Experimenting with sumac and lamb kidney: a cross between stew and stir fry

I didn’t get to taste lamb until much later in life when I was already working, and it was brought by a cousin from the States for a family reunion (how did it get through customs?  anyway….).  Offal is also something I am not very familiar with (although, sans the bones, we probably eat 98% of the animal in the PH), except for chicken heart and liver.  Herbs and spices?  In the Philippines we have got quite limited–I don’t understand why when our neighbour countries have plenty.  You can imagine how it was soooo out-of-this-world for me when I got to taste green cardamom, coriander seeds and fresh tarragon!  And sumac–what is sumac???  I keep seeing it in Chef Ronit’s ingredients–I’m curious!  I finally found some in the shop–it was sooooo expensive!  And then some time later it appeared in the Polish shelf (produced by a Turkish company), and reasonably priced–yayyy! 😊

So I got lamb kidneys, sumac and some vegetables.  I want a stir-fry (we don’t put tomatoes in stir-fry), but I want to have that “Mediterranean” feel in my dish.  Okay, I’ll use the cherry tomatoes and just halve them so the juice won’t run too much.  Groundnut oil or olive oil?  I just decided “Mediterranean”–olive oil then.

Ingredients:
olive oil for sauteing
3 cloves garlic (minced)
1-inch ginger (thinly sliced)
5-6 lamb kidney halves (sliced)
pinch of chilli powder
pinch of allspice
1 tsp sumac
1 white onion (julienned)
1 red capsicum (julienned)
2 small carrots (thin discs)
2 handfuls cherry tomatoes (halved)
2 handfuls mangetout
sea salt to taste

Procedure:
1. Saute garlic and ginger together.
2. Add kidneys. Cover. When juices have dried….
3. Add the chilli, allspice and sumac. Stir, then….
4. Add onions. Cover. When onions have wilted….
5. Add capsicum. Cover while you’re slicing the carrots (2-3 minutes).
6. Add carrots. Cover while you’re halving the tomatoes.
7. Add tomatatoes. Cover while your trimming the mangetout.
8. Add mangetout and salt to taste. Cover until the mangetout cooks (I like it half-cooked).

My discovery: Lamb kidneys cook like chicken liver–it never gets to that point where it becomes tough-crumbly in texture as with livers of bigger animals (which was what I was expecting).  Sumac–I need to add more next time–the internet says it’s lemony in taste, and I need to be able to identify that distinct flavour.  I do believe it’s the reason though why the dish did not taste “game-ey”, which is how I describe anything with lamb. 👍