Slow Cooker Lamb in Red Wine Sauce

Method

How it goes together

1. 01

   Step 1

   Pat the lamb leg dry with paper towel, then season generously with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan and brown the lamb all over. Transfer to a slow cooker.

   A dry, well-salted surface is what lets the meat brown rather than steam, and that browning is where most of the sauce's depth comes from — a slow cooker adds no colour of its own.

2. 02

   Step 2

   In the same pan, cook the chopped onion and diced carrot over low heat for 5 minutes. Add the sliced garlic and cook briefly, just a few seconds, so it doesn't burn. Deglaze with the red wine, scraping the bottom of the pan to release the browned bits into the sauce. Add the beef stock, tomato paste and thyme, stir to combine, then take off the heat.

   Low heat softens the onion and carrot and draws out their sweetness without bitter colour, and the wine dissolves the stuck-on fond so all that flavour ends up in the sauce instead of in the sink.

3. 03

   Step 3

   Pour the mixture over the lamb, add the bay leaves, and cook on low for 8 hours or high for 6 hours.

   Long, gentle heat under a lid melts the connective tissue in the leg into gelatine, which is what makes it pull apart and gives the sauce body.

4. 04

   Step 4

   Lift the lamb out of the slow cooker and keep it warm. Add the cornflour to the pan juices and simmer until thickened. Pull the lamb apart into large chunks with two forks, then serve with the red wine sauce.

   Taking the meat out first lets the juices reduce and the cornflour set into a sauce that coats, rather than watery liquid around the lamb.