MontiLee's Lamb Chili

Lamb Chili. The Avocado is optional. You will need:

* 1/4 Cup Olive or Corn Oil
* 3 Pounds Lamb Shoulder, boned and diced (if you're lucky and can find it boneless, about 2 1/2 pounds should be fine)
* 2 Cups Diced Red Onion
* 2 Tablespoons Minced Garlic
* Chili Powder to Taste ** 3TBSP - Mild**6TBSP Hot**
* 1-28 Ounce Can Italian Plumb Tomatoes
* 2 TBSP Tomato Paste
* 2 Cups Light Poultry or Vegetable Stock
* Salt to taste
* 2 Red Peppers, Diced
* 2 Avocados, Peeled, Stoned and Diced (Optional)
* 1/4 Cup Goat Cheese
* 1/2 Cup Sour Cream
* 1/2 Cup Chopped Cilantro

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a large oven-proof skillet or pot (I use a dutch oven I don't care about anymore because cleaning the damn thing afterwards is a bitch), heat oil over high heat until just before the kitchen gets smokey. Carefully, to avoid third-degree burns, add lamb and brown and relatively hot. Being fully cooked isn't an issue at this point because it's going into an over for several hours, and if that doesn't do the trick, you need a new oven. Remove the meat to a warm plate and set adie.

In the pot you just took your meat from, add onions and garlic to oil and over low-medium heat brown the garlic up (about 4 minutes). Add chili powder and stir until you're sure you'll never get that crap off your pot.

To add to the fun, add tomatoes, paste and stock and stir scraping up the garlic and chili powder you've just apoxied to the bottom; bring to a boil. Add salt. Frankly, I'm not a salt person, so I don't add it, b it' your heart, so knock yourself out. Put the lamb back in the pot.

Cover the pot with a sheet of aluminum foil, dull side down on the surface of the skillet/pot/carved out skull. Cover with a lid - preferably the one that came with the pot, but if you're like me and most of your kitchen accoutrements are second-hand and garbage rescues, you don't have a lid. I have lids that came with other post and skillets and seem to work, but a large plate will work too. It just has to create a seal over the foil and pot. Place on the lower rack of the oven and cook until tender (about 2hr 45 minutes). I've forgotten about let mine bake for as long as 4hrs. The longer it cooks, the more tender the meat. As Gladys saws in that grosse Farmer Jack commercial - "chews like butter".

When you've remember that you have food in the oven - the smoke alarm does it for me - remove your charred and extremely hot pot from the oven and place back on stovetop, cuz there's more cooking to be done! Bring the liquids to a simmer over high heat and cook until thick enough to coat the back of the spoon (about 10 minutes). By this time however, you should have a nice stew consistancy.

Some recipes call for removing the lamb and dicing it fine, but a few stuirs and it should fall apart anyway. There's no sense in serving lamb chili if people can't see the lamb bits.

Add the peppers and avocado. Unless you don't like avadado, in which case you can set it aside and let people add their own, or hide it down the garbage disposal when no one's looking.

In a small bowl, whick together the goat cheese and sour cream until smooth. My ghetto family thinks goat cheese is something Whitey invented to keep black cows down, but I think it adds a nice flavor.

Ladle the chili into bowls - I've served this in breadbowls and - dollop of the sour cream mixture on top. Hmm... a lot og my recipes have something dolloped on top.

Top with cilantro. - unless like me, cilantrop turns your insides into a rashy swollen mess (yeah, this is exactly what people want to read in a recipe).