Slow Cooker Lamb & Creamy, Cheesy Polenta

Slow Cooked Lamb & Creamy, Cheesy Polenta

• 1 lamb shoulder (make sure that it fits in your slow cooker), 1.25-1.5 kilos.

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 6 cloves garlic, peeled but left whole

• salt and pepper

• 4 eschallots, finely diced

• 250ml chicken stock

• 1.5 cups dry white wine

• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar

• 4 tablespoons brown sugar

• 2 sprigs rosemary

• 6 sage leaves

• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds

• 1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon

• 1/2 tablespoon fennel seeds

Creamy polenta

• 2 cups water

• 1/2 cup milk

• 1/2 cup cream (use all milk if you prefer)

• 1 cup polenta

• 50-100g blue cheese (depending on taste and how strong it is, you can also use your favourite non blue cheese)

• salt and pepper for seasoning

Note: you can buy the lamb shoulder bone in or bone out, I prefer bone in as there is more flavour with the bones, especially if you are cooking it in a slow cooker, but it's personal preference.

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Step 1 - Allow lamb to come to room temperature. If cooking in a casserole pot, preheat oven to 160C/320F or get your slow cooker ready. Rub lamb all over with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Heat frypan to medium to high heat. Place incisions in the skin of the lamb and stick the garlic in them pushing them under the skin. Brown the lamb on all sides with the garlic. Place the lamb shoulder in the slow cooker.

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Step 2 - Add the eschallots to the frypan and saute until starting to becoming fragrant. Add the white wine, red wine vinegar and chicken stock and allow to bubble away for a few minutes. Add the brown sugar,  rosemary, sage, cinnamon and fennel seeds and cook for a minute. Then pour over the lamb and cook for six to seven hours on high. Season for salt and pepper.

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Step 3 - To make the polenta, put the water and milk and/or cream on the boil in a medium sized saucepan. Once boiling, take a whisk and slowly, add the polenta in a thin stream whisking the entire time to get any lumps out. If you add it all at once, it will become lumpy and lumps in polenta are not like lovely lady lumps. Put on low heat and stir and once it comes together and thickens, about 10-15 minutes, make sure that the polenta granules are still not hard. During this time, chop up the cheese and melt it in the polenta and just stir it, the heat will melt the cheese and stirring will distribute  it (I didn't need to tell you the last part did I). Keep cooking until they become soft. Season with salt and pepper.

Tip: reserve about 300g of the lamb meat if you aren't feeding that many people as it is wonderful in pies. I'll give you a recipe for some divine lamb and mint sauce pies on Friday! Trust me, you'll be glad you saved some ;)

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