Sunday, July 26, 2009

Shanks for the memories...

Shanks for the memories...
Winter cooking means hearty, warm meals that are like a big blanket during the cold nights. After a bad lamb shank meal at my parents place (I am not convinced the meat was lamb), we needed a redemption. Lamb shanks are a favourite with our family, and we took it as an insult to that the dish could even taste as bad as it did that fateful night...

In order to correct the misfortune, we turned to page 18 of the Coles Winter Magazine - "Indian-Style Curried Lamb Shanks". By Indain-Style, it means Rogan Josh. We'd never tried specific flavoured shanks before, but were willing to meld this Aussie favourite with some simple Indian flavours as the magazine suggested. So lets begin...



Rogan Josh Lamb Shanks

Did you know the 1999 Melbourne Cup winner was Rogan Josh? We were hoping to repeat his efforts and put up a crowd pleasing effort when my parents joined us for dinner and some 500 afterwards.

While the recipe calls for 6 shanks, we were only cooking for 4 so scaled everything down accordingly. The shanks we had were looking pretty good.

Before long, put the shanks aside and begin on the Rogan Josh mixture. It is very simple - Rogan Josh curry paste, some canned tomato, stock and onion. Get the onion nice and soft in the pan first, and then combine everything else in and bring to the boil.


About this time, I noticed that our little Aprentice Chef had found something much more interesting that the brilliance that is my cooking skills. The box for the slow cooker. And to think of all the money I spent on Dora...

Once the curry has been brought to the boil with the onions, throw them on top of the shanks in our handy slow cooker, and then leave them for as long as you can. Well, between 2-4 hours should be fine. We had planned ahead and had the full four hours, but I am sure that less wouldn't harm if you didn't have the time.

<----2pm
Waiting...
They are called slow cookers for a reason...
6pm---->




After the quick browning in the pan and 4 hours in the slow cooker, the meat has beautifully pink and tender enough to fall off the bone. The curry was mild enough to not burn off our tongues, and really full of flavour. The aroma was great also - it welcomed us as we walked in the front door but didn't hang around for hours after.

You Should Be Plating Now...

The recipe calls for some fresh corriander "to serve", but in my experience the corriander has never managed to bring the plates to the table ( *boom tish* Thank you). We decided corriander wasn't needed, since we didn't have any. Would have been a nice fragrance though - but on second look, apparently this part of the recipe was optional thanks to a last minute edit on the magazine. The yoghurt though was on hand, and used liberaly. We also put the shanks on a bed of mash potato, because we had plenty in the cupboard and this would be standard fare for shanks at our place.


The end result:

You'll have to trust me, it smells and tastes much better than it looks. Around the edges, I thought that was excess oils but my wife assures me otherwise. Potato is an obvious match, and if you have some nice warm Naan bread then even better. We had some garlic bread in the freezer, and that was fine but just not the same.

And the yoghurt - just plain from the dairy section, nothing fancy - I was amazed how well it matched with the Rogan Josh curry and the lamb. That was a real highlight for me - though I think my plating skills need to be worked on.

Oh, but who cares? It tasted wonderful and all plates for clean in a matter of minutes.

The recipe is available online as well, with all ingredients added to your trolley with one click - just put "Indian-Style Curried Lamb Shanks" into the search box on the top left of the page.

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