Traditional Welsh Cawl Recipe
If you’re like me and prefer to cook for the week and store meals in the fridge, you’ll be happy to know that cawl is often even better the day after you cook it. This gives the ingredients in the dish time to rest and combine, bringing out all the flavors.Cawl is customarily served alongside homemade bread and Welsh cheese. It’s also traditional to eat it from a wooden bowl with a wooden spoon in some parts of Wales.
Ingredients
- 1 kg/2.25lbs Welsh lamb neck or shoulder, or Welsh beef or a ham hock—the meat should be on the bone for maximum flavor. (If you can’t get Welsh lamb or beef where you live, local lamb or beef is fine.)
- 1 onion roughly chopped
- 3 carrots peeled and diced
- 6 medium Maris Piper or Russet potatoes peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
- 1 small swede or 2 parsnips peeled and diced
- 2 leeks rinsed and cut into thin slices
- 64 oz vegetable stock recommend getting extra stock to thin the stew if desired
- 2 tsp black peppercorns
- 1 bunch fresh parsley including stalks, roughly chopped
- 2 sprigs of rosemary finely chopped
- ½ oz fresh mint roughly chopped
- Salt to taste
- Mature Caerphilly cheese for serving. If you can’t obtain Caerphilly cheese where you live, you can substitute Gouda or Cheshire—or you can get a wheel of authentic Caerphilly cheese on Amazon if you want to stock up.
Instructions
- Place the meat on the bone in a large pot, cover with water, and bring to boiling. Simmer gently for several hours (3 hrs recommended). Remove from heat until cool and refrigerate.
- The next day, remove any fat that has congealed on the surface with a spoon.
- Remove all of the meat from the pot and pull the meat off the bones. Discard bones. Return meat to the stock.
- Add the potatoes, swede or parsnips, carrots, onion, rosemary, and peppercorns. Add salt to taste. Simmer stew until vegetables are tender—check after 20 mins so potatoes don’t overcook. Add more vegetable stock if needed.
- Add the shredded leeks, mint, and chopped parsley. If you want your cawl to be thicker, you can thicken it with a flour and water paste (regular flour or substitute oat flour if gluten-free) or fine oatmeal.
- Serve with Caerphilly cheese (or Gouda or Cheshire as substitutions. Sharp cheddar such as Black Bomber by Snowdonia Cheese Company can also be used.)
Notes
- Cook time: 4 hrs (+ refrigeration overnight)
- Remember, aside from using meat on the bone, potatoes, and leeks, there’s really no right or wrong way to make Welsh cawl since this dish was originally prepared using simple ingredients that people had on hand. It wasn’t about precision but necessity. So there’s all the more reason to enjoy bringing a little piece of Cymru into your kitchen!
