Vietnamese spicy lamb shanks, the finished product!
Originally uploaded by Manne.
Came across this amazing sounding recipe for lamb shanks this week. Cook for over 2 hours? Tick. One pot cooking? Tick. Coriander, basil, mint, lemon grass, lime, chilli, garlic? Tick, tick, tick.
Ingredients lined up and ready to go...
Originally uploaded by Manne.
BBC Good Food, wonderful treasure chest of goodness, has the recipe. Other than making it more LCHF friendly by substituting sweet potatoes and rice for carrots and sauteed cabbage and leek I have nothing to add.
We were also celebrating Ing's birthday, which we did with several bottles of bubbly. First a bottle of Bloomsbury from Ridgeview, which turned out to be wonderfully golden in colour with a rich and satisfying taste (if you read my previous post on the champagne tasting at Bibendum I would say Bloomsbury is at the Veuve Cliquot end of the taste spectrum).
Among the English sparkling wines we have sampled lately, this rates very high. Still must admit I put Chapel Down right at the very top though. There is a fresh tingling taste and aroma of apples to their Pinot Reserve that really strikes the right chord in me.
Floyd would have approved of our cooking this night
Originally uploaded by Manne.
Following on from that we opened a bottle of proper champagne, a Pol Roger which I was told was the favourite sparkly tipple of Winston Churchill. Clearly the man had good taste. Fresh, light and very crisp.
Back to the Vietnamese lamb shanks. Needless to say, any meat stewing away in stock for nearly three hours in the oven will come out tender and succulent. This was no exception.
The sweet flavour of the lamb worked really well with the Vietnamese range of flavours contributed by mainly the fish sauce, chilli and lemon grass.
Serving it on a bed of sautéed cabbage and leek (cut cabbage and leek in strips, sauté in butter in pot until translucent, add 2 tbsp of water and pop the lid on for a few minutes, then whack another big knob of butter in and give it a stir just before serving) not only looked pretty, it actually provided a great taste contrast to the much zingier and spicy juices that the lamb had stewed away in for so long.
Took a bunch of photos while cooking, I so enjoy my new iPhone. The carnivore in me likes this:
Browned lamb shanks, ready to go in the stewing pot
Originally uploaded by Manne.
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