Braised lamb shanks

Dropped The Woo off at work this morning then straight into Waitrose for an early shop.  My meat guru, Cathy, sold me three lovely looking lamb shanks and that was this evening's supper sorted.  We had a few bits in the fridge which, as usual, needed using up so tonight's offering was slow braised lamb shanks with roast potatoes, roasted chantenay carrots in orange juice and a leek and mushroom gratin.

For the lamb I softened a mirepoix of onion, carrot and celery in olive oil and then added a couple of chopped cloves of garlic, a couple of bay leaves, a good squeeze of tomato puree, a few sprigs of thyme and rosemary, about a pint of vegetable stock and about 2/3 of a bottle of red wine.  This was brought to the boil and then turned down to a simmer.  In a separate pan I browned off the lamb shanks in a little more olive oil; seasoning with sea salt and black pepper as I went.  The shanks were added to the pan of sauce and then the covered pan went into a 140* oven for three and a half hours.

The roasties were fairly bulk standard but I had run out of goose fat (shock horror!) so they were done in a half and half mix of lard and vegetable oil.

I topped and tailed the tiny chantenay carrots, coated them in vegetable oil in a small roasting dish, grated the zest of an orange over the top and put them in the oven for the last 20 minutes of cooking everything else.  I squeezed the juice of half the orange and a sprinkle of salt over them about 5 minutes before they came out.

The leek and mushroom gratin was a bit of an experiment that seemed to work really well.  I softened three sliced leeks in loads of butter and a little olive oil in an oven proof frying pan.  To this I added a few sliced mushrooms and some halved cherry tomatoes.  Seasoned with sea salt and white pepper the softened vegetable mix was covered with grated mature cheddar and into the oven until the cheese was golden brown.

The shanks came out of the oven half an hour before serving and left to rest wrapped in foil.  The sauce was strained and then reduced to make a lovely unctuous jus.  The oven was cranked up to 200* for the potatoes to brown off and the carrots and gratin to cook properly.

It worked really well.  A very satisfying autumnal warmer.