Like a Lamb Peka
This dish is inspired by the Croatian dish Peka. It’s like a Lamb Peka in that it uses most of the same ingredients and is cooked for the same amount of time. But it is not cooked the way a Peka is cooked.
And I’m afraid I don’t have the Croatian seasoning Vegeta.
Also I’m not using the right cut of lamb.
It’s the twimii version. So it’s made very simply and with ingredients I can find easily in my local supermarket.
So what is Peka?
According to Feast, “peka is a large metal baking dish with a bell-shaped dome lid. It is used to cook food in an open fireplace, with hot coals and embers placed on top of the dome for even, slow cooking.” Peka can be made with many different types of meat, or sausage or octopus. The meat and veg are stewed in oil, herbs and seasoning for an hour. Then you add a very very generous splash of white wine and stew for a further hour.
Let me first give you some proper recipes for it:
- Croatian Recipe for Peka
- Recipe for Traditional, Croatian Peka
- Traditional Croatian Lamb Peka at Dubrovnik Restaurant – video recipe
- Peka (ispod peke) – Traditional Dish Cooking Guide
Oh, before I share this recipe with you, as this is one of the EU states I have visited, I have to tell you that Croatia is an astonishingly beautiful part of the world. And their wine! It’s so good.
And if you visit Dubrovnik, you should definitely travel on down to Kotor in Montenegro – that whole area is just so beautiful.
Ingredients
- 2 large potatoes, peeled and sliced
- 3 celery sticks, chopped
- 2 onions, peeled and sliced
- 2 large garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
- 2 bell peppers, cored, deseeded and sliced roughly
- 4 lamb loin chops
- 150ml white wine
- olive oil
- some thyme
- 3 rosemary sprigs
- paprika
- salt
- pepper
Instructions
- Grease a heavy lidded oven dish or pot with olive oil and turn the oven on to 160 C.
- Line the bottom of the dish with potato slice - it's fine if they overlap. Scatter over the celery, onion and garlic. Place the sliced pepper around the edges of the pot.
- Sprinkle a half-teaspoon of salt over the veg. Grate over some black pepper and add a little thyme. Sprinkle generously with sweet paprika. Drizzle the veg with olive oil.
- Place the chops on top of the veg and again sprinkle with a little salt and lots of paprika. Place the sprigs of rosemary in the pot.
- Cover the pot with its lid and place in the oven to stew for 1 hour.
- Take out and pour in the wine. Mix around as best you can.
- Put back in the oven and cook for another 30 minutes. Take out and taste to check the seasoning. You might want to add a bit more salt and paprika. Put back and stew for another 30 minutes - or until all the veg is soft. Enjoy!
