Aldi half leg of lamb, slow cooked

I had been planning to do Littl'Un's favourite oxtail for some time, but the delivery at Papa's shop didn't arrive, and I was out and about at a knitting drop-in but not near enough to any larger supermarkets to go look for oxtail there, so I popped into Aldi and saw a great price on some nice looking lamb.

I seared the joint on all sides and then put it in my slow cooker.  I then quartered a couple of onions, added some olives that had been hanging around - some from the fridge and some from a jar at the back of the cupboard, and then I sprinkled over some ground cinnamon and marigold powder and finally added a tin of chopped tomatoes. I did swill the tin round with some red wine that was already open and set aside for cooking, but this wasn't exactly necessary.  I then put the lid on and set the cooker onto high, and then left it alone.

I was then out for most of the day, which is good as I do sometimes find if I'm in the house while the food is cooking all day I sort of "go off" the flavour from smelling it all day.  I left instructions with GodPapa as to what to do to make the accompaniment for the 2 littler children who were at home with him, as I realised Papa, Big'Un and I would be out past our usual supper time.

About 10 minutes before they wanted to eat, GodPapa toasted a premeasured amount of couscous in the pan in which I had previously seared the lamb joint.  He added some marigold, a can of chickpeas and then the same volume of water, or slightly more, brought it to the boil and switched the heat off, covering the pan.  After 5-6 minutes the couscous had fluffed up, and he stirred through some sour pomegranate seeds which had been peeled the day before but were too sour to just eat as a fruit.

The whole dish was comforting, hearty and bursting with flavour and incredibly low in actual work to cook it!  There was also plenty of meat left after we had all eaten our fill, which I'm planning to reheat and serve with tagliatelle and some extra veg.

lamb carved with a spoon

I didn't chart yesterday's food partly because it's my Mum's complicated recipe for black urad daal with kidney beans, and those recipes are available on the net if people wanna search, and also because I didn't cook it! Godfather No 1 pressure cooked it pretty quickly while I went out shopping with my 7yr old daughter. We all met up at a playground after shopping, and then went home and everyone enjoyed daal, rice and naan breads, even 2yr old littl'un who enjoyed dipping bread in "gravy" or "soup" til we taught her "daal", and she also loved picking out and chomping the kidney beans. Oh and plain white rice with butter. Tons of it.

So today I sprang out of bed and zipped downstairs before getting ready for church. I browned my half shoulder of lamb, which cost under £4, and then plomped it into the slow cooker. Then I added some ground and whole cumin seeds, about a teaspoon of each, about half a teaspoon of garlic granules along with a few peeled but whole garlic cloves, a tin of basics chopped tomatoes, some salt and cracked black pepper, about a third of a tinful of redwine and most of a small tin of pitted black olives. (The rest of the olives got halved and popped in a small tub for a snack for littl'un at church!) Then I covered it, switched it on, and got on with the rest of my day.

10 minutes before serving, oh about 6 or 7 hours later, with a heady lamby savoury aroma in the house, I heated up the fat that had rendered off the shoulder earlier, and added a little more from the slow cooker. Fried up a handful of chopped onion (I used the end of a bag of frozen that I keep there for emergencies) and another teaspoon each of cumin seeds and ground cumin. Then a little shake of dried mint, tho I could have used some shredded fresh mint at the end if I could have been bothered! Next a handful of raisins, and a handful of pine nuts went in, then in with some couscous, 9oz suited us fine, stir it around til all coated, sprinkle of my ubiquitous Marigold powder and pour on 9fl oz water. Switch off and cover. Leave for 5 minutes and fluff up. Served it with the lamb, the juices were gorgeous and delicious, and the meat was so tender I "carved" it with a spoon! Little'un tried the meat, but not mad for it, but I knew she was getting a lot of the goodness of the meat in the gravy and she ate tons of that with her couscous, and she really enjoyed the olives, pine nuts and raisins. The whole table was having to donate raisins from our own plates, and her Godfather was happy to donate most of his olives as he's not a huge fan of that fruit. Big'un loved the meat, gravy, all of it, and she's not the biggest meat eater usually. Clean plates, and contented tummies, so definitely a success and something to make again.

I won't mention the pudding as it was a bought reduced item, and it was scrummy, and I figured out I may well have still been able to make it cheaper, but it was a nice break that way and it was SCRUMMY... But a very frugal, thrifty, delicious dinner it was for us all.