Lamb Shanks

 After a long hiatus of nearly 5 months, I am back again! During the 5 months I had been busy preparing for my daughter's wedding, a cruise, the actual wedding, a trip, visitors and finally back to me and my old phone taking pictures and my familiar lap top...writing up another recipe!  This recipe is dedicated to the wonderful lamb I had in New Zealand, my friends and family at the multi cultural wedding and all the rejoicing and reconnecting that happened in the last half year. It is also dedicated to the wedding and the welcoming of new members of the family and the joyous celebrations associated with it! To my friends and family who have been encouraging me to get back to blogging, this one is for you too.  I love you all.

To the butchers at Preston market and the Publique French Bakery, thank you for the produce and the best olive sour dough baguette!

Let's get down to the recipe - I wanted this to be a relaxing day so I actually put the lamb shanks on the stove and went to the local shopping centre to do my weekly shop and get a coffee before coming back to check on the meat. It was two and a half hours all up but the meat was tender and I didn't need a knife to cut it at all.

Ingredients:

2 lamb shanks, cut in the middle

2 onions, cut into large chunks

1 full head of garlic, peeled

200 grams of frozen bean seeds that I harvested last year, saved for a moment like this

You can add any vegetable you like, carrots, celery etc instead of the beans

2 potatoes, skin on, cut into big chunks

1 stock cube

1/2 teaspoon of turmeric

1 teaspoon of chilli powder (use black pepper if you prefer and reduce the amount of chilli, too, if you want to)

2 sprigs of rosemary

2 bay leaves

1 piece of mace

1 tablespoon cornflour, made into a slurry

4-5 tablespoons of oil

salt to taste

Method:

Heat oil in a Dutch oven.  When it is hot, add the washed and dried lamb shanks. 

Brown the shanks evenly on all sides. 

Add the onions and garlic and saute for a few minutes. Next add rosemary, and mace.

Add about 2 litres of water and then add the turmeric powder and chilli powder.

Add the bay leaves and put the lid on.

Cook for nearly 2 hours on a low flame. Once the meat is about 90% done, add the potato chunks and cook some more till they turn tender.  While the meat is cooking, peel some sweet potatoes, cut in large chunks, add olive oil, salt and oregano and bake till tender.  Set aside for serving later.

Once the meat is tender, add the cornflour slurry and let the sauce thicken a bit.  Check for salt and your dinner is ready!

Serve lamb shanks hot on a bed of roasted and fork mashed sweet potato, with some sour dough baguette and a glass of red.

The sweetness of the sweet potatoes along with the juicy meat and the sting of the chilli does wonders to warm up the spirits on a cold autumn day. The sour dough baguette was perfect to mop up the juices from the meat.