Slow braised lamb in red wine

SLOW BRAISED LAMB IN RED WINE SAUCE
Ingredients to serve 4

1.5 kg lamb shoulder

350 ml (half bottle) of red wine (we used a heavy red - Shiraz)

4 chopped onions

4 cloves garlic

one each - carrot and celery stick finely chopped

large sprig of rosemary

large sprig of thyme

couple of bay leaves

Brown the meat in a frying pan, then add this to the slow cooker together with all the other ingredients. Top up with enough water/stock to cover the meat, and that's it. We slow cooked on high for an hour, reduced it to low while we were out, then returned it back to the high setting for the last couple of hours cooking.
We cooked jacket potatoes, and scooped out the mash. It has so much more flavour than mashing boiled potatoes plus the potato skins can be set aside in the fridge for tomorrow's dinner!

After 6 hours of slow cooking, we removed 132g of pure fat which was spooned off the top of the casserole. 

If we didn't have a slow cooker, we would put this in an oven proof dish and cover tightly with foil, and cook on a low heat. We then checked the seasoning, added a little salt and continued cooking for another couple of hours.  

When the meat was cooked, we continued removing fat from the cooking liquid using our fat separator (or you could skim again). This time we removed a further 40g of fat. It's this unnecessary fat - all 172g of it (a whopping 1500 calories) that lurks unsuspectingly in many dishes, that we don't eat when we cook for ourselves. 

SAUCE

The cooking liquid was boiled so that it was reduced by a third. We then blended until smooth, then adjusted the seasoning again. We added a small teaspoon of honey to ours, as it was slightly bitter, and thickened with a little cornflour. Then whisked in a small piece of butter just before serving to give it a nice sheen.

A nice Shiraz from Australia went well with this dish.... which we estimate to be around 700 calories at the very very most. It could be less due to the removal of all that fat, but as we're not sure, we just make a judgment. As we have continued to lose weight, our estimations can't be too far out.

Enough to feed 4 at least for around £3 per person and about half the cost of cooking lamb shanks for everyone!

Oh, and while we were out, we managed to walk for a few miles. This equated to around 250 calories - now did we use this towards our dessert, wine or chocolate? We know - it's our choice!!

If you would like to know more about how we achieved our fabulous weight loss see OUR IDEA.

Read more about our successful weight loss journey - Our Experiment

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