Some dishes don’t really need recipes - just a list of the contents and a note on how long to cook them for. As long as the balance of ingredients and flavours is about right it is not necessary to be that accurate with how much of this or that. This dish is one of those; the secret lies in the long slow cooking so that everything eventually amalgamates into one delicious plateful of food.

I think my version originally started as a recipe from Lindsay Bareham’s wonderful ‘Big Red Book of Tomatoes’ which no barge cruising in France should be without. Although I use a roughly  cut up shoulder of lamb, you could use leg or big meaty lamb chops instead. Ideally cook it in a Le Creuset casserole dish and just let it sit in the oven on a low setting while you spend all day working through a never-ending succession of locks.

Lamb  with Fennel and Tomatoes

Serves 4 - 6 

Good-sized shoulder of lamb cut into large chunks

3 - 4 tbsp of olive oil

2-3 tbsp of Pernod (or similar)

2 medium onions, peeled and sliced

2 large fennel bulbs, trimmed and cut into wedges

1/2 preserved lemon - the peel thinly sliced

1 tbsp dried oregano

400g tin of good quality italian tomatoes

salt and pepper

Put a couple of tablespoons of oil into the casserole. Season the chunks of lamb and then brown them all over on a medium heat. Once well coloured, pour over the Pernod, raise the heat a little and let it bubble up and evaporate. Remove the lamb from the casserole and put to one side. Pour in the rest of the oil, reduce the heat and add the sliced onions. Cook to soften (but not colour) for about 10 minutes then add the wedges of fennel. Put the lid on and leave to sweat for another 10 minutes.

Heat the oven, then set it to around 300F/150C/Gas Mk2. (This setting will allow the lamb to cook to perfection over a period of 3 to 4 hours.)

Return the lamb to the casserole. Bed it well down amongst the onions and fennel. Add the  sliced preserved lemon skin and sprinkle with the dried oregano. Finally pour the tomatoes over everything.

Replace the lid and put the casserole into the oven.

You can then leave it to its own devices for a couple of hours. Then check occasionally on its progress and add a little water if it is getting dry. Once the meat is cooked and falling off the bone, taste for seasoning. Add salt and pepper if necessary and a drop more Pernod to bring out the fennel flavour. If the sauce tastes a little acidic, add a teaspoon of runny honey. If there is lots of liquid, pour it off into a saucepan and reduce on a high heat. Return the thickened sauce to the casserole.

This dish works very well served with spinach. Simply wash the spinach and cook without added water. Strain and squeeze out the residual water. Chop well, add butter, salt, pepper and plenty of grated nutmeg.

I usually serve the lamb with couscous but mashed potato is a good alternative.

Like most slow-cooked casseroles this is even better the next day so even if you are only cooking for two, it is still worth making this amount and freezing what you don’t eat for another meal. If you are without a freezer, it will keep perfectly well in the refrigerator for a couple of days.