12 Hour Lamb Ragu

The idea of getting back to basics has been a corner stone of many for the last few years. People are looking toward entertaining, dining and just generally enjoying their homes rather than expensive nights out.

The slow cooking movement has been a HUGE aspect of this and as such I am constantly salivating over the wonderful recipes my fellow bloggers are posting. I was lucky enough to get a small slow cooker, that I had been lusting after, for my birthday this year and was eager to test it out on a lovely lamb recipe.

Enter a 12 hour ragu...

12hr Lamb and Rosemary Ragu

Ingredients: 

1.25 kg lamb shoulder (deboned)
4 truss tomatoes
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 garlic clove
1 1/2 celery stalks
2 rosemary fronds
4 thyme fronds
2 dried bay leaves
2 cups of red wine (I recommend shiraz for its wholesome flavour)
1 cup of chicken or vegetable stock
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 packet of parppadelle pasta
2 tablespoons of butter
basil and parmesan cheese to garnish

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 140 degrees celsius or if using a slow cooker, put on high to warm up.
2. Dice lamb shoulder, being sure to remove most of the white, fatty bits.
3. In a pan with olive oil, sear the lamb until a very light brown. Add to slow cooker or large crock pot.
4. Finely chop rosemary, thyme, garlic and celery and then saute for a minute in the same pan.
5. Add red wine to pan and reduce the mixture by about a third, then pour in stock and heat. Add this mixture to the slow cooker or crock pot.
6. Dice up the truss tomatoes and add to pot with canned tomatoes and bay leaves.
7. Give a quick stir and put in just one tablespoon of butter and a generous amount of pepper and salt then leave for one hour.
8. Return to crock pot, give a stir and turn slow cooker to low or oven to 120 degrees celsius.
9. Leave for a further 11 hours checking intermittently.
10. Either at the end or around the 8 hour mark, whisk around the whole mixture to break apart the meat, this gives it that pulled thick meat look.
11. Boil up some parppadelle pasta then mix the ragu sauce and remaining butter in with the pasta.


Serve hot, topped with basil leaves and a generous amount of parmesan. Enjoy with a good red wine and some dark chocolate for desert. This recipe can also be frozen in batches to enjoy later. 

If your sauce is at any point looking a bit too watery you can add in one tablespoon of flour to thicken the sauce. It works a treat!

While this dish does take a long time (hello, twelve hours) it actually doesn't take much effort. You can be doing anything, including leaving the house in the time that it is cooking. Checking it often isn't required unless you're like me and love to just stir it and get a whiff of the delicious aroma!

I hope you enjoy the dish! Do you have any tasty, wholesome meals I should be trying in my slow cooker? I'd love to know!

Sarah x