Lamb shanks

We had a couple of lamb shanks in the freezer so I defrosted them in the fridge overnight for supper. We needed an excuse to have roasties made with the duck fat from Friday evening after all!  Served up with some warmed through red cabbage (from Friday) and said roasties.  The sauce was the heavily reduced cooking liquor.

No scraps for the dogs today!

For the lamb shanks.

Wendywoo roughly chopped a couple of onions and carrots and these were softened in a little vegetable oil in a large oven-proof pan.  To this was added three chopped cloves of garlic, a good squeeze of tomato puree, a couple of teaspoons of wholegrain mustard, two bay leaves and some rosemary and oregano.  In went a pint of stock and the whole lot was mixed together whilst bringing it to the boil.

At the same time I browned the pre-seasoned shanks in a separate pan.  These were added to the cooking pot and the pan was deglazed with about a glass and a half of dry white wine.  Once all came to a bubble I placed a circle of greaseproof paper onto the liquid to make a good seal to keep the moisture in, bunged the lid on and popped the whole lot into a 150* oven for four hours.

Once meltingly falling apart I took the shanks out and, while keeping them warm, whacked the heat up to reduce the cooking sauce.  We like the chunky bits left in the sauce but if you wanted a bit more refinement then the whole lot can be pushed through a sieve to make a proper jus.

An easy peasy meal that takes about 15 minutes to prepare prior to the long, slow cook.