WELSH CAWL

Recipes: WELSH CAWL
Perhaps a national dish of Wales because it uses fantastic (and famously) Welsh ingredients – lamb and leeks – Cawl is Welsh for soup and I was brought up on it come the colder months. Autumn is when t...he root vegetables are harvested and this recipe makes them shine. To pick and mix your favourite roots and enjoy. It definitely warms the cockles and reminds me of home.
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
900g of lamb
50g pearl barley
3-4 scraped and sliced carrots
2 sliced onions
1 peeled and chopped swede
3 Leeks chopped into chunks (keeping the greener end as this adds colour and flavour)
Small bundle fresh thyme leaves, picked from their stalk
1 bayleaf
900g potatoes cut into big chunks
1 tbsp chopped parsley
10 black peppercorns
METHOD:
Trim the meat of fat, cut into big chunks put in a deep pan with plenty of water, bring to the boil slowly and skim (throughout the cooking process you need to ensure there is enough liquid to cover the ingredients).
Add the pearl barley, carrot, onions and swede. Bring back to the boil, add half tsp salt and the peppercorns, then the thyme and bay leaf bundled with string, and simmer gently for 2 hours.
Add the potatoes and simmer for 20 minutes. Taste for seasoning. Add the leeks and simmer for a further 5-10 minutes.
Serve with garnish of parsley, warm, crusty, wholesome bread and Caerphilly cheese.
The Cawl will be fine to eat for 24hrs but is best eaten within 18hrs. If eating the next day you might need to add some water with lamb stock added to thin.
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