I love to try new things and I am especially excited when that involves seeking out new places to discover unique ingredients. So when this Peruvian dish Seco de cordero con frejoles was suggested over at the fantastic blog of Lateral Eating I just had to try it.
Firstly we had a trip to Fairfield to the little shop Tierras Latinas that specialises in south american ingredients. It was a fantastic store jammed full of interesting looking items and buzzing with spanish, and although we like to think we know a little spanish they did speak perfect english. We bought a bottle of chicha de jora, a fermented maize beverage and some aji amarillo, ground yellow pepper.
It is quite a simple dish to prepare. The lamb is marinated for eight hours in the chicha and dark ale. The base of the stew is red onion, garlic and aji amirillo. Grated pumpkin and chopped tomatoes are added, and the coriander is blended with some of the marinated ingredients. In goes the drained meat with a little stock and then simmer covered until tender. At the end, season to taste and add some peas (I forgot).
For the bean dish simply fry some red onion, aji amarillo and garlic over low heat for about ten minutes before adding the beans and seasoning to heat through (I used tinned Borlotti beans).
What a delicious dish! Its hard to explain the flavour as I have never eaten anything with the same taste. It was surprisingly light and had a very gentle sweetness. The beans were amazing and went so well with the stew.http://lateraleating.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/recipe-seco-de-cordero-con-frejoles-lamb-coriander-stew-and-beans/
