Red Wine Lamb Soup, 红糟煮羊肉汤

"My brother would love this. He's a lamb guy. And a soup guy." - Clarice

Ingredients 

• 4 lb Lamb/Goat Chunks

• Soy Sauce

• Red Wine Lees (hong zhao or 红槽)

• Ginger

• Water

• Vinegar

• Salt

• Cooking Wine

Cooking Tools

• Slow Cooker

• Wok

• Pot

Steps

First boil a full pot of water with ginger.

Save half of the boiled water to used later for soaking meat.

Defrost lamb (if frozen). Boil the lamb to remove oils/residual frozen taste.

Only cook for ~2 minutes. This is only for cleaning the meat and not for fully cooking the meat.

Remove the lamb from the pot and soak it in the clean hot water

that was boiled previously.

Add 2 drips of vinegar during this step to make it fragrant. 

Let it soak for another 2 minutes and drain the water.

Heat up the wok with hot oil.

Cut and fry ginger. 

Then add 2 heaping tablespoons of red wine lees. We make it ourselves when making red rice wine. You should also be able to find it in asian grocery stores.

Fry the red wine lees to soften and make fragrant. 

Now mix in the drained lamb.

Stir-fry well to evenly spread the flavor all around.

Add a generous amount of cooking wine. A couple sloshes, maybe 1/3 of the height of the lamb in the wok. Then let it simmer and absorb.

Now fill it with more water (~3 quarts),

the water should cover the meat completely.

Boil the soup for a couple minutes to fully cook the meat. Stir it a few times.

Feel free to bite into a piece to make sure it's cooked through. It might still be tough, but we'll slow cook it later to soften it up.

Using an oil guard, remove top layer of fat/oil that goops at the surface.

Continue to boil and remove oils as long as it emerges. 

Now add ~1.5 Tbsp soy sauce. ("Not too much, maybe two splashes.")

Add 1 tsp sugar to sweeten.

Transfer the soup/stew to a slow cooker. 

Cook for 2-3 hours for full flavor.

And you're done! 

Red Lamb Soup