7 hour port braised lamb shanks

made these last night, folks were squirming in their chairs making orgasmic noises...

4 lamb shanks
2 cups prunes
1 carrot
1 med onion
1 pint stock (I used veal)
2 tbsp cumin (toasted, ground)
2 tbsp allspice
2 tbsp thyme
1/2 bottle port
1/4 lb bacon
2 cups flour
salt + pepper for seasoning
oil spray

- preheat the oven to 400

- chop the bacon fairly small and render it down very slowly in a large saucepan

- wash the lamb, spray it with oil then cover with seasoned flour

- bake the lamb for 15 minutes to brown it

- drop the oven temp down to 300 or slightly lower

- chop the onion and carrot finely

- remove the bacon and put to one side

- slowly fry the onion and carrot in the bacon fat

- when veg is done, add stock, port, prunes, and herbs/spices

- boil for 10 min

- put lamb in a casserole dish or roasting pan covered in foil

- pour liquid over lamb

- cover and place in 300-ish oven

- every hour, remove from oven, turn meat, spoon liquid over meat and return
(remember to make sure the seal is still good, you want to retain the liquid to steam the meat - this is a braise not a roast)

- use the bacon to make a sandwich because you're going to be hungry by this point

- pour off liquid back into saucepan, add 50% more water, place in fridge to chill until fat solidifies on top

- remove fat, bring to boil on stove, and add cornflour as required to make the gravy

done in about 7 hours or so, well worth waiting for.

This thread needs pics!!!!!!

+1 on pics, though just reading the recipe is a mouthgasm in itself

only took one pic, and the flash didn't show them to their best, but:

I also braised lamb last night. For my lonely.

One lamb shoulder chop
one onion
two carrots
one handful dried chanterelles
one bottle homebrewed Scottish ale
marjoram, black pepper, salt.
Served on escarole:

Those lamb shanks sure look tasty.

I love Lamb, unfortunately the rest of the gang doesn't feel the same way , so I rarely have it.

zoebisch01 said:

I love Lamb, unfortunately the rest of the gang doesn't feel the same way , so I rarely have it.

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Same boat here!

Lamb's not a very hot item here in SE NC either, so the market's usually only got those NZ boneless legs in the netting.

Between this thread and the one with the Portuguese grilled sardines I'm really missing having a supermarket with a world class meat department nearby...

zoebisch01 said:

I love Lamb, unfortunately the rest of the gang doesn't feel the same way , so I rarely have it.

Click to expand...

ma2brew said:

Same boat here!

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My SWMBO always hated lamb until I started cooking it for her. This is so rich and fall-off-the-bone good it's not lamb as most people know it.

Alternatively this should work quite well with something like chuck roast as well. Maybe back off a bit on the allspice, add a few mushrooms towards the end? You'd have to adjust the cooking time a bit, but everything else should work out fine.

I made a really nice spicy goat stew recently (Latino style, tomato based) and SWMBO actually wanted to try it....unfortunately I had tailored it to my heat level. She was not happy .

Lamb and Goat are two meats that have a tremendous flavor of their own which for some is just really hard to temper. The kids can be hard with it as well. I suppose it depends though, my youngest seems to be the most on par with my own tastes...i.e. he'll eat just about anything. He loved the braised Beef Tongue I made a while back.

That all being said, I can see how this dish would have a fairly broad appeal. Most people in the US experience is roast leg of Lamb, and depending on how it was prepared could have created a tremendous gastronomic hurdle for them wrt Lamb.