Hi everyone, Jess here. Hope you are having a good weekend! Mine was busy busy as usual, so I went slow cooking for tonight’s dinner.
At pickup yesterday Farmer Jamie and I were talking about lamb. It was mentioned that some folks aren’t into lamb. Like goat, it can be a bit gamier than beef, which some folks aren’t into. It is, however, a more sustainable meat in general, so we’d love to do our part in getting more folks trying it and enjoying it! Today I’ll work with a couple of lamb shanks and see what folks at Sunday Dinner think!
Many times you’ll see mint, garlic or other stronger flavor paired with lamb to make the gaminess less… well… less gamey. I didn’t have any fresh mint on hand because the gardens are hibernating and whatnot, so I started my research to see if there were flavors in my share box that could be used.
Behold, the shanks.
Working with a few ideas from Joy of Cooking, Williams Sonoma, and miscellaneous recipe research on the web based on what I had in this week’s Winter CSA and in the pantry.
Ingredients
- 2-4 lamb shanks (2 will leave you with a lot of extra sauce to enjoy on other things)
- 2 tbsp oil (Something with a high smoke point, like coconut or canola)
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 2 carrots, chopped
- 1 cup celery stalks/leaves (I used from the chest freezer)
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 pint diced tomatoes
- 1 small can tomato paste
- 2 cups beef stock (I used beef bone stock from the chest freezer)
- 1 tablespoon (each) dried oregano, and rosemary (or 3 tbsp fresh if you’re fortunate to have some) thyme would work too if you had some
- Salt (I used Kosher) and Fresh Ground Pepper
- Splash of red wine (optional, I opted)
Directions
- If you have the time, browning your meat before you slow cook it is always a bonus. (if you don’t have the time, skip to step 2.) Trim your shanks of any obvious fat, (mine seemed to have none to worry about) and season your shanks with salt and pepper. Heat your oil in a large pan on medium high heat and sear the meat on all sides. If you have room in your pan, toss the veggies (except tomatoes) around on the side as the meat sears, for about 5 minutes total. Toss some wine in the pan while you’re searing if you’re feeling inclined. Be sure all the liquid and browned bits from the bottom of the pan are transferred to the slow cooker.
- If you don’t have the time to brown your meat, simply season your shanks with salt and pepper and gather the remaining ingredients together (omitting the oil).
- Add ingredients to the crockpot and cook on low for 8 hours.
Here’s mine, start to finish, as I layered ingredients into the crock pot.
After hours in the slow cooker, this emerged. As you can see from the picture of the uncooked shank versus this one, the meat shrunk up leaving the bone exposed like a little drumstick. I sliced the “major” meat from the bones for serving, and left the meaty bones themselves for the carnivores at the table to gnaw on.
We didn’t find this meat to taste gamey at all. It was tender and the flavors from the sauce were great. Because I opted for 2 shanks instead of 4, I could use the remaining sauce on other dishes throughout the week. It will make a great topping for pasta, baked potatoes, polenta…
I served it along with mashed potatoes tonight, a fabulous receptacle for the sauce (this photo is before the sauce was added to the potatoes). Salad and rainbow carrots with a sprinkle of maple sugar also made an appearance. Lemon blueberry zucchini bread was thawed from the chest freezer for a light dessert. Easy and scrumptious!
Go Patriots! Go Lamb! Until tomorrow, sweet and savory dreams, my friends!