Lamb shanks

Lamb is delicious. I'll have it grilled, roasted, stewed, braised or pan-fried please.

If you love lamb like I do, Austria is not the best place to live. Lamb is rather scare here, and is not sold in many places. The locals I've talked to say that lamb is too strongly-flavoured. If you do find lamb, it can be really expensive. Luckily for me, there is a growing Middle-eastern community her, and they do like lamb. In one market in the 18th district - 'Brunnenmarkt' - there is a lovely Turkish butcher. He calls me ANZAC and I go there to get my lamb. (He also sells great yoghurt and curry powder but that's another story.) 

This week I am not in Vienna, and the weather is rather cold for summer. Yesterday it hit a top of about 20 degrees, with rain and mist. 'Great lamb weather,' I thought. In the meantime I saw a Facebook post from my friend Leonie, who celebrated her birthday yesterday, and she cooked lamb shanks for her birthday dinner. I have not eaten lamb shanks for about a year, as it is very rare to find them here. But what wold you know, we went to the supermarket to find some lamb - any lamb - and there were two packets of beautiful shanks 'on special'! They came home with me and here's what we ate.

Braised lamb shanks in garlic, herbs and red wine, lemon and oregano potatoes, eggplant relish and salad. The meat of the lamb shanks was falling off the bone, the sauce was herby and rich, the potatoes were salty and lemony, and the eggplant relish was really good. It was worth the year's wait!

This is a dish that I start cooking in the early afternoon, at say 2pm to serve at 6pm or 7pm. It is not a dish you can cook in a hurry. Once the meat is cooked, you can keep it warm under some foil, and reheat when you serve it. This way, you are guaranteed that the meat will be perfectly-cooked and you have more time to do other things. It is great to cook this in winter as the oven helps to keep the house warm too!

Here for the recipes for the potatoes and eggplant relish.

What you'll need

* The two lamb shanks in the picture served two hungry children and me. I removed the meat from one shank for the children to make it easier to eat. Otherwise, this recipe will serve two adults with one shank each.

2 medium/large lamb shanks
1 medium onion, chopped into quarters
1 cup red wine
1 large clove garlic, chopped roughly
1 beef stock cube
2 cups water
1 tbs vegetable oil
2 tbs plain flour
1 tbs each fresh rosemary, oregano and thyme, roughly chopped.       If using dried herbs, use 1 tsp of each herb.
Salt and pepper

What to do

Heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Heat a large ovenproof pan over medium heat. Add the oil to heat. Dust the shanks in the flour, shaking off the excess. Add the shanks and brown all over. This will take about 10 minutes. Add the herbs, onion and garlic to the pan, stirring for a few minutes to slightly brown the onion and garlic. Add the stock cube, crumbling it into the pan. Add the red wine and water and bring to a simmer.

  

Cover the pan with an ovenproof lid or with some foil and place into the oven. Cook for 90 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 150 degrees Celsius. Remove the foil from the pan, turn the shanks over and put back into the oven for another two hours, without a lid. The liquid in the pan will reduce to make a beautiful sauce or jus.

*If you don't have a pan that can go in the oven, use a frying pan to brown the meat and make the sauce, then transfer the meat and sauce into a baking dish covered with foil for the baking part of the recipe.

Check the lamb occasionally to make sure the sauce does not get too dry. If it does, add a little more red wine or water to the pan. You can use a spoon to pour a little of the sauce over the lamb when you check on it if you like. After cooking for three hours or more, the meat should very easily 'peel' from the bone.

To eat a properly-cooked lamb shank you shouldn't need a knife, your fork should be able to break the meat apart easily. Under-cooked shanks are really bad and rubbery, so if in doubt, cook for longer.

About 30 minutes before serving, remove the lamb from the oven. Place the lamb in a serving dish or clean ovenproof dish. Use a strainer to strain the herbs, garlic and onion out of the sauce. This will leave a wonderful smooth but flavoursome sauce. This sauce is not a gravy, it will be thinner than that but it is so yummy. If you'd like the sauce to be thicker you can place it in a pan over medium heat for five minutes to thicken a little more.

Pour the sauce back over the lamb and serve with potatoes, eggplant relish and whatever vegetables you'd like. This dish is my idea of perfect winter 'comfort food'.