Braised lamb shoulder with green tomatoes and Concord grapes

Loved this Sara Jenkins recipe, but let me hasten to add that I didn't use lamb shoulder, green tomatoes or Concord grapes. It is a late summer recipe, but I wanted to have lamb in the early spring and this one looked easy and good.

Whole Foods of course finds it inconvenient to stock lamb shoulder. My butcher friend there, Andres, explains that when they get shoulder, they just sell it as ground meat. So the "lamb stew meat" in the packaged section was leg, New Zealand leg, but what can you do? It was cut to the 1-1/2 in. cubes called for in the recipe and it was lean, tender and delicious.

No green tomatoes, but a package of some odd brown tomatoes called Kumatos, from Mexico. So at least they weren't red and seemed like a good size to cook whole. Finally, no Concord grapes, but some seedless red muscat grapes from Chile. At least I didn't have to take a toothpick and push out the seeds in each grape, as instructed by Jenkins.

So the rest was easy. Toss the lamb cubes in 2 tsp salt and several grindings of pepper. Brown the lamb in 1/4 c. olive oil. Jenkins specifically says to brown in one layer, don't crowd, but you only need to brown on one side, push to the edge of the pot and put in the rest. Remove the lamb and drain off all but 3 to 4 Tbl. of the fat (since the meat was lean, I didn't need to drain off anything). Brown 4 medium green tomatoes and 4 garlic cloves (she doesn't say peel them, but I did) for 3 min., turning often. Return lamb to pot, and add 1-1/2 c. grapes and 3/4 c. white wine. Put into a preheated 350-degree oven for an hour. Serve with rice or couscous (I opted for rice) and make sure each serving includes a tomato and a garlic clove.

What happens is that the grapes burst and the tomatoes also give up a ton of liquid so you have a wonderful soupy meat sauce, nicely balanced with sweetness and acidity. The lamb had a wonderful flavor and leftovers were great. Maybe I'll try it again in late summer with green tomatoes and Concord grapes!