Lamb with Raisins, Pine Nuts and Tomato
Raisins
Lamb with Raisins, Pine Nuts and Tomato
A slow-cooked lamb stew from the Cretan tradition — rich with tomato, fragrant with cinnamon, and lifted at the end with a handful of raisins and toasted pine nuts. The kind of dish that fills the house with a smell that makes everyone come to the kitchen.
Ingredients
- 1 kg lamb shoulder, cut into 4 cm pieces
- 100 g raisins — Golden Delies raisins
- 50 g pine nuts, toasted
- 2 medium onions, finely diced
- 4 garlic cloves, sliced
- 400 g tinned whole tomatoes
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 150 ml dry white wine
- 1 stick cinnamon
- 3 allspice berries
- 2 bay leaves
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- Orzo or rice to serve
Method
- Season the lamb generously with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a wide, heavy pot over high heat. Brown the lamb in batches — don’t crowd the pan. Set aside.
- Reduce the heat to medium. Cook the onion in the same pot for 8 minutes until soft and starting to colour. Add the garlic and cook 2 more minutes.
- Add the tomato paste and stir for 1 minute. Pour in the wine and let it bubble for 2 minutes, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
- Add the tomatoes, crushing them with your hands as you add them. Return the lamb and any resting juices to the pot.
- Add the cinnamon stick, allspice, and bay leaves. The lamb should be almost covered — add a splash of water if needed.
- Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook over low heat for 1 hour 30 minutes until the lamb is very tender.
- Stir in the raisins 15 minutes before the end. They will plump up in the sauce and sweeten it gently.
- Check seasoning. Remove the cinnamon, allspice, and bay. Scatter the pine nuts over the top to serve.
Notes
- This improves overnight. The sauce thickens and the flavours round out — make it ahead if you can.
- Serves well with orzo cooked in salted water, or plain rice to absorb the sauce.
- The raisins should be added late — if cooked too long they dissolve. You want them whole and plump, adding bursts of sweetness.
Why it works
Sweet and savoury together is an old idea in Cretan cooking — and in most Mediterranean traditions. The raisins don’t sweeten the dish so much as balance it: the rich tomato and lamb fat need something to cut them, and the raisins do it without adding sharpness. Use ours — dried slowly without additives — and they’ll hold their form in the sauce rather than dissolving away.
