Lamb Shanks and Red Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Serves 2

• 2 lamb shanks

• 1 medium onion

• 4 garlic cloves

• 1 carrot

• 1 stick of celery

• 6 anchovies

• 3 sprigs rosemary

• 3 sprigs thyme

• 3 sprigs mint

• 2 bay leaves

• 300ml beef stock

• 1/2 bottle red wine

• 1 tin plum tomatoes

• 15g butter

• 1 tsp worcestershire sauce

• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar

Method

For this you are going to need a blender and a large hob proof casserole dish or if you don't have one you can do the first part in a large saucepan before transferring to a dish when it's time to go in the oven.

Start by searing the shanks in a bit of olive oil on a high heat until they have nicely browned on the outside then transfer to a plate while you prep the sauce.

Reduce the heat and roughly chop your onion before adding to the pan and sweating on a low heat for 5 minutes. While that is doing roughly chop the garlic and pluck the leaves off the herbs. Then chop the celery and carrot into 1 cm slices; you can be rough again here as everything will be blended down at the end. Finally just cut the anchovies into quarters.

Once the onion is softened, add the garlic, rosemary, thyme, mint and bay leaves with the chopped carrot, celery and anchovies to the pan and fry lightly for 5 mins more.

Once done add the tomatoes, stock and red wine to the pan and bring to a simmer. Then lay in the seared lamb shanks, cover and transfer to the oven.

Cook at 160c (320f) for 3 hours turning once in the middle.

Once cooked remove the lamb shanks from the dish, cover them and let them rest while you make the sauce. Pull out the bay leaves, discard then pour all the sauce into a blender or use a stick blender to break it down as much as you can. Then force it through a seive to get out any remaining bits and leave a much smoother sauce. If you can't be bothered with the seive I understand but do recommend it as it just gets rid of any bits and gives a better final texture to the sauce.

Put the resultant sauce, which ever way you did it back on the hob and bring to a simmer. Add the worcester sauce, balsamic vinegar and butter and continue to simmer on low for 5 minutes.

Once done serve the lamb shanks on a bed of roasted vegetables or mash and pour over that silky, punchy sauce.

You'll enjoy it I promise!