Slow Cooker Lamb and Cilantro Curry

With the weather turning warmer my house starts to turn into a sauna. We live in a great old brick house, the only problem is that it traps heat in the winter and loses heat in the winter. It's not horrible until I turn on the oven for hours at a time, then it is rather unpleasant. The high humidity doesn't help the situation either, so in the middle of summer I turn to my crockpot. I'm not a fall/winter crockpot user. I actually find that I use my slow-cooker the most in the hot summer months, it does wonders for keeping my kitchen cool when the heat rises. Since I make crockpot recipes so frequently throughout the year, I am always looking for new interesting recipes and I was happy when the march issue of Family Circle magazine had a recipe for Slow Cooker Lamb and Cilantro Curry.

This recipe has 13 ingredients. It takes 25 minutes of prep and 8 hours on low in the crockpot and makes 6 servings. Due to my forgetfulness (thanks to my kids :) I actually ending up buying pork, instead of lamb. I definitely think I need more sleep...So needless to say I made a major modification to this recipe and used pork shoulder. I always braise my meat before placing it into the slow-cooker. This recipe doesn't have that step, but I highly recommend it. Braising helps to seals in the flavor and moisture in meat and makes all the difference for keeping meat moist. Instead of pulling off the leaves of the cilantro (which is time consuming) I chopped the tops off and placed them in the blender. Finally I used a fresh lemon for the 3 tablespoons of lemon juice. One large lemon makes about 3 tablespoons of juice. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

This recipe is very easy to prepare. Even with my large modification to the meat the end result turned out well. The pork worked well with the flavors of the curry. I would recommend adding more curry powder if you are a fan of a strong curry taste. This dish only has 1 teaspoon of curry powder, which leaves a mild curry flavor, for bolder flavor I would suggest adding up a tablespoon of your favorite curry powder. Overall, a very easy crockpot recipe that made enough for multiple meals.

For the recipe go to Slow Cooker Lamb and Cilantro Curry.