Sauteed Lamb in olive oil and white wine that gets slowly cooked in its juices until perfectly soft and tender. Flavored minimally with dried oregano, garlic, and grated dried Mizithra cheese.

This sauteed lamb stew, if I may call it such (it's not as saucy as a stew but it is cooked in the same fashion on the stovetop), is a traditional Greek dish from the island of Crete. In Greek, it is called Arni Tsigariasto which means sauteed lamb. Sauteed=Tsigariasto and Lamb=Arni.

Table Of Contents

Ingredients
How To Make
TIPS
Serve With
Recipe

It's a very simplistic dish that's very easy to make. The whole purpose of this dish is to preserve all the meaty lamb flavor. That's why no additional liquid is added other than the wine and olive oil. Therefore, the lamb gets slow-cooked in wine and its own juices.

Lamb cooked in white wine is very flavorful because the wine enhances the lamb flavor without coating it (like a red wine would). Alcohol binds with fat and water carrying the aromas of the meat into the sauce and vice versa.

Ingredients

To make this lamb in white wine recipe, you need:

Boneless leg of lamb cut into cubes/chunks
Dry white wine
Olive oil
Garlic cloves finely chopped/coarsely minced
Bay leaf
Dried oregano
Dry Mizithra cheese (grated) or Pecorino Romano or Parmesan cheese instead

How To Make

To make this sauteed lamb chunks recipe simply saute lamb in hot olive oil, then add the garlic and bay leaf, pour in the wine, and cover leaving the lid only slightly open on the side. Slow-cook the lamb for about an hour and a half until it becomes very tender and then mix in the cheese and dried oregano.

TIPS

Leg of lamb is one of the best cuts of meat for this stew because it's not too fatty but fatty enough to yield soft and tender meat. Goat meat is another great option for this stew.
Brown the meat very well all around. This is what gives most of the flavor. To do this properly make sure the oil is really hot when you add the meat, and also don't turn the meat too soon or too often. Let it get some color first.
Cook the meat at the lowest heat because we don't want the sauce to drain. Also, a low and gentle heat equals very tender meat.
Use a medium-sized to small-sized cooking pot with a narrow opening. Otherwise, the sauce may drain and the meat won't have enough moisture to cook well.

Serve With

A classic way of serving slow-cooked lamb in white wine is with potato fries. In Greece, we fry them in olive oil which makes them so tasty. Instructions to make them are given in the recipe below.

However, if you want a healthier version you can try my Greek oven fries.

Sauteed lamb can also be served as a Meze dish. A small plate served together with other Greek appetizers such as Htipiti (whipped feta + roasted red pepper dip), Tzatziki, a Greek salad, Dolmadakia (stuffed vine leaves), or Greek Horta.

Recipe