve with white rice. Alternately, boil some rice vermicelli (mee hoon). Put single portion and pour soup and meat, garnish with spring onions.

I love this so much because it is not easy to find Chinese restaurants cooking mutton as Chinese believes mutton is ‘heaty’. Combined with dongguai, it becomes double heaty (though I am not prone). I remember eating something like this in Singapore once. I was staying in Little India (by accident) and found this small lane with a few shops selling braised mutton. The taste is something like braised beef (ngau lam meen).

(I had been extra hardworking in the kitchen these few days and have several recipes lining up to be blogged. So busy that I hardly have time for my other blog. Hmmm….Is this a good sign or bad?)

Post Author: lilian

Used to be PenangFaces, now known as Food Haven, for all oink-oink foods