by Sam Tackeff | Oct 12, 2012 | Braises, Meat
There are two Nigel Slater recipes for lamb shanks that I use often. The first is his lamb shanks with anchovy (you can watch the video of him making it), and the second, his Moroccan spiced lamb shanks with aubergine from Real Cooking. Left with what is likely my last eggplant of summer (there’s supposed to be a frost tonight!), and an abundance of good anchovies from Eataly, I decided to combine the two. I love throwing anchovies in braises because they lend a salty-umami taste without screaming out “there’s a fish in here!”
To make this dish, you’ll want two lamb shanks. These were actually quite small, but you could easily get larger ones if you are feeding more people.
I drizzled them with a little bit of olive oil, seasoned them in salt and pepper, and seared them off in my deep skillet in a little bit of tallow (rendered beef fat, a gift from the awesome folks at M.F. Dulock). A dutch oven would work well for this, but my dearly beloved Le Creuset 7 1/4 Qt. is currently injured, and I haven’t been able to send it back to get a replacement. While doing this, I turned the oven to 300 F to preheat.
After browning the shanks, I added the chopped onions and a few cloves of garlic to the pan. I sprinkled on some rosemary and added a few Turkish bay leaves my mom smuggled back from a tree in Istanbul.
I then chopped the anchovies, added them to the pot, added tomato paste, an eggplant chopped into large cubes, and some water to come halfway up the shanks. You could easily use some red wine and stock here if you had some. The anchovies are quite salty, but I tasted the broth and gave it a final seasoning.
I brought it all to a simmer, put on the lid, popped it in the oven, let it cook for an hour, turned the shanks, and braised for an hour more. The result:
I served Devon’s off the bone over some pasta with parmigiano, and my bowl with a double portion of eggplant, and a grating of lemon zest and sprinkle of parsley.
Braised Lamb Shanks with Tomato, Eggplant, and Anchovies
2 lamb shanks
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, roughly chopped
3 whole cloves garlic
2 sprigs rosemary (or about 1/2 Tbs. dried)
2 bay leaves
4 anchovy fillets, chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 medium eggplant, chopped into large cubes
1 can diced tomatoes (15 oz.)
about a cup of water
lemon zest + parsley to serve
Preheat the oven to 300 F. Season the shanks with salt an pepper, and brown them in a dutch over or deep skillet in some olive oil or good fat (I used tallow). When the shanks have browned, add the onions and garlic. Nestle in the rosemary and bay leaves. Chop the anchovy fillets and add them to the pan, then add the tomato paste and gentle stir. Add the chopped eggplant, pour over the diced tomatoes and the water to reach about half way up the shanks. Bring to a simmer. Once simmering, put the lid on, and bake in the oven for two hours, turning the shanks half way through.
Serve topped with lemon zest and parsley. Or, remove the meat from the bone, and serve over pasta with a grating of parmigiano. Leftovers taste particularly good on day two with a few poached eggs.
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 29, 2012 | Braises, Meat
Waking up to the whistle and hiss of old metal heaters in our house just starting to kick in, I’ve been thankful these past few nights for my L.L. Bean comforter. Summer has left us, and we are on to crisper weather and shorter days. Fall necessitates comfort, warm sticky stews, roasted root vegetables, bowls of mashed potatoes, spice breads, and poached fruit.
Around this time of year I start thinking of cooking traditions again, after exploring out and about all summer long, I long to be home in the kitchen, the oven filled with roasting vegetables, or the rising batter of my favorite pumpkin chocolate chip cake. One of my favorite fall dinners is my mom’s Osso Bucco (braised veal shank). When she cooked it, the house would smell delicious for hours, and the reward would be a big meaty treat in each of our bowls. We’d impolitely gnaw down to the bone, and loudly suck out the wobbly marrow.
When chilly air hits us, this is the first thing I want to make. It’s a wonderful project for a Sunday afternoon, requires minimal effort and leaves plenty of time to curl up with a good book while you wait for supper. This stew is largely put together with bits and pieces in my kitchen, but that’s sort of the beauty of it – you can make it how you want. I use lots of carrots, but adding potatoes would be good too. Finding quality pastured veal is difficult, so usually I’ll substitute beef shanks, but you could even make this with stew meat and you’d be rewarded at the end.
To start, I turned the oven to 350 F. These are cross-cut beef shanks I picked up at M.F. Dulock, which I seasoned with salt and pepper. I then heated up my big skillet over medium heat, and cooked some onions in a little schmaltz (chicken fat!) with some La Quercia pancetta.
Then seared off the shanks, a few minutes on each side.
I then took out the meat, added a large chopped carrot, deglazed the pan with some stock and tomato sauce (I used Rao’s Marinara), nestled the meat back in, added a handful of whole garlic cloves, seasoned it all with some dried porcini mushrooms, rosemary and bay leaves, salt and pepper, covered it, and let it cook for a few hours.
After two hours, I added some thickly cut carrots, and cooked it until they were tender, about one more hour. Devon got his served over a big bowl of mashed potatoes.
I got mine with an extra serving of carrots. To finish off the dish, I added the winning combination of parsley and lemon zest, a sort of deconstructed gremolata.
beef shank stew
serves 2 – 4
1 tablespoon good fat (I used schmaltz, you could use butter or olive oil)
1 small onion
1 ounce pancetta, chopped
2-4 large beef shanks (1 per person, 3/4 – 1 lb. each)
1 large chopped carrot
several whole cloves garlic
1 cup tomato sauce
a few cups homemade chicken stock
water (or one part water, one part red wine)
a few dried porcini mushrooms
a bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon. dried rosemary (or a sprig of fresh)
3 large carrots, chopped into coins
for the gremolata:
zest of a lemon
a small handful of parsley, chopped
Start by turning on your oven to 350 degrees. Season your beef shanks with salt and pepper, and set aside. Heat up the fat in a large heavy bottomed skillet or large dutch oven over medium heat. Chop up your onion and add to the pan with a good pinch of salt. Cook for a few minutes and add the pancetta, and a few grinds of fresh pepper from a mill if you have one. Stir about for a few minutes as you chop your carrots, and set them aside.
Raise the heat to medium-high, push aside the onions and pancetta, and place the shanks in the middle of the pan, searing them off a minute or two on each side to brown them. Then, take the meat out, and set aside. If you have four shanks, do this in batches to avoid crowding the meat to get a good sear.
Lower the heat back to medium, add the carrots to the pan, and cook for a few minutes until just slightly softened. Add the stock to the pan to deglaze all the sticky brown bits, stir, and add the tomato sauce. Put your beef shanks back in the pot, add the garlic cloves, and add a few cups of water just to make sure the shanks are almost covered.
Stir in a few dried porcinis, a bay leaf, and a 1/2 teaspoon of dried rosemary, or preferably a sprig of the fresh stuff. Bring to a simmer, cover, and pop in the oven for two hours. After two hours, add the carrot coins or other vegetables you’d like (potatoes would be good), and cook for another hour until the carrots are tender. Serve as is, or over a heaping portion of mashed potatoes. Top with a generous zesting of lemon, and some chopped parsley.
The next day, add some extra cooked meat you have on hand, or use the meaty broth to poach a few eggs in. Here’s mine on day two with some crumbled pork sausage.
