Rioja Braised Lamb Shanks with Garlic and Chorizo

There's nothing like rich and indulgent comfort food in the winter. Especially when it involves very minimal effort. It may also surprise you to discover that I've never had a lamb shank! I originally though that they were excruciatingly expensive, but these shoulder shanks were very affordable and were bought from the Waitrose meat counter. A perfect treat for a weekend dinner. This recipes comes from Lorraine Pascale's Home Cooking Made Easy. 

Rioja Braised Lamb Shanks with Garlic and Chorizo

Serves 2

   Ingredients

• 2 lamb shanks
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• oil, for frying
• 350ml/12fl oz Rioja or 350ml/12fl oz good-quality beef stock
• 100ml/9fl oz balsamic vingear
• 1 garlic bulb, cut in half horizontally
• 2 bay leaves
• 1–2 tsp paprika
• handful black peppercorns
• 4 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 300ml/10fl oz beef stock
• 125g/4oz chorizo
• 1 large red onion, peeled and cut into wedges
• 1 carrot, peeled and chopped

    

Method

Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas 3

Season the lamb well with salt and pepper. Drizzle oil into a heavy-based pan set on a high heat.

Brown the lamb shanks all over and remove from the pan.

Add the wine and balsamic to the pan and boil for five minutes. Put the lamb shanks back into the pan along with the garlic, bay leaves, paprika, peppercorns, half the rosemary and the stock.

Once boiling, place the dish into the oven and cook for two hours. This can be elongated by turning the heat down if that's more convenient for your schedule.

Remove the dish from the oven and add the chorizo, onion, carrot and remaining rosemary, then return to the oven and cook for another hour. You want to make sure that the meat is tender and falling off the bone.

Remove the meat and vegetables with a slotted spoon and keep warm.

Place the pot onto a high heat and boil for 8-10 minutes, or until thickened slightly.

Serve the meat and vegetables with lashings of sauce and a side dish. I chose to do mashed carrot and swede, but you could use spring greens or creamy mashed potato.

August Foodie Pen Pals

I know, I know... It's September now isn't it? Autumn is looming eerily upon us, although it feels like we're still waiting for summer. But this post is better late than never! This month I received a parcel from Carl Legge of http://www.carllegge.com/ fame. He is a permaculturalist living on a peninsula in Northern Wales, so we are quite far removed from each other, but looking at his blog I was very excited to see what would arrive this month. I would thoroughly recommend his blog for reading! Unfortunately, we had some trouble with a certain courier (who I'm sure will never be trusted again!) who managed to damage the box and it ended up leaking. Part of me is still suspicious that "damaged" meant the delivery driver eating it's contents but we will never know.

Today my box arrived and a small crowd gathered at work to watch me open it. It was very clearly very well protected this time, as I pulled back the multiple layers of bubble wrap, feeling like a kid at Christmas. Carl's box was lovingly put together with a comprehensive letter of explanation, two recipes and everything labelled gorgeously. 

Drum roll please for the contents of my box...

First up we have fresh herbs from his garden! As lovely as our flat is, I do miss having a garden now and Carl has told me that an indoor herb garden may be possible - good news! So these were very well received. There's Chives, Flat leaf parsley, Thyme, Lemon Thyme, Rosemary, Prostrate Rosemary, Bay leaves and Oregano. I'm especially intrigued by the oregano, as I've never cooked with the fresh version before!

Three different types of garlic... Three. I nearly had an aneurysm. These are all homegrown by Carl. There's Early Purple Wight, Garlic Music and Chesnoil White. I am in garlic heaven. I've made three different garlic butters for Rob and myself to do a tasting with. We both favoured the Early Purple White variety as it seemed to have a more pungent flavour than the others. Vampires beware!

A bottle of homemade chilli oil. Everyone who had eaten my food knows that I get a bit enthusiastic with the chilli. I even put fresh chillis on my salads at lunch. Carl warned that this may be a little bit hot but I tried some straight away and it has a lovely kick to it! Not too hot for this daredevil however... He also included the recipe for this, so I will be making my own supply shortly.

Then came the Billy Bars... I will share with you what Carl had told me about their name as it's a great story... 

"The name of these spiced muesli bars is an old one with a family history.I wanted healthy but tasty bars for my young son which didn’t have the processed sugars and fats in of most commercial ones. So I invented my own. Now when my son was little (and even now) if he asked what something was called I would answer  William” as a joke. So when I was looking for a name for these bars, I chose the alliterative ‘Billy Bars’."

You can find the recipe for Billy Bars here: Billy Bar Recipe

I tucked into one of these immediately and shared it with a few colleagues. It was very well received! Tasty but without the guilt of having a donut or some other artery clogging treat.

Finally was a Soda Bread Mix. My experiments in baking bread have been less than successful in the past. Paul Hollywood I am not. But Carl assures me that I'll be fine with this one! It's a mix of wholemeal spelt flour and white tybalt flour from his favourite Welsh Water Mill, Felin Ganol, in Ceredigion. He has included a great recipe from Dan Lepard’s book Short & Sweet, which I will hopefully be trying this weekend! Please cross everything you can for me. 

Carl also included a beautiful egg candle made by Deb, which I have added to my already worryingly big collection of candles.

I've been very lucky to have such great foodie pen pals so far, and am already planning for the next swap. If you love food, this is a great project to get involved in and you don't need to have a blog to be a pen pal! The Europe branch is up to 200 members and growing, so I implore you to "get involved". Think of all the tasty food you could be receiving every month!

Beer Braised Pork Knuckles with Garlic and Caraway

What is a pork knuckle? I know what you're thinking... it's not that. It's a genuine cut of meat.

Voila

Pork knuckles can also be called Ham Hocks, which more people may be familiar with. It's a cut of meat that I found notoriously hard to track down. Of course, my local supermarket doesn't stock it... that would actually be useful. Then after several butcher trips, I struck gold. This beauty fed three of us (with healthy appetites) easily with enough left overs for tomorrows packed lunch. Getting hold of one of these was inspired by a recipe in 'Kitchen' by Nigella Lawson - Beer Braised Pork Knuckles with Garlic, Caraway, Apples and Potatoes.

This is a cheap cut of meat and would make a great family Sunday lunch or any day you fancy something a little bit indulgent and comforting. 

So here is the recipe:

Ingredients

- 1 tsp salt

- 1 tsps caraway seeds

- 2 garlic cloves

- 1 large or 2 small pork knuckles

- 2 onions

- 2 eating apples, cored and quartered - I used Granny Smiths

- Enough potatoes to feed your crowd, cut into wedges

- 1 500ml bottle of good amber or dark ale - I used Fullers Honeydew Ale for a touch of sweetness

- 2 cupes of boiling water

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Put the salt and caraway seeds into a bowl with the garlic (minced or grated) and combine. Add the pork knuckles and rub them well with the caraway mixture. Spend time giving it a good massage and make sure the mixture gets into the scores in your rind.
2. Peel the onions and slice them into rounds, then add them to the roasting tin so that they make a layer for the pork knuckle. Put the pork knuckle onto the onions and cook for 30 minutes.
3. Get your tin out of the oven and arrange the apples and potatoes around the knuckle. Now here, I realised that I was using the wrong kind of tin so please make sure you are using a deep roasting dish (something missing from my culinary equipment). I had to make do with a casserole dish and the crackling did suffer.
4. Pour half of the beer over the knuckle so that it is absorbed as it pours into the tin. Put it back into the oven at 325 degrees F and roast for 2 hours.
5. Turn up the oven to 425 degrees F, and baste the hocks with the remaining beer. Roast for 30 more minutes.
6. Once the outside is crispy and the potatoes and apples are nicely cooked, remove your tin and transfer the apples and potatoes to a warmed serving dish. Lift the knuckle onto a carving board and leave the onion and juices in the tin.
7. Put the tin on the stove over a medium heat and add 2 cups of boiling water, stirring to deglaze the pan and to make a gravy. I chose to add a 25ml shot of whisky to our gravy for a boozy compliment to the apples. Transfer the gravy to a gravy boat or jug.
8. Take off the crackling and break it into pieces (or just eat them...) and serve with your other parts.
9. Pull or carve the meat and serve it with the crackling, apples, potatoes and gravy. Can be served with a strong, German mustard.