It IS winter here and these lamb shanks were fit for a king. We ate them instead. I cooked them with tinned tomatoes and other things I had on hand and they turned out quite delectable.
Sorry it’s been too many days since I posted but I’ve been suffering with nasty vertigo. One minute I’m fine and then the next I’m holding my head in my hands to stop the world from spinning. The doctor asked if I’d had it before and what was the outcome and I said it was benign positional vertigo and she said, “well, Maureen, you’ve got it again, take it easy, it will pass.” That was 10 days ago. I’m past my patience limit.
Enough about me and back to these delicious lamb shanks.
The lamb does a lot of walking on those shanks so it’s definitely slow cooking and nothing better than the crock pot. Remove the sinew from the shanks because it gets all twisted up and looks dumb or get your butcher to do it for you. Most will do it with a smile. (some will do it but not smile but you’ll have the same result)
Slice an onion or use some baby pickling onions like I did and toss them in the pot. They’ll ooze their oniony goodness into the tomato sauce and be yummy. Then place the lamb shanks on top of the onions along with a few pieces of green pepper (capsicum), big pieces of carrot, several cloves of garlic (unpeeled), a bay leaf, tomato paste and two cans of chopped up roma tomatoes. Add a slosh of red wine, salt and a good grind of fresh black pepper and that’s it. Leave that baby alone for 6 to 8 hours on low.
Just before serving spoon off the fat so you’ll have a nice sauce and serve over garlic mashed potatoes.
To roast garlic, slice the top off the garlic so you expose the garlic cloves, brush with olive oil and sprinking with sea salt and then wrap in oiled tinfoil and bake for about 45 minutes until the cloves are caramel colored and pop out easily.
Your whole house will smell fantastic when you cook this dish.
To make the potatoes I cooked them in salted water and then drained and put them through the potato ricer, added butter and the mashed roasted garlic, salt, pepper and hot cream. I didn’t have any parsley but usually I’d add chopped parsley as well.
These potatoes go so well with the lamb shanks and the entire meal is remarkably little effort.
Here’s the recipe:
- 4 lamb shanks
- 1 onion sliced or several pickling onions
- 6 cloves garlic unpeeled
- 2 tins roma tomatoes chopped
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 fresh or 2 dried bay leaves
- 1 cup red wine
- 3 carrots roughly chopped
- salt and pepper to taste
- 6 potatoes
- 1 head of garlic for roasting
- 2 tbsp butter
- ¼ cup cream
- salt & pepper to taste
- 1 tbsp chopped parsley
- Place onions on bottom of slow cooker and place lamb shanks on top
- Add all other ingredients
- Stir to combine
- Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours
- Slice top off garlic, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt and wrap in tin foil and bake for 45 minutes at 350F/180C - cool.
- Peel and slice potatoes and place in saucepan of water
- Add salt and cook til tender
- Drain potatoes
- Put potatoes through ricer (or mash)
- Add butter in small pieces
- Heat cream and add to potatoes
- Squeeze out garlic into a bowl and lightly mash and then add to potatoes
- Toss in chopped parsley
- Mix well and season with salt and pepper
- Place mashed potatoes on a plate and top with lamb shank and pour sauce over it.