This weekend I tackled a most macho dinner recipe. It is something that’s been creeping in on the edges of my psyche for weeks now. I see it glossy on food magazine covers and featured on cooking sites. It’s been taunting me endlessly and I finally caved. Courtesy of Whole Foods I found myself stocked with four grass-fed/braised lamb shanks, a head of garlic, bag of organic carrots and an onion. Courtesy of our trip to the Russian River last weekend I found myself stocked with a nice bottle of zinfandel. These ingredients, inspired by winter roast articles everywhere did a magical dance in my roasting pan and and emerged in a carmelized glaze of goodness.

Zinfandel braised lamb shanks.

For the meat (four lamb shanks) you will need 1 bottle of a good zin (one that you can bear to part with) a whole head of garlic chopped in thick pieces, a whole onion sliced up and about 8 carrots sliced in large pieces and three tablespoons of butter. For seasoning get some fresh rosemary, salt, pepper and a teaspoon of mustard seeds.
Crank your oven up to 500degrees and sprinkle the meat liberally with salt and pepper. Throw the lamb shanks in a roasting pan and roast for 15 minutes on one side, turn and roast 15 minutes on the other side. Remove the pan from the oven and reduce the temperature to 350degrees. Douse the meat in that yummy zin (perhaps reserve a swig for yourself). Add all of the other ingredients: the onion, garlic, carrots, rosemary and mustard seeds. Save the butter. Roast the lamb for two hours, turning and basting every 20 minutes. When it’s finished the meat should pull effortlessly off the bone. Remove the meat, garlic and veggies and put on a separate plate. This is where the final magic happens. Strain the juice/wine into a saucepan and reduce by half. Whisk in the butter and serve over meat. I added blue cheese mashed potatoes.
(this particular version courtesy of Jesse Ziff Cool’s Simply Organic)

I have to say, that this meal did make me feel pretty tough. Like I could don a fur vest and hunt my own kill for the next time around. Those are two things I think are highly underrated: fur and hunting for your own food. When the modern methods of processing and consuming food comes to an end, I’d like to be prepared for such an adventure.

Dinner next week

In the meantime, if you haven’t tried roasting meat, give it a shot. It takes minimal ingredients and impresses the hell out of your dinner guests. (OK, so my mom isn’t hard to please, what can I say?)
Serve over blue cheese smashed potatoes and with a great red wine.

Also, for an aperitif (if you want to toss back more than red wine with this meal) a coworker tipped me off to this lovely drink:

fill a champagne glass 3/4 of the way full with champagne (Perrier Jouet is my recent fave) give it a splash of lillet and a bit of a lemon zest/peel. Done. This is also a really great date night cocktail. You know… if you want to look fancy. (Not that I know anything about that.)

Filed under: Meal Reports, Uncategorized

2 Responses to “Busting chops.”

1. Jan Says:
   March 10th, 2009 at 10:17 am

   No recipe????????? What’s the point =-(

2. patrice Says:
   March 13th, 2009 at 11:19 am

   Hi, Jan,
   Thanks for pointing that out. I started this post, saved and finished at a later date. A chunk in the middle went missing. I will update tonight so that you can try the recipe, too!

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