Pineapple Wasabi Lamb

Pineapple Wasabi Lamb
Originally uploaded by pradeep jeganathan.

As promised, here is the recipe for the lamb dish I've been working on.

Recipe.
(This is the first pass, please let me know in your comments what's unclear, and what I’ve left out).

Okay things you need:

250g Lamb
Salt, pepper, vinegar, spices, a shallot & garlic.
1 Cup stock (or water)
1 Cup pineapple juice ( a slice of pineapple)
1 or 2 teaspoons of wasabi
½ cup of Arrack or Cognac

Debone, cube, and trim the lamb. (I use the boneless variety you get in those light green 250g frozen packs in Colombo supermarkets; so this is for one pack of 250g)
Season with salt, pepper a thimbleful of vinegar, and even less olive oil, just to bind the salt in. add a few cardamom pods, cloves and cinnamon stick pieces, if you like that, and set aside for at leave a half an hour.
Slice a big Bombay onion, which is a shallot, (kind of, or is it exactly, I'm not sure?) and a few cloves of garlic. Sauté in a heavy skillet, and when the onions are translucent, add the lamb, turning over until nice and brown. Then add about 150ml – 200 ml of stock or water, (I like to add stock, and I follow Barbara Kafka’s stock making method, but it works okay with just water even ((I tried it)– if you are okay with store bought cubes, then that’s cool also but store bought isn't the same as home made, so there) deglaze the pan a little reduce heat, and simmer for about 40 mins may be more or less, covered, until the lamb is real soft.
Okay now it gets a little fancy, we are going to make a glaze. But its not hard, even I can do it!
Take the lamb off the fire, drain it with a fine sieve, and separate out that gravy.
Set the lamb aside, and add an equal potion of pineapple juice, and half a potion of arrack or cognac. {In Sri Lanka, arrack is cheap, and its pretty much the law, that we drink lots it -- that’s a note for foreign readers, as they say in the book trade}.
Okay so if ya have a cup of gravy that’s a cup of pineapple juice and half cup of arrack.
Then you’ve got to boil this down until it is real thick and syrupy. The first 7 mins will be boring, and then it gets thick. This is where it can burn. Be careful. You need a heavy pan, a double boiler, or one of those thick, white plastic thingies I got from Arpico, that you can put in microwave, and let things boil in. (I will add a pic of this soon). Yes!
Even so, watch it -- once the mixture thickens, its going to caramelize, because of the sugar in the pineapple juice, and you don’t want that.
While the mixture is boiling down, pick out the stray spices from the lamb, and any other stray bits of skin or not so nice stuff, that’s visible, and slice your self some tiny silvers of pineapple for garnish.
Then, when the glaze is done, add wasabi, (which is a horseradish paste, often served with sushi; I get mine in a tube, from keels or arpico, it not really expensive at all, because it will last for ever) one teaspoon at time, to the glaze, mixing thoroughly each time.
Now that’s a real teaspoon, which is teeny, morsel like thing. Careful because wasabi is hot, with a unique oh-wow! flavor, but you can’t over do it. Keep tasting until the sweetness of the glaze is balanced by the strength of the wasabi.
This sauce will be just right, when it is what my friend Jennifer calls morrish, which means you always want to have more of it.
Heat the Lamb up one more time and plate, with the glaze spooned over the cubes, just as you serve, garnish with pineapple sticks and a little more wasabi.

Try it out before you go live as it were, and hey, take bow if it works.