Lamb shanks French daube-style

There is a story behind the lamb shanks. We were in something of a rush on Sunday and this dish had caught my eye; we wanted to make it but didn't have time to go out to the farm shop to buy the lamb. So we considered buying it in Tesco, where we were doing the weekly shop. We found the meat aisle and a couple were standing in front of the lamb shanks, scrutinising them closely and debating whether an unnamed 'he' would like them or not. I was waiting (im)patiently, shifting from one foot to the other, while they agonized over whether the shanks were good enough for their anonymous recipient, when suddenly the man said to the woman, 'well as long as there are bones in it; dogs love bones, he'll love one' and the woman replied 'but they don't look very nice. I hate the idea of him eating something like that. I think he'd prefer a lamb chop'. Her partner replied: 'okay, we'll get him some lamb chops instead, he'll like chewing on those'. Once I realized that they had rejected the lamb shanks on behalf of their dog, there was no way I was going to buy them for us. We made time and went elsewhere.

I should say here that I love lamb shanks. This was my third opportunity to eat them this autumn/winter and I was eager for the recipe to work. It looked delicious - daube style, according to my Larousse Gastronomique, means braised in red wine and stock and seasoned with herbs - and like all slow-cooked dishes, after an initial effort you're free to do something else. The recipe is below, but here is the outcome:


Images of braised food can rarely capture just how good they taste; this dish was no exception. It was utterly full of flavour; the meat melted in the mouth and the sauce was rich and tasty. My third attempt from delicious. and a bit different from the other two, this is a sort of simple French-style dish and I think I'll try it out on my francophile parents-in-law next time they come to visit. I certainly wouldn't sacrifice it to a dog.


Lamb shanks French daube-style, from delicious.: 5 of the best,

60 ml olive oil
120g mild pancetta, chopped
2 large onions, sliced
6 garlic cloves, crushed
4 carrots, peeled and sliced
12 Frenched lamb shanks [Frenched means that the meat is cut away from the end of the bone]
seasoned flour
1 75 ml bottle red wine
600 ml tomato passata
20 ml beef stock
1 bouquet garni

Mustard mash

1 kg desiree potatoes, peeled
200 ml milk, warmed
50g unsalted butter
2 heaped tbsp wholegrain mustard
1 heaped tbsp dijon mustard

Preheat oven to 17pC/325 F/ Gas mark 2.

Heat 20 ml of the oil in a large ovenproof casserole dish over a medium heat. Add the pancetta and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the onion, garlic and carrot and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Once the mixture starts to colour, remove and set aside.

Toss the lamb in the seasoned flour. Heat the remaining oil in the casserole dish, add the lamb and fry for 2-3 minutes until lightly golden all over. Set aside. [Note: I would reverse the steps and do the lamb first then the vegetables - it involves less effort in moving ingredients in and out of the pan!]

Return the vegetables to the pan, add the wine and bring to the boil for 2-3 minutes, then add the passata and stock. Season, then add the bouquet garni. Bring back to the boil, then remove from the heat, cover and place in the oven for 2 1/2 hours. Remove and set aside for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the mustard mash. Put the potatoes in a pan of cold, salted water, bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 minutes until just tender. Drain and mash, then, using a wooden spoon, slowly beat in the warm milk and butter until smooth and creamy. Season with salt and pepper and stir in both mustards.
Use paper towels to dab off any excess fat that may have risen to the surface of the lamb shanks. Serve with the mustard mash.

Note: the shanks can be cooked the day before and refrigerated overnight. Spoon off any fat on the top, heat in a 180C oven, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes, until hot.

delicious.: 5 of the Best

I first bought delicious. magazine in early 2004, just after I'd started reading Good Food and Olive. I could probably have done without yet another food magazine, but I didn't realize that at the time, or perhaps I did and I bought it anyway. I've gone through phases with all three of these magazines - oh and I've also bought fresh, which I found had an irritating typeface and too much about growing, rather than cooking, food (that issue may not have been typical) and Donna Hay's magazine, which I confess to liking because it is so beautifully stylised, but the import price is quite prohibitive. At first my favourite magazine was unquestionably delicious., followed by Olive and Good Food, but the formats of all seem to change regularly and they each appeal more to me at certain times. In terms of delicious., I've noticed that where I used to cut out and try lots of recipes, now I try very few and sometimes none. Admittedly this may be a side effect of the Jamie project, but I suspect it is more than that; certainly I haven't discovered any amazing new dishes recently, whereas I did in the earlier days. I enjoyed 'Jamie's quickies', the cut out and keep recipe cards, and tried lots of them; I often tried recipes by Jill Dupleix (her sausage and red wine pasta is fantastic) and I am still making lots of their barbecue recipes from summer 2005. Thus when I saw '5 of the Best', recipes from delicious., I was eager to see which recipes Valli Little had picked out as favourites.

The premise of the book is simple and effective: it covers a range of categories (salads, cold and hot soups, eggs, boiled pasta, baked pasta, savoury tarts, pizzas, rice, vegetarian, potatoes, vegetables, white fish, salmon, chicken, beef, lamb, pork, stir-fries, casseroles, curries, sweet tarts and pies, cold desserts, cheesecake, ice-cream and semifreddo, hot puddings, pikelets and pancakes, big cakes, small cakes) and includes, for each category, five of the most popular or successful recipes from either Australian or British delicious. Given this background, we can have full confidence that the recipes are likely to work.

The book is beautifully laid out, with an image for every recipe; the photographs are almost all extremely appealing. The pages feel spacious; words and images are not clamouring for space. The food looks simple but stylish, the sort of food you want to cook.

The recipes vary, from comforting British-style food to the Australian sunshine food I associate with Bill Granger and Donna Hay; there are a lot of healthy-seeming recipes, but a good range of desserts too. They all look pretty straightforward; there are no endless lists of ingredients and a cursory read-through suggests that these are mostly pretty accessible.

I've tried a couple of recipes. One is the chicken with pesto and mascarpone, which I mentioned in an earlier post:

The chicken is stuffed with a mixture of pancetta, breadcrumbs, onions, parsley, Parmesan and egg, roasted, and served with a sauce made from pesto, white wine and mascarpone. It was delicious!

My second dish was a beef stirfry. I know stirfries aren't exactly foodie news, and like everyone else I lived on them and pasta when I was a student, because they were cheap and quick. I've made a few stirfries recently, in the interests of saving time after a long day at work, and realized two things: a) that I really like trying new stirfries out and b) that my Le Creuset frying pan doesn't do a great stirfrying job. Yesterday we bought a new, electric wok, in the Fenwicks household event so my stirfries will be much enhanced in future. Anyway this one I made in my frying pan... It was basically beef, rolled in peppercorns, five-spice and groundnut oil, stirfried and then roasted in the oven briefly, with stirfried spring onions, garlic, chilli, ginger, noodles , cashews and spinach, and tossed with a sauce made from soy, sugar, oyster sauce and sesame oil. It was easy and tasty - what you'd expect from a book that comes from a magazine like delicious. - without being anything particularly different. Good weeknight fare, anyway.


The cashews lift this dish, I think, mainly because I'm a bit of a cashew fan. The recipe said hokkien noodles, but I just used what we had in the house. I think the biggest compliment I could pay this dish, though, is that I hadn't stirfried for ages - thanks to not having a wok and just an expensive Le Creuset frying pan that stirfrying probably doesn't do any good to - and that I've made two since (blog report to come). This book may not contain the recipes I have taken to heart from delicious., but that's all to the good, really; it has recipes I may have missed the first time, for one reason or another, and it's nice to give them a try now.