WINE BRAISED LAMB SHANKS WITH HERBES DE PROVENCE,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]
Last year for the Easter dinner that I put together,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], I made a roasted leg of lamb with garlic, rosemary and lemon. I don't recall being pleased with the results but I'm uncertain as to why. Apparently I've blocked this culinary mishap from my memory. From what I remember, I think it was bland, dry and sort of greasy.
This year when we were putting the menu together,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Annie and I briefly toyed with the idea of have a ham or doing roasting a pork loin or something, but the more we though about it, we kept circling back around to lamb. I mean,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], lamb on Easter. There's really no other option that makes sense.
Rather than risk the possibility of overcooking the meat again, I decided that braising was the foolproof way to go. Dry, it most certainly would NOT be. Plus it gave me the excuse to go out and by a dutch oven, which I had been wanting to add to my cookware collection for a long time now. The Saturday before, I headed over to Williams Sonoma at the Beverly Center and purchased a beautiful new Le Crueset 9 1/2 quart oval dutch oven in "Lemongrass." I lugged the behemoth home and proceeded to break her in.
The recipe comes from Epicurious although I sort of combined it with some suggestions that I got from an open thread on Apartment Therapy: The Kitchen.
2 large leeks (white and pale green parts only), cleaned and chopped
6 large whole garlic cloves
6 large lamb shanks (12 to 14 ounces each although the ones I used were a little bit over a pound each), fat trimmed off
All purpose flour
2 2/3 cups dry red wine (this leaves just enough wine left in the bottle for the cook to have a glass while the lamb braises)
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes with added puree
1/4 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
1 1/2 tablespoons dried herbes de Provence
1 1/4 pounds slender carrots, peeled, cut diagonally into 1/2inchlong pieces
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsleySprinkle lamb shanks with salt and pepper; dust with flour to coat. Heat the oil in a large pot or dutch oven over mediumhigh heat. Add lamb and cook until brown, turning occasionally, about 12 minutes. Transfer the browned lamb to a plate and set aside.
Uncover and continue to simmer until sauce reduces slightly, about 10 minutes longer. Spoon off fat from pan juices. Season lamb to taste with salt and pepper.
According to the recipe, all of this can be done a day ahead and then reheated, which is what I did. Stacy on Apartment Therapy: The Kitchen suggested removing the lamb shanks and refrigerate them separately which makes it easier to skim off the fat the next day. I did not do this,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], but next time I will.
Sprinkle with parsley and serve. We ladled some of the gravy into a gravy boat to pass around.
It's very easy dish to prepare and,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], as is common with this sort of thing, it's better to make it a day ahead. I made sure to thoroughly skim the fat off and as a result, the meat and the sauce was surprisingly not very oily in the least. We served it with garlic rosemary polenta and grilled asparagus with lemon herb breadcrumbs. It was very nice. A week later I reheated the leftovers and served it over couscous. It was STILL very nice.
相关的主题文章:


[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]

[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]

The post has been approved 0 times