Slow Cooked Lamb Shanks

Slow Cooked Lamb Shanks

Throughout the winter months, one of my favourite things is a Sunday roast. When the warm weather comes around, we trade in our roasts for barbecues, fresh salads and and lazy afternoons in pub gardens, but the first waft of cool air in autumn, and my roasting pans come back out, and it's meat-and-two-veg all the way. 

As like most people I expect, our routines have been slightly out of sync over Christmas, at one point I was convinced that every day was Sunday. Fortunately the days have just about organised themselves again, and yesterday we were happily back into the Sunday roast routine once more. 

This is my recipe for two wonderfully succulent, melt-in-the-mouth lamb shanks, just multiply the ingredients for 4 or 6 as needed...

Ingredients

2 lamb shanks
4 tbsp plain flour
1 tsp olive oil
1 leek, roughly chopped
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
6 cloves garlic, peeled but whole
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
4 sprigs rosemary
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
rock salt to taste
200ml red wine
300ml chicken stock
2 tsp cornflour

Method

• Pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees
• Use the flour to coat the lamb shanks, and knock off any excess
• Heat the oil in a casserole dish on the hob, then sear the meat on all sides. Remove from the pan and set aside
• Add the leek, onion, carrots and garlic to the pan, and cook for around 5 minutes until softened
• Add the rosemary sprigs and peppercorns and stir, add sea salt to taste

• Pour in the red wine and chicken stock
• Bring to a simmer, then return the lamb shanks to the pan

• Take the casserole dish and cover with foil, or the pan lid
• Place in the oven and slow cook for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, until the meat is tender and falls away from the bone
• Remove from the oven, take the lamb shanks out and put onto serving plates
• Return the casserole dish containing the sauce to the hob on a low heat, mix the cornflour with a little water, then stir into the sauce to thicken
• Pour the sauce over the shanks, and serve with creamy mash and fresh vegetables

As this dish is full of good things, I am linking it up with this month's Feel Good Food - it made us feel very good!

I'm also linking into a new challenge hosted by Fuss Free Flavours and Utterly Scrummy called Extra Veg, as not only did this dish have leeks, onions and carrots in, but we served it up with some very al dente broccoli!

The Sunday Roast Centrepiece

I think I'm one of the few people that looks forward to the point each year when Summer changes to Autumn. When, usually overnight, the air gets a little cooler, mornings get a little darker, and people start to whisper about Christmas in hushed tones.

Autumn for me means food. Sure, during the Summer months we have fresh fruits, crisp salads, and BBQ'd meat at any possible opportunity. But Autumn... Autumn means pies and crumbles, game meats, and the return of the full Sunday roast, having been pushed aside during the warm weather for being too heavy.

A proper Sunday roast in our house embodies all the principles of "a kick at the pantry door", the meat of choice surrounded by a medley of whichever vegetables are to hand (this week in particular is a bundle of Mum's homegrown runner beans).

But always, always, the centrepiece of a Sunday roast, the part that defines the meal, are the potatoes. Done well, they are golden brown, crisp and crunchy on the outside, and fluffy and moist on the inside.

Here's my fail safe method for the perfect roasties;

The experts say to use a floury potato for roasting, such as a Maris Piper or King Edwards, but I find that if I follow a few simple rules any variety will have same results.

Peel the potatoes and chop so that all are even sized. Place in a pan of water and bring to the boil. Cook in the water until a fork can be inserted into a potato with little effort. Remove from the heat, and drain the potatoes in a colander over the sink. Once the water has drained away, shake the colander so that the potatoes knock against the sides and start to get rough around the edges. This is to help the outsides get really crispy once in the oven. They should look like the picture below.

Transfer the potatoes to a baking tray or roasting dish. Cover liberally with oil (any kind will do) and sprinkle salt over the top. Place on the top shelf of the oven. My tip is to cook the potatoes long and slow. Check them every 15 - 20 minutes and turn each time to allow them to crisp evenly.

And it really is as easy as that, serve with whichever meat and vegetable accompaniments you choose, but the main event will always be the roast potato!