Slow cooker lamb Rogan Josh

Our grocery store had a sale on lamb and so I picked up a 1.6kg (3.5lb) chunk and didn't know what to do with it. My problem with lamb is that it can taste overwhelmingly of...lamb? wool? Not sure. It doesn't always taste strongly but when it does I'm not a huge fan. So, I decided to go with strong spices and the slow cooker. I combined two different recipes. Recipe 1 which did lots of things that sounded good and Recipe 2 which sounded really authentic. My combined recipe is below. It was super spicy, so I would reduce the number of dried red chillis when I make it again.

Ingredients

• 1.6kg boneless lamb leg, cut into large chunks
• 3 large potatoes (totally optional), cut into large chunks
• 1-2 red onions, chopped
• 1 cup Yogurt
• Vinegar
• Ginger chopped or paste
• Garlic chopped or paste

Masala 

• 1"-2" piece of cinnamon
• 5 whole green cardamom pods
• 3/4 teaspoon whole cloves
• 3/4 teaspoon whole fennel seeds
• 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
• 5 dried red chillies
• 2 large or 3 small star anise
• 1 black cardamom pod
• 1 teaspoon paprika powder

Method

1. Grind together ingredients for the masala
2. Add the lamb chunks, the spice powder from above and salt to a bowl and shake around until the lamb chunks are coated well. This sat for about an hour and I guess it marinated, but that wasn't intentional. I was mostly chopping other stuff and being lazy.
3. Fry the onions and once they are caramelized, add ginger and garlic chopped or paste and fry for 5 minutes on a low to medium heat. I added about 5 cloves of finely chopped garlic and a tablespoon of ginger paste. The ginger paste was probably about 2" worth.
4. Add the lamb chunks and fry until some of the chunks get some surface. (This is to get some flavor out of the Mallaird reaction, but I wasn't thorough about browning all the lamb)
5. Splash in some vinegar. I had some red wine vinegar. I'm fairly sure the type of vinegar won't matter.
6. Add everything to the slow cooker and toss in the potato chunks and stir to coat and cook on high for 6 hours.
7. An hour before completion, stir in the Yogurt.

I think 5 or 5.5 hours would have been better, not because it dried out, at all, but because the pieces were almost too falling apart. I ate it over rice with Yogurt because I needed Yogurt to cut the heat of the chilies. It was hot and yummy and kept us warm during the snow.

Update October 2016: We have now also made this with pork shoulder as well and it tasted excellent. So either protein is fine to use with this recipe. 

Slow cooked Beef Panang curry a la Madam Mam's

This started out as an attempt to recreate Madam Mam's slow cooked beef panang. It is the best thing ever and I've always wanted to try to replicate it. This was a pretty good attempt and it was seriously delicious. We ate it with quinoa, but it will definitely be awesome with white rice too. I used beef chuck for this attempt, but I suspect brisket would actually be a better cut for it. The last three ingredients are added to taste. The basil, especially, develops over time, so it will get stronger in the left overs, keep that in mind when you are adding the leaves.
This dish was a complete experiment and I'm pretty sure it would actually be ok even with just throwing everything into the slow cooker together, but I tried to replicate the beginning of thai curries in pots and used the slow cooker for the long low heat step.

Ingredients

beef chuck, sliced into thick slices
Panang curry paste (from the store, Mae ploy brand) (~3 Tbsp)
two onions, finely chopped
can of coconut milk
brown sugar
thai basil, fresh
fish sauce/salt

Method

1) Heat about a tablespoon of oil and fry a couple of table spoons of the panang curry paste in the hot oil (I had about a kilo of beef) for about two minutes (The smell of the paste will change from raw and thats when it is ready)
2) Add half the can of coconut milk to the paste and cook for a few minutes
3) Add the chopped onions to the sauce for a few minutes
4) Add the sliced beef in and coat in the sauce and add to the slow cooker and cook on high for 6 hours
5) After 5 hours add the rest of the coconut milk, fish sauce/salt, brown sugar, lime juice and sliced basil leaves till it tastes right.
6) After a little more bubbling we ate it served over rice. It was delicious.

Slow cooker Sichuan pork shoulder noodle soup

I saw this recipe and it looked awesome, so I just made it in the slow cooker. My recipe is adapted for my pantry and the slow cooker.
I used boston butt in mine (it was on sale), but I suspect it would work with other fattier, tougher cuts of pork as well.
It was very tasty and very spicy. If you're going to try this recipe and sichuanese food isn't your fave, I would cut wa-ay down on the chilli paste. My apartment smells like a chinese restaurant and it makes me really happy right now. Specially since its really cold and really grey and this is exactly what I would have wanted to go out for!
We cook a lot of chinese food so we already had toban jiang in the fridge, but its actually pretty commonly available at stores in the ethnic/asian section. If you have sambal olek that works really well too as a substitute, though I personally think sambal is a little spicier. We did not have black vinegar so I googled a substitute and balsamic+some other vinegar+sugar seems to do the trick. I also added a tablespoon of brown sugar instead of one of the tablespoons of white sugar. I have no idea if that helped. I first cooked it for 4 hours and the pork was very done, but not falling apart, so we let it go for another 45 minutes.
If I make this again, I would also dry roast and crush a few sichuan peppers and sprinkle them on the soup after it cooks.

Ingredients

2lbs pork shoulder-cut into 1" pieces
12 cloves garlic, chopped
3" fresh ginger piece, peeled and chopped
4 Tbsp Toban jiang
1/3 cup red vinegar+balsamic vinegar
4 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp soy sauce
3 Tbsp cornstarch
4 scallions

Method

1) Add a little oil to a pan and on high heat fry off the pork pieces. I waited till they were browned (5-6 minutes). Don't crowd the pan. I actually removed about a fourth of the pieces after they were seared and dumped them into the slow cooker and proceeded with the rest.
2) Toss in the ginger, garlic and chilli paste and toss the pork around to coat. Cook for about a minute, still at high heat.
3) Add in the soy sauce, vinegar and sugar and stir them around for 3-4 minutes until the sugar dissolves.
4) Add everything to the slow cooker along with 8 cups of water.
5) Cook on high for 4-6 hours.
6) Take out about half the liquid and boil it on the stove and add cornstarch dissolved in water until it thickens. Add it back to the rest of the soup.
6) Serve with noodles and chopped scallions.
7) If you prefer to remove some of the fat, let the soup cool either in the slow cooker or in the fridge and then skim off the fat from the top.

Slow cooker Moroccan chicken stew with butternut squash

This recipe isn't unique and a quick google search yields lots of variations, but this is how I make it, most of the time. It is moroccan themed and is warm and hearty. I probably shouldn't have added the raisins at the very beginning, but they were still yummy so thats an extra step cut out! I also added only a third of a cup of stock and the stew was quite thick, which is how I like it, but thats a personal preference. I used butternut squash in this but I suspect it would work just as well with pumpkin or acorn squash.

Ingredients:

1 Small butternut squash, peeled and cubed
1kg Chicken thighs (~8, bone-in, skinned)
2 small onions, diced
6 cloves of garlic, chopped
1" piece of ginger, chopped
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1/3 cup stock
squeeze of tomato puree
Raisins
Spices (garam masala, paprika, chilli flakes, cumin powder, nutmeg, cinnamon)

Method:

1) Brown the chopped onions, garlic and ginger in a little oil on high heat (~7 minutes)
2) Add everything to the slow cooker. The only thing I was careful about was that the chicken wasn't on the very bottom.
3) I added the spices by eye, but it was perhaps about a teaspoon of garam masala, salt, cumin powder and 1/2 and teaspoon of paprika and chilli flakes and a shake of nutmeg and cinnamon powder.
4) On high for 3.5-4 hours.
5) Garnish with chopped parsley and eat with crusty buttered bread. It also works really well with couscous.