Crockpot Herbed Lamb Shanks

It's been a while since I gave the good word to my friends at Wai-Ora, but that time has rolled around again.

I would have loved to have posted more lovely lamb deliciousness this winter, but it has not been the case. Mostly, this is because when we cook lamb we generally keep it very simple, and so there's not much to say about it, really.

The other thing is this: We are big fans of Lamb Shanks. Knuckles, Shanks, whatever you call them, there was a time, not so long ago, when they were a cheap and delicious meal that we would have at least every couple of weeks.

But something changed. The twin-packs of knuckles we used to get from the supermarket for $5 have crept up to $7 or $8, or even more. For two people (and given the long cooking time) that's not such a great deal anymore. You could pretty much buy steak for that price, and cook it in 10 minutes.

What happened to push up the price of a joint that used to be considered little more than offal?

I tell you, it's those damned Celebrity Chefs again. That, and possibly the severe shortages of lamb due to last year's weather, the declining market, the shift from lamb farming to dairy in New Zealand, and whatever else. But I'm going to blame Oliver and Ramsay. By doing the right thing and championing delicious cuts of meat like the Lamb Shank, they've pushed up demand and therefore market value for something that really should be an affordable family meal. Now it's almost a luxury.

With this small travesty simmering in my viscera I went to the market, and drooled over the selection in the Wai-Ora lamb fridge like I always do. When I saw two Lamb Shanks for $7, I was equally outraged, but then I did the math.

It was the same price as you'd pay for the ones in the supermarket, and they were slightly smaller, but, as we well know, of a much superior quality (I kid you not, and I have the pictures to prove it). Reluctantly accepting that if Lamb Shanks were now to be a treat they might as well be a delicious treat, I bought them.

No regrets.

But it does seem a shame that Lamb Shanks might now be a rarity in our diet, rather than a reasonably frequent staple. There's nothing quite like having that bone on the plate, all melting meat and oily juices. Very primal. For the sake of preserving these memories for future generations, I took the liberty of recording in great detail the cooking and even eating of these most delicious joints.

Because that's what I do.

Crockpot Herbed Lamb Shanks

(Serves 2)

Ingredients

2 Lamb Knuckles
Fresh Mint, chopped
Fresh Thyme, chopped
Olive Oil
Freshly Ground Pepper and Salt
Zest of 1 Lemon
2T Flour or Potato Flour for Gluten-Free
4 Cloves of Garlic, minced
1 Cup Beef or Lamb Stock
1 Onion, chopped
2T Sour Cream

Grind up the herbs, lemon zest, garlic, flour and seasoning with a mortar and pestle, adding enough olive oil to loosen it. Coat the knuckles thoroughly.

Place the knuckles in the slow cooker, push the onion in around the meat, and pour the stock in around the edges of the dish. Be careful not to rinse the herbs off the shanks with the stock.

Cook on High for 1 hour, then switch to low for a further 3 1/2 - 4 hours.
When the shanks are done, blend the remains in the crockpot into gravy.
Add the sour cream to the gravy, mix well and spoon onto plates.Lay the shanks on top of the gravy. Serve with couscous cooked in beef stock and fresh steamed vegetables. As promised, this is the depth of colour you'll get in the middle of one of these lamb shanks. That, my friends, is flavour, and that is why we have to do so little to get Wai-Ora lamb tasting amazing. It already is.

In case you missed it before, you can find the Wai-Ora truck at various markets around Wellington on the weekend, or you order direct from their site. And as I've said before, Wai-Ora don't pay me anything to promote their product. I'd just hate to see them disappear from my market, so get out there and support them, or I'll be cross.

Crockpot Honey Soy Chicken

This is so easy and delicious, it's not even a recipe. It's just yum.

Take a whole chicken, and marinade for a few hours in 1/4C soy sauce, 3T honey, and 4 chopped cloves of garlic.
Place in the crockpot and cook on low for 5 hours.
It comes out with sweet crispy skin and succulent white meat. Serve with potato salad and fresh garden salad.
Save the breast meat and make into a chicken salad the next day, with croutons and fresh mint. Mmmmm.

Any guesses how summery it was in the week before Christmas, when I cooked and photographed this?

Yeah, pretty summery.

Slow-Cooked Colonial Goose (No Goose Required)

Why, I can hear you asking, am I posting a mid-winter recipe in the middle of summer? Well, for one, a lot of my lovely northern hemisphere readers have been ogling at pictures of sunshine and gardens in full bloom, so I thought you deserved something more comforting while its freezing cold up there. Also, the weather here is so screwy right now that some days it might as well be winter over here too. Days of rain, and nights so cool we've seriously thuoght about lighting the fire.

In February.

That's nuts.

But moving on...

Also known as a Rolled Forequarter Hogget Roast, there are few things you can do better in a crockpot than a Colonial Goose. Wiki has a great description here, although I must admit I'd never read a recipe for it quite like theirs. The things you learn. Next time, I'll give it a go.

My version, on the other hand, is far more prosaic, lacking the honey, apricots, and red wine. On the other hand, it's done in the slow cooker, and that has to count for something.

Slow-Cooked Colonial Goose

(Serves 4)

Your rolled forequarter should be stuffed with onions and breadcrumbs at the very least. Toss the roast in freshly ground salt and pepper, some rice bran oil, and a splash of worcester sauce and some balsamic vinegar, then roll in semolina flour.

Rest in the fridge in the crockpot dish on a raised tray for about 5 hours. (Did I mention you need to start this one early in the morning?)

Cut an onion into 6ths and place around the meat. Place in the slow cooker and cook on low for 6 hours.
Remove the meat and rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, take a hand blender and blitz the onion and the juices in the crockpot dish to make the gravy. Season to taste. Slice the meat and the stuffing against the grain.
Serve with boiled potatoes and fresh veges, and lots of that lovely gravy.

If you have leftovers, use them up the following morning by making hash-cakes, with grated cooked potatoes, cheese and eggs. I'd post a photo but I'm guessing they disappeared too quickly for the camera to get a look in.

Sweet Garlic Lamb Shanks

The last time I made slow-cooked Lamb Shanks the night turned into a debacle. It wasn't the food, because the meat was absolutely delicious, but Aunty L's car broke down and I had to go out in the dark and the rain to help her get home. Thankfully, I could pretty much inhale my lamb knuckle as I ran out the door, so it didn't go to waste. It's been a while since then, so I was looking forward to doing knuckles in the crock-pot again.

It's also been a couple of weeks since I mentioned Wai-ora Lamb, and it would be unfair not to mention that these knuckles are also from them. I kid you not, these guys rear some beautiful meat.

Sweet Garlic Lamb Knuckles

(Quantities are for 2 knuckles, but that won't be enough to feed all of us for much longer, the way Isaac eats...)

In a pestle, grind up the following:
1/4t Coriander Seeds
1/4t Fennel Seeds
Freshly Ground Salt & Pepper
Olive Oil
2 chopped cloves NZ Garlic

Mix in:
1/2t Honey
a squeeze of lemon juice
Spread over the lamb and marinate in the fridge for 6-8 hours. Quarter an onion and place in the bottom of a crockpot. Place the knuckles on a raised tray in the crockpot and cook on low for 4-5 hours.
The longer, the better.
Delicious no matter what you serve them with. We had couscous with these ones, lightly seasoned with Arabian spices.
And here's the evidence. You can't do that with a knife.

Orange-Stuffed Chicken

Here you are, my poor neglected blog!

It seems that between work and family and building playhouses I have had no time at all for keeping this site up-to-date. Considering that the recipe I have here was something I made about 3 weeks ago, that might give you an idea of just how busy I've been. Last weekend DadDad John helped Uncle B and I assemble the frames for the two playhouses, and chopped us up a carload of firewood. I never thought I'd see the day when I was putting my Dad to work for the weekend, instead of the other way round. Such a curious universe.

I also started a Facebook Group called Fans of Urban Driftwood. Inside of a week, this group already has almost 60 members, which is amazing since we've only sold one copy. There are a total of nine copies in existence at time of publishing this post, and since I possess four of those, that's an awful lot of Fans for the remaining five copies. Go Facebook! I'll be registering the newly minted copies with the ISBN to the National Library Archives this week.

We have officially moved Isaac out of his cot and into his big bed. He thinks this is great. I can tell by the way he's banging on the walls in sheer delight. It's going to be a long night.

I rushed around the Hutt River Market today, keenly anticipating swinging by the Lamb Van, only to find that they had sold clean out for the day. Big Ups, Wai-Ora Farm. Stink for us, though. Anyway, since Dessert Chef C had a long night last night and we've got to go out doing family stuff tomorrow for Pretty Penny's birthday, I'd better divulge my top secret Orange-Stuffed Chicken Recipe. It's time like this that I'm glad I make notes!

Orange-Stuffed Chicken (Slow-Cooker Recipe)

Serves 4

In a bowl, mix up the following:
4 sprigs of oregano, leaves washed and roughly chopped;
1/4 kumera, chopped small (into 1/4" cubes);
1/2 onion, finely chopped;
Zest from 1/4 of an orange;
Freshly Ground Salt and Pepper to season;
Olive oil to adjust consistency.

Mix until the ingredients hold together. Stuff the cavity of a whole chicken with the mixture. Truss.
Toss the chicken in Salt and Pepper and the zest from 1/4 of the orange (or more if you want an intense orangey flavour).

In the bottom of your Slow Cooker, pour the juice from the orange, the other half of your onion, chopped, another 1/4 of a chopped kumera, a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and just a light splash of water.

Place the chicken in the slow cooker and turn on High for 5 hours.
Prepare some roast veges to go with the chicken. When the bird is done, remove for carving (this is hardly necessary as the bones will just fall apart anyway). Strain the fat from the liquid in the bottom of the cooker and blend up what's left, adding chicken stock if necessary, to make a sweet and tangy gravy.

Pepper Steak Stew

Every day as I drive to work, the streetlights seem to be turning off closer and closer to home. So, either I'm running later every day, or the mornings are getting lighter earlier, which means that Spring's coming. But don't let it fool you, Winter is still here, and its not going without a fight. What that means for us, apart from the chopping and shifting of firewood and the mud on the carpet which that generates, is that its still very much stew season. I love stews. What I love even more about them now is getting all the ingredients ready the night before and coming home to the smell of cooking stew after work the following evening. Ah, Slow Cooker, how you've changed our lives.

Pepper Steak Stew (Slow Cooker Recipe)

Serves 4

Heat about 2t of olive oil in a pan. When it's quite hot, add the following to the pan:
1 t Peppercorns
1 t Carraway Seeds
2 Bay Leaves
6 Fresh Sage Leaves
3-6 Whole Cloves
1 T Fresh Rosemary Leaves
Freshly Ground Salt

Fry lightly, filling the kitchen with all those lovely smells. This is really to open up all the flavours of the herbs and spices and release thier fragrances into the meat.
In a mixing bowl, blend 60ml of red wine with 60ml of dry white wine, 4 T Olive Oil, 2 T Honey and 1 T of paprika. When the spices have been frying for about 3-4 minutes (keep to a moderate heat, and be sure not to let it burn), add this to the wine and allow to steep for 10 minutes or so.

Roughly chop an onion and pop it in the pan on a low heat to absorb that flavoured oil. When the onion has just started to soften, place it in the bottom of the crockpot.

Meanwhile, cube a 600g piece of Skirt Steak or similar. Brush up a kumera and a couple of carrots. Leave the skins on these as you want them to hold together and release that lovely colour as they cook. Chop into roughly 2cm cubes and mix up with the onion in the crockpot. Open a tin of whole peeled tomatoes and mix these through the onions, mashing up the tomato as you do. Place 1/3 C of concentrated Chicken Stock or Beef Stock in the crockpot.

Note: To make Concentrated Chicken Stock, just put a normal pot of stock on the stove to simmer and then forget about it over a few wines and a movie. Then when you're ready to go to bed and you start wondering what that bubbling, tinkling noise is coming from the kitchen, you're most of the way there.

Place the meat in the wine marinade and mix through thoroughly. Leave in the fridge for at least a couple of hours, preferably overnight.

To cook, mix everything together in the crockpot and turn on, either on low for about 8 hours, or on High for 2 hours then down to low for a further 4 hours.

Mix up a bowl of Dumplings. Sift 1.25C of Flour, 1t Baking Powder, a pinch of salt and the other half of the Oxo Cube into a bowl. Add a shake of dried mixed herbs and 50g of butter, cubed. If you have a pastry blender, this is an easy way to crumble up the ingredients. If not, just rub it through your fingers until it feels like a light crumble. Then add milk or water a little at a time until the dough forms into a sticky mass. Roll into spoonfuls and place on top of the stew for the last 2 hours.

The Ultimate Chick Fight

Roast vs Slow Cooker

In a completely arbitrary manner (my notion that this could be any sort of valid test was thoroughly disabused by Obi), I decided to put the Slow Cooker to the test against the good old Oven Roast.Well, I have to be honest. Chicken #1 was in the crockpot already when I learned that there were so many people coming to dinner that it would be a two-chicken night. So the second chicken had to be roasted, and the idea of the ultimate taste-test was a secondary consideration.

A lot of firewood was then moved. An awful lot of firewood. Did I mention that there was a lot of firewood to move? Again, I have Obi to thank for much of the firewood moving. But that has little to do with the Chick Fight.

After the firewood was moved (a lot of firewood), I put on Chicken #2. Both were cooked, along with a tray of roast veges, some steamed veges, some fried veges, and some boiled carrots, just to make sure we had all our vege bases covered.

The chickens were dished and I asked that everyone take a piece of each and tell me which they preferred and why. In other words, who would win the Ultimate Chick Fight? Not unanimously but overwhelmingly (in an MMP Democracy), it was Chicken #2 that was described as moister and tastier, and everyone trying it assumed that it was the Slow Cooked Chook. It wasn't. Roast Chook won the Ultimate Chick Fight.
But here's the thing. Because Chicken #1 was still a teensy bit frozen, I put it on at 10, on high for 2 hours, before turning it down to low for a further 6. Also, it was a size 12, and Chicken #2 was a size 16. Chicken #2 was also a different brand from Chicken #1. So its possible that Chicken #1 got a wee bit overdone, and since its not fair to compare apples with pears, the entire debate is, as Obi has said, a load of...

Or so any statistician will tell you.

In any case, Chicken #1 carved much easier than Chicken #2. Dinner was delicious, and both chickens were enjoyed equally. I'm not sure that we proved anything, except that after two bottles of wine, all chicken is good.

But here's the final word: As you'll see below, I took Giffy's advice and put a whole apple in Chicken #2, which I think is the reason it came out so moist.

Chicken #1: Slow Cooked Garlic Chicken

Dress the chicken with:
Freshly Ground Salt & Pepper
Olive Oil
Grated Garlic (about half a head)

Stuff the chicken with:
1 lemon, pierced all around
4-5 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed

Cook in the slow cooker on low for 6-7 hours.

Chicken #2: Apply Roast Chicken

Dress the chicken with:
Freshly Ground Salt and Pepper
Olive Oil
Gluten Free Flour

Stuff the chicken with:
1 apple, sliced into eighths

Roast at 200C for 2 hours (allowing for a tray of roast veges underneath for the last 1 1/2 hrs).

And for good measure, dress your tray of roast potatoes, kumera and onion with freshly ground salt and pepper, olive oil, dried mixed herbs, and gluten-free flour.

Spicy Slow-Cooked Lamb Shanks

Time Warp: This post also takes us back to the distant past of Saturday a week or so ago. It seems like such a memory now...

What better winter food than Lamb Knuckles? What better meal for a Slow-Cooker than Lamb Knuckles? How fortuitous that today it was rainy and cold and awful while on the crock-pot the lamb shanks were slowly cooking down to succulence.

How perfect that when they were pulled from the pot to the plate, meat and bone alike were falling apart, and it took extra utensils to lift them out. What a glorious smell filled the house, as roast veges and delectable lamb was dished onto plates.

How oddly disquieting that despite the prospect of dinner being dished, Isaac wouldn't stop crying. How very frustrating that right as we sit down to eat, with Isaac still unsettled, the phones should all start ringing despite our best efforts to ignore them.

The meat was completely falling apart. So was Isaac, it seemed, and so to was Aunty L, who had been visiting, and whose car had broken down on the way home. Things went downhill from there. Dinner went down in about 3 bites - a good night to have a melt in your mouth lamb shank for dinner, I suppose, but still a shame to rush such a beautiful meal. While I jumped in the car with my wooly hat and my headlamp to go out and see if my completely unmechanical mind could solve Aunty L's car woes in the dark and the rain, C tried to soothe the crying boy.

While there was nothing I could do about the car, I spent most of the next 2 hours keeping Aunty L's kids entertained or sleeping, as required at the time. C got Isaac sorted (you really don't want to hear the details as this is a blog about eating, but I will say that it involved raisins...), and finally I got home to spend what was left of my Saturday night on the couch, as I had originally planned.

What it all boils down to is that I have a really good reason to do Slow-Cooked Lamb Shanks again, very soon!

Spicy Slow-Cooked Lamb Shanks

In a pestle, grind up the following:
4 Cloves of Garlic, sliced
1 Small Dried Chilli
1 t Coriander Seeds
1 t Dried Thyme Leaves
1 T Honey
1 T Balsamic Vinegar
2 T Olive Oil
1 T Flour
Freshly Ground Salt and Pepper

Score the Lamb Shanks and coat them thoroughly with the marinade. Leave to stand.
Slice a couple of carrots and a couple of potatoes into roughly 2mm thick pieces and layer these on the bottom of the crock pot. Cover these in water and sprinkle with salt. Place the Shanks on top of the veges and turn the Slow Cooker on low for about 8 hours.Peel and chop a tray of nice roasting veges and toss these in the remains of the marinade mixture, adding a little salt and pepper, some olive oil and perhaps a bit paprika or something similar to liven them up (it was a week ago now, and I forget exactly what I did). When the meat has 1 1/2 hours to go, place the veges on a low rack in the oven at 190C, turning every half hour. We probably had a dash of colour in the form of brocolli, beans and carrots too, but peas would be nice as well.

When the 8 hours is up, extract the knuckles from the crockpot with care and dish up with the roast veges and greens drizzled with a bit of butter. Try to take more than 3 minutes to eat them. They're worth savouring, even though you'll find that there's no chewing involved. Mmmmmm...

Spicy Slow-Cooked Lamb Chops

This, our second use of the Slow-Cooker, was a weeknight meal. Once again, I just followed my instincts rather than actually doing any real legwork prior to cooking, and it all came out marvelously. The beauty of it is that virtually none of the work was done in the 5-6pm bracket. I got the meat out of the freezer the night before, prepped the marinade, and got the veges ready. Then in the morning before I left for work (6am), I coated the chops in the marinade and left them to sit. C then put the meat in the cooker at lunchtime and popped the veges in with about 2 hours to go, so come 5.30, all I had to do was steam up some greens.

I know that the grand idea here is to be able to put a meal on at about 6am and have it ready with no extra attention being paid to it until its ready about 12 hours later, but its early days yet. Soup and stew are all on the menu for coming weeks, so I'll see how those go when we get there.

Spicy Slow-Cooked Lamb Chops

In a bowl, mix up the following:


3 finely sliced or crushed cloves of garlic;
1 small dried chilli;
Zest of 1 lemon;
1 t of fennel seeds;
1 grating of nutmeg;
freshly ground salt and pepper;
1 T of brown sugar;
1 T of balsamic vinegar;
a handful of washed, chopped fresh mint.

Toss about 800g of lamb chops in this marinade and leave for 6-12 hours.


Peel and chop 2 onions, 1/4 of a large pumpkin, 6-8 potatoes, and 2 kumera. Place in a bowl and toss with freshly ground salt and pepper. Leave to sit with the meat.

When you are ready to start cooking, chop an onion and place it in the bottom of the slow cooker dish. Place the meat on top of the onion, add about 1 C of vege or beef stock, and turn the Cooker on High for one hour. Turn down to low and leave for a further 3 hours. Add the veges and leave for a further 2 - 3 hours.

Alternatively, place everything in the Slow-Cooker and turn on low. As long as its been cooking for at least 7 hours, it'll be lovely by the time you're ready to eat. Following the method above, the veges still had their firmness, but by leaving them in for the duration they will be falling apart by the time you dish, which is also nice.


Serve with steamed greens and a drizzle of the cooking juices as gravy. Lovely Winter Nosh!

All Hail the Slow Cooker

Put your hand up if you'd like to spend less time cooking at dinner time and still have a nosh-up feast? I seem to recall shooting my own hand in the air in response to this question (paraphrased anyway - with nods to Morgue and Giffy :) )

So when the opportunity arose to get a Slow Cooker we took it. I have heard from lots of people how much they love theirs, but I have to admit I've been a bit dubious about the ability of a single 5.5litre pot and element to replace all the skill and technique of a good cook. I have decided that that, however, is missing the point. The Slow Cooker is a tool, and you make of it what you will. But aside from questions of time and technique, the cooking test had to be done. Never one to bow from a challenge, I dove in feet first, offering up a whole chicken to the Cooker. I did a bit of research to get an idea of cooking times and suchlike, then had everything ready and cooking by 10am. Eight hours later, I pulled out the chicken, and had to go back in four or five times to get it all, because it was absolutely disintegrating. I slung the meat and veges under the grill for 10 minutes while I did some fresh veges to go with it, and dinner was served.

Slow-Cooked Paprika Chicken

Take one whole size 14 Chicken. Pat dry with paper towels, then prep with freshly ground salt and pepper, a few good lugs of olive oil, a few grated cloves of garlic, and about 3T of paprika. Toss it all about in a bowl to coat throughly. Place a few crushed cloves of garlic in the cavity. Quarter an onion and place it on the bottom of the Slow-Cooker Dish, then position the chicken on top of it, with the breasts facing up. Turn the Slow Cooker on High for 2 hours.

Prep some roast veges: 1 Onion, 2 Kumera, 6 Potatoes, and about a 1/4 of a Pumpkin. Prep these with feshly ground salt and pepper and a few finely chopped cloves of garlic (great stuff for warding off those winter bugs, thats why I use so much of it!). Place on top of the Chicken and turn the Cooker down to Low for a further six hours.


After 8 hours, remove the Chicken and Veges to an oven tray and place under a hot grill to brown lightly.


Serve with fresh steamed veges. I had some trouble making gravy with the chicken liquid, so I won't pretend to advise on that just here. Maybe after a bit more practice I can provide a recipe for Slow Cooker gravy.


As usual, I used the Chicken bones, vege scraps and the liquid to make a stock, and kept a few extra roast veges as a soup base. Yesterday, we did Lamb Chops in the Slow Cooker, and they were great. Will post that shortly.