Lamb stew in a crockpot

I started this last night, to make for lunch today.

Lamb Stew in a Crock Pot

1-1/2 pounds New Zealand Lamb Leg, boneless roll
2 large onions
6 cloves of garlic
half a medium cabbage
the rest of a bag of baby carrots
8 small potatoes
bay leaf, basil etc.
3/4 carton of organic beef stock
white wine
one small can diced tomatoes with chiles

Trim fat off the lamb, cut into chunks (the Platonic Ideal is a 1-1/4 inch cube), dust with flour and brown on all sides briefly in a frying pan in hot oil.

Put the chunks aside, in a bowl, and put wine and some of the beef stock in the hot frying pan to dissolve the juices.

(Many stockpot recipes advocate just throwing the meat into the cooker without browning. I've done that, and it works fine, but Ez complains that the sauce is not thick enough that way. This way, too, the sauce has a more interesting flavor.)

Chop the onion, garlic, and cabbage (I used a Cuisinart) and saute in a bit of oil or butter until they are limp. (To hasten this process, I put a little water or wine in the pan, cover it, steam them briefly, then remove the lid and saute the excess moisture away.)

Put the vegetables and lamb in the crockpot and add liquid. Cut the potatoes in half or so, and put them on top. Cook on SLOW all night. In the morning you may want to add more stock.

Note that I do not recommend adding salt. I did, because the recipes I saw online did, but it ended up too salty, because the stock has salt in it and it got rendered down overnight and there is nothing you can add to take the salt away but water!

I added the can of tomatoes in the morning because the stew had become so dense. The tomatoes have salt too, though...

This was pretty darn good!

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