Braised lamb shank
Let me set the scene…
It’s a cold winter's day. One of those lazy Saturdays where nobody makes it out of their pyjamas. The kids are watching a film…
“Alexa.. play Frank Sinatra”, as I pour myself a glass of red and picture the cosy, delicious waft of warmth that’s about to resonate through the whole home for the afternoon.
This dish is, quite simply, heavenly. There’s so little to do it’s tough to keep as just a winter’s day’s treat.
Serves: 2
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 3-5 hours
Ingredients
2 lamb shanks
1 large red onion (quartered)
3 carrots (chopped into large chunks)
4 cloves garlic (crushed)
4 bay leaves
4 sprigs rosemary
Palm-full of black peppercorns (around 10-15)
1 bottle of red wine (750ml)
500ml lamb stock
Method
Turn the oven on and up to 130°c.
Season the lamb generously with salt and pepper before adding a glug of olive oil to a large casserole dish over a high heat. Add the shanks and brown the meat on all sides. It shouldn’t take much more than 5 minutes.
Remove the meat from the pan and add the onions, carrots, rosemary, peppercorns and bay leaves, cooking for a couple of minutes. Add the garlic and continue to cook for another minute before placing the lamb back into the pot.
Add the whole bottle of wine and let it bubble away fiercely until it’s reduced by half. It’ll take a good 15 minutes.
Add the stock, bring to the boil and make sure each shank is mostly submerged (with the top of each poking out of the surface of the liquid) before putting the whole dish into the oven, uncovered, for 5 hours.
Remove the meat and let’s focus on this gravy… Strain everything else through a fine sieve into a pan, squishing as much of the goodness out of the softened veggies as you can with the back of a spoon. Pop your gravy over a high heat so that it bubbles for a few minutes and intensifies (tasting as you go to make sure you’ve not overdone it).
Serve the shanks over a bed of mash and pour your delicious gravy all over it.
TIPS
If you want to make it for four people, you don’t really need to double up on everything. Maybe throw in another carrot and small onion, but the important bit is to make sure you have enough liquid to submerge the majority of the shanks. Use a whole bottle of wine as above, then adjust the amount of stock as necessary.