Jottage from Lancaster - Tunisian Lamb With Aubergine

Of course I have the River Cottage app. I resisted for a while but then in a fit of indulgence I bought it. I often flick through the recipes but until now I haven't actually made any of them. But returning from a short trip down south I began browsing them half way up the M5 and by the time we were past Birmingham I had a few ideas for meals for the next week and I had even written a shopping list ready for what is becoming a regular off-motorway stop at Waitrose in Sandbach.

So armed with my list I bought everything I needed and along with unpacking from our Easter weekend away I had several bags of fruit, veg, lamb and fish.


I was looking forward to this Tunisian lamb and was rather smug about having all the right spices and indeed all the right ingredients down to the almonds and apricots. But alas, I found that making something from an app isn't as easy as I thought it would be. For a start you have to keep dodging back between the ingredients list and the what-to-do bit and this was confusing enough. And somehow it just wasn't as easy to work out what to do when. 


I browned the lamb and didn't take it out of the pan before adding the onions and garlic. I knew that this was I normally did, but I didn't actually see it on the instructions - at least not until it was too late. Then I couldn't work out when to add the aubergines so I just tossed them into the pan at the end. Or, not quite the end. When I had decided it was all finished I remembered that it had apricots and almonds in somewhere. I was sure that I hadn't seen anything about them anywhere. Only when it had all been merrily bubbling away did I realise that I hadn't scrolled far enough down the ingredients list and I hadn't read to the end of the instructions. Here was the missing Aubergine bit at last, but it was all too late.

So I had all the right ingredients but did all the wrong things with them. But amazingly enough, it's turned out really well. I'm going to add some cous cous and serve it up tonight. There's actually enough for a few night but tomorrow we are having fish from another app recipe. I might take the time to read it all through carefully before I start it this time.



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