A classic way to prepare shanks, these are slow cooked in a deeply flavored red wine sauce until they are meltingly tender. Make this in the oven, on your stove or even in a slow cooker.
Ingredients:
- 4 lamb shanks , around 13 oz
- 1 tsp EACH cooking/kosher salt and pepper
- 2 – 3 tbsp olive oil , separated
- 1 onion , finely diced (brown, yellow or white)
- 3 garlic cloves , minced
- 1 cup carrot , peeled, finely diced
- 1 cup celery , finely diced
- 2 1/2 cups red wine (full bodied, good value wine, not expensive!)
- 28oz can crushed tomatoes
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 cups chicken stock , low sodium (or water)
- 5 sprigs of thyme (preferably tied together), or 2 tsp dried thyme
- 2 dried bay leaves (or 4 fresh)
Instructions:
For full instructions on how to slow cook your lamb shank on the stove or in the crockpot click here. The following instructions are for cooking your lamb in the oven.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F
- Season shanks – Pat the lamb shanks dry and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Brown – Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large heavy based pot over high heat. Sear the lamb shanks in 2 batches until brown all over, about 5 minutes. Remove lamb onto a plate and drain excess fat (if any) from the pot.
- Sauté aromatics – Turn the heat down to medium low. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil in the same pot. Add the onion and garlic, cook for 2 minutes. Add carrot and celery. Cook for 5 minutes until onion is translucent and sweet.
- Braising liquid – Add the red wine, chicken stock, crushed tomato, tomato paste, thyme and bay leaves. Stir to combine.
- Add shanks – Place the lamb shanks into the pot, squeezing them in to fit so they are mostly submerged.
- Oven 2 hours covered – Turn stove up, bring liquid to a simmer. Cover, then transfer to the oven for 2 hours.
- Uncovered 30 minutes – Remove lid, then return to the oven for another 30 minutes (so 2 1/2 hours in total). Check to ensure lamb meat is ultra tender – if not, cover and keep cooking. Ideal is tender meat but still just holding onto bone.
- Remove lamb onto plate and keep warm. Pick out and discard bay leaves and thyme.
- Sauce – Strain the sauce into a bowl, pressing to extract all sauce out of the veggies. Pour strained sauce back into pot. If needed, bring to a simmer over medium heat and reduce slightly to a syrupy consistency. Taste then add salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve the lamb shanks on mashed potato or cauliflower puree with plenty of sauce! Garnish with thyme leaves if desired.
Recipe and Photography adapted from: recipetineats
