Braised Lamb Shanks in White Wine Sauce
Well, it’s official: the weather has snapped. I’ve always found it a little odd that Chuseok, the harvest holiday, comes just prior to the harvest (the rice harvest, anyway — the main staple crop) here. More times than not, it feels like summer, which I guess shouldn’t be a major sticking point for someone who comes from a place where it was often still in the 90s on Thanksgiving.
We don’t have fall foliage — or fall weather — in Texas, but on Thanksgiving, we always used to load up the van with cousins and head up to our grandparents’ farm in Missouri, so for this Texan, at least, the harvest still has strong autumnal associations.
But I’m way ahead of myself. It’s just become October.
I had done a decent job of getting myself rested up during the holiday, until Monday night rolled around and B, who was on a midnight bus back from Busan, let his battery die in the middle of a conversation without warning. So, naturally, instead of figuring that his battery had died and going to bed, I stayed up till dawn waiting for him to get in safely.
The next morning (afternoon), when we finally woke up, I was in too much of a deep-sleep haze to even think of leaving the house. I made chocolate chip pancakes, at B’s request, for br– okay, it was just lunch, and a late one at that. Then I puttered around making apple butter with the bagful of apples B’s mom sent back with him and getting the scraps set up to make cider and vinegar (post about that to come). B went out for a bike ride and I peered into the fridge to see what I could do for dinner.
I’ve been putting off these lamb shanks for a while, because I’ve actually never cooked lamb before, but they aren’t much different from oxtails, in principal, so I figured it was worth a shot.
With any kind of tougher cut of meat on the bone, the easiest thing to do is to braise, and the process is pretty much the same, no matter what it is: Brown off the meat in a skillet and toss in some vegetables to fry in the fat. Deglaze with wine, dump the whole lot into a big pot, add stock and simmer for a really long time.
It’s low impact cooking that’s really nice for cooler weather (simmering pots can heat a whole kitchen, it seems like), and it fills the whole house with the most incredible smells. It was a nice, relaxing way to spend my last day of freedom, even if I was feeling hungover from lack of sleep.
Braised Lamb Shanks in White Wine Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 2 lamb shanks, Frenched (with a bit of the meat and skin cut and scraped off the end to expose the bone)
- 2 tablespoons garlic, minced
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 carrots, chopped
- 3/4 cup mushrooms, chopped
- 6 sprigs rosemary
- 1 cup white wine
- 2 cups beef or lamb stock
Instructions
- Heat a skillet over medium high heat. Coat the pan with the butter and brown the lamb shanks in the skillet, turning every couple of minutes to brown evenly.
- When the lamb shanks are browned, remove them from the skillet and toss in the onion, carrots, mushrooms and garlic. Cook until onions are translucent and deglaze the skillet with the wine (just pour in the wine and scrap down the skillet).
- Place the lamb shanks in a large pot over medium heat. Add the vegetables and wine from the skillet and the stock. When the pot reaches a simmer, reduce heat to low and cover.
- Simmer for about 2 1/2 hours, until sauce has thickened.
