Friday was one of those days when I was going to be busy all day and still wanted to have a home cooked meal that night.
I lightly oiled the slow cooker. Put a leg of lamb (about 2.2 kilos)in there after removing the visible fat, . Added a large roughly chopped onion, a tin of tomatoes, about 2 cups of beef stock. I sprinkled the leg with 1 tbsp ras-el-hanout and some ground coriander. I also added some dried apricots. About 8 of them. Sadly, I couldn’t buy any Australian grown. Raisins would have been a good alternative to apricot. Chopped (fairly small pieces) a sweet potato and threw that in with the rest. Turned the slow cooker on Auto (first 2 hours on high then switches to low).
About 6.5 hours later I lifted the lamb out and wrapped it tightly in foil. I strained the rest putting the liquid in the freezer for the fat to set, and keeping the veggies etc to add back later. I’m impatient so I had pre-cooled a stainless steel saucepan in the freezer and then added a heap of ice to set the fat quickly. Once I’d removed the fat I put the liquid on the stove and brought it to a slow boil to reduce it (only really necessary due to the melted ice). I waited until the liquid had reduced by about a 1/3.
Then I popped the lamb back in the slow-cooker and tipped the strained veggies over the lamb. Added a half a butternut pumpkin that I had cut up into fairly small pieces (leave the skin on) and poured about half the liquid over the lot. Again set the slow-cooker on auto. The other half of the liquid I poured over some Israeli couscous in a microwaveable bowl.
When we were nearly ready to eat I put the couscous in the microwave for about five minutes. Checked it, added a little more liquid and gave it another couple of minutes. While it was cooking I pulled the lamb off the bone. When it was ready I plated the couscous, popped some lamb on top and ladled the veggies and thick stock on top. Served it with greek yogurt sprinkled with dukkah on the side.
Seriously good!
