Lambrusco Braised Lamb with Juniper Berries, Tarragon, and Sage

I used the rest of the lamb shoulder, mixed mushrooms, carrots, whole wheat rotelle pasta, red wine for this slow cooked dish. The spices are different from the rice cooker pseudo-stroganoff dish. This time, I used juniper berries, tarragon, sage, garlic, salt, and pepper, along with olive oil instead of butter. According to Williams Sonoma, juniper berries are "blue-black berries [that] come from an evergreen tree in the cypress family. A favorite in Scandinavian cookery and Europe's alpine cuisines, they're prized for their refreshing pine aroma and spicy, astringent flavor... balanced by floral and woodsy notes." Yay for pretty spices with a pretty name.

So anyhow, I turned the slow cooker off shortly before the 6-hour setting had completed, since it looked like most of the liquid had boiled off. The rotelle noodles did not hold up as well in the slow cooker as they had in the rice cooker... They became incredibly soggy and failed to retain their distinctive spiral shape. The lamb itself was very tender, albeit somewhat bitter due to my probable overdoing of the juniper berries. That's what I get for casually eyeballing the amount thrown in rather than actually counting out the berries. I also did not fill the entire slow cooker with meat, so that probably made a difference, as the relatively strong sage and the 20 or so juniper berries probably overwhelmed my 4 or 5 pieces of lamb shoulder. Furthermore, I might have to consider getting those herb infusion bags so as to impart the flavor of the berries on the food without having to pick out them out individually afterwards (the juniper berries did not taste that great and are harder to pick out than something like a bay leaf or star anise). I couldn't really make out the tarragon taste-wise, but it definitely added pretty little specks in the meat and noodles. 

Overall, the flavor was definitely reminiscent of a rustic autumn meal, and I enjoyed the novelty of the taste. As expected, Kevin wasn't a fan, but I still made him help me eat some.