Wendy Woo's mutton stew

Tonight we're having a mutton stew that The Woo rustled up for the slow cooker last night while I was busy with my potjie.

She started off by browning about 750g of the mutton in a little oil in a large pan.  It's important when browning any meat not to crowd the pan.  If you do then the meat starts to stew rather than just brown on the outside.  A fast stew like that makes the meat tough so you want a quick brown and then the slow stew afterwards.  The browning process is important as I have mentioned before (Maillard process) as it adds masses of depth and flavour to the finished dish.

The browned meat was added to our slow cooker along with some oregano, rosemary and a seasoning of salt and pepper.

In the meat pan she then softened two large onions which had been sliced, three chopped cloves of garlic and two chopped sticks of celery.  This was added to the cooker along with 250g of baby Chantenay carrots which had been topped and tailed.  In went a 380g carton of chopped tomatoes, half a glass of red wine (you don't need much liquid at all in a slow cooker - as I realised to my cost the first time I used it!) and two teaspoons of vegetable bouillon powder.

This was slow cooked for about five hours at which point a good handful of pearl barley was added.  All cooked for a further hour and then switched off and left until today when I got in from work around 3pm.  I turned it back on low when I got in and about half an hour before serving The Woo added a goodly number of her famous dumplings.

We had this with a pile of colcannon...delicious!!