moroccan braised lamb shanks: what they don't tell you

Made "Moroccan Braised Lamb Shanks" from marthastewart.com today.  The ingredients in the recipe all made sense but the total typical cooking time was not specified.  Also, it wasn't clear whether to cover the pan or not, but since the recipe mentioned "until the sauce has reduce somewhat", I assumed the pan should be uncovered.  In the end, it was 5 hours at 325 for the mean to be "falling off the bone".  Turn after the first hour and then every 30 minutes or so.  In other words, this a good one to make when you'll be home anyway.

Starts off looking like this with the shanks (no browning!) about half submerged in the braising liquid:

After an hour and half, still not too inspiring:

But after a total of 5 hours:

Great colour, tastes amazing.  Don't bother trying to strain the sauce.  Just tip the pan to pool the sauce at one end and use a spoon to push the fat out of the way.  They serve it with seared baby fennel, a wheat berry salad and minted yoghurt.  Haven't got that tonight so it'll be couscous and blanched green beans tossed with extra virgin olive oil.

This dish would also scale easily to a dozen shanks in a larger roasting pan.  This technique is very similar to one proposed by Alice Waters in The Art of Simple Food for pork shoulder with chiles (the half-submerged lid-off braise).

lentils and lamb and... pumpkin?

I sautéed a chopped half-onion, half-carrot, half-parsnip, and half-pepper along with a small lamb shank in lots of olive oil in my pressure cooker. I added half a cup of french green lentils, one cup water, and a tsp each of salt and cumin. Then, in a refrigerator-clearing move, I added the flesh from a small pumkin-like squash (the 'fuzz says its name starts with a "k").

I put the lid on and took the cooker to high pressure for 14 min and then let it cool down for 15 min. I opened the cooker, pulled the meat off the bone, chopped it, and stirred everything together into pumpkin-lamb dal. I added more salt, as usual. The 'fuzz made couscous to go with. Slightly sweet and very delicious!

lamb and beans, now with more prison

Following a suggestion of PMC, who (these days) is all about cooking below boiling and for a long time, I am attempting a remake of lamb and beans but with no par-boiling of the beans. This is all about one-step cooking. I put a lamb shank, a pound of dry white beans, a few glugs of olive oil, two split garlic cloves, some pepper, rosemary sprigs, thyme sprigs, and coarsely ground pepper into a bean pot. I more-than covered it all with water. I put it in a 200 F (90 C) oven. I am now going to wait 5 hours and see what I get! At or near the end I will have to add a lot of salt.

lamb and beans

It is a crime to post this, because it is covered entirely by the baked beans and stew recipe algorithm posts. But I can't help it, because it came out so good.

Parboil about a pound of dried white beans (I used great northerns) in unsalted water for about 45 min. Pour the beans, a few cloves of garlic, some glugs of olive oil, some sage, and a lamb shank (incredibly cheap if you can find one) into an oven-proof pot. Add enough of the parboiling water to bring it to almost cover (but not quite). Throw it in the oven, covered, for a few hours at 250 F (120 C). Pull the meat off the bone at the end, cut it up and return it to the pot, salt heavily, stir, and serve. I served it with braised cabbage.

Some notes: It takes one heck of a lot of salt, so be prepared to stir it in, taste, and repeat a few times. You also might have to add some water now and then as it cooks, or when you re-heat it the next day. This meal is a trash meal, in the sense that its ingredients are cheap and have little commercial impact. No-one is raising lambs for their shanks! I'm all about that. It is also a meal you can make all winter with locally produced ingredients here in the northeast (except the olive oil, which could be replaced with butter or dropped). Many argue that stew tastes better the next day; I don't disagree.

This has the consistency of cassoulet and is in the same spirit. And it sure ain't rocket science!