Slow Cooked Lamb: The Easy Way!

Today, I wanted to write because I love writing—and cooking! Most days, I write and test software and then bash out pages of technical prose. When writing in this technical and instructional form, teaching is always emphasized. Today, I will change gears and hopefully teach you how to make a slow-cooked lamb shoulder with the least fuss.

Writing this article will help me refine my methods. Reading it will help you create a delicious meal more efficiently than you have ever experienced, and in the end, we will both be satisfied.

I Learn, You Learn, and Then We Are All Fed by Knowledge.

I borrowed the heading of this paragraph from James May’s Oh Cook! Teaser Trailer because … well … it’s excellent!

I adore James May (who you may also recognize from Top Gear, The Grand Tour and so on), and I especially love his cooking program Oh Cook! (which was released via Amazon Prime Video back in 2020). Aside from being a presenter, James is a fabulous author and I own most of his books.

Without further ado.

The Ingredients

• Approximately 500 grams of lamb (does not technically have to be a shoulder roast)
• One courgette (zucchini)
• One whole garlic bulb
• Half a tablespoon of turmeric
• Half a tablespoon of paprika
• One teaspoon of mustard
• Four onions
• One sweet potato
• Balsamic Vinegar of Modena
• Vegetable stock
• Worcestershire sauce
• Bay leaves
• Two rosemary sprigs
• Four tomatoes (or just a tin of tomatoes)

You will also need a cooktop, an oven, oven mitts, a wooden spoon and a crock-pot.

Preheat Your Oven

Preheat your oven to 250 F (125 C).

Clear out Your Dishwasher!

That’s right, punters. The last thing you want to do after this exercise is spend an hour clanging around cleaning pots, pans, knives, and cutting boards. This recipe is slick and will leave your kitchen almost spotless.

Preheat Your Crockpot

Set the cooktop to a gentle/medium heat setting and place the empty crock pot on the heat. There is no oil yet!

Let the entire crockpot (handles and all) warm up thoroughly (hence the constant reminder to use oven mitts throughout this article).

The aim is not to spectacularly sizzle the meat once it hits the crockpot's cooking surface. The aim is to keep the entire crockpot at a very stable temperature so that when the meat (from the fridge) lands, it does not cool the cooking surface too much. We want to crisply seal the meat’s exterior, not arrive at the unfortunate destination of the soggy slurry of raw lamb pieces.

Boil Your Kettle

We will need some hot water later on, so fill and boil your kettle now in preparation.

Start Chopping

Always wash your hands between steps

While the crockpot is heating, roughly chop the lamb into one- to two-inch cubes using a new cutting board. (These will be cooked first, but not just now. Keep chopping, and don’t skip ahead.)

While the empty crockpot is still gently being heated, grab another new chopping board, roughly chop the onions and set them aside.

Grab another new chopping board and roughly chop the garlic, sweet potatoes, and tomatoes. If you see any other leftover vegetables in the fridge, like carrots, chop them up and add them as you wish. I tend to add everything I can find (because half the time, those leftover bits in the crisper end up all bendy in the compost bin anyway).

The Cooktop

Add some oil to the crock pot, which should be plenty hot enough, thanks to your cooktop, and place half of the lamb in. We are just sealing the meat outside, not cooking all the way through, so just a few minutes of cooking will do the trick. Place the first cooked batch of lamb on a new, clean plate, and then cook the second batch. Add the second cooked batch of lamb to the plate and set that plate aside.

Put the lamb cutting board and knife straight into the dishwasher.

Deglaze

On the cooking surface, you will notice some shiny/sticky caramelized residues (the stuff sticking to the cast iron pan after browning the meat). This is called Fond (as seen in the image above).

Add all the onions, a splash of Modena balsamic Vinegar, and a jolly good glug of Worcestershire sauce to deglaze the cooking surface. Stir with a wooden spoon for as long as you like. This will caramelize the onions and clean the cooking surface perfectly.

This deglazing adds a beautiful caramelized sweetness to the dish from here on in.

Put the onion cutting board straight into the dishwasher.

Add The Rest

With the cooktop heat still on, add the lamb back. Add the other ingredients (courgette, garlic, turmeric, paprika, mustard, sweet potato, vegetable stock, bay leaves, rosemary, and tomatoes).

Put the plate (upon which we stored the cooked lamb) straight into the dishwasher.

Put the final cutting board (which we used to chop all the extras, such as courgette, garlic, etc.) straight into the dishwasher.

Turn off your cooktop.

The Oven

Pour the boiled water from your kettle into the crockpot until it covers the highest point of the food. Leave an inch or two below the lid so it does not boil over in the oven.

Using oven mitts, cover the crock pot with its designated lid and place the lidded crockpot in the already-preheated oven.

The total cooking time in the oven will be between 4 and 5 hours.

Check It Out

Using oven mitts, remove the crock pot once or twice during the cooking process and gently stir (adding water if required each time). I usually add about a cup of boiling water each time I remove the lid to inspect and stir. The example below is plenty moist (you can see the liquid half an inch from the top of the food; this needs about a cup of boiling water to cover the food again). Then back in the oven, it goes, and so on.

Bon Appétit

Once ready, turn off your oven, remove the crockpot, and remove the crockpot’s lid. Stir and let sit for a few minutes to release the tremendous amount of steam (which will help naturally thicken it up).

Dish up, and enjoy. You will notice that the vegetables have blended perfectly with the spices. You will also notice a really creamy texture. This is due to the combination of the sweet potatoes and the caramelized onions. Naturally, thanks to the initial sealing of the meat and the slow cooking, the lamb pieces will be exceptionally tender, and each morsel will effortlessly dissolve in your mouth.

My version is heavy on the vegetable side; that is my preference. I love the flavour of the lamb but don’t need it to be the majority of the content.

The Washing Up

At this stage, you will already have enough dirty cooking accessories sitting in the dishwasher. Enjoy your delicious creation while your robot cleans it all up for you.

The Good News

Based on my experience, this meal tastes significantly better when eaten as leftovers. This improvement may be due to the additional time allowed for all the components to marinate.