Lamb shanks in red wine sauce

What a lovely treat for a Sunday afternoon after a busy weekend. Lamb shanks in a red wine sauce with apricots and olives, served with mash potatoes and steamed vegetables. Probably the best lamb dishes when it comes to eating lamb that is extremely tender and juicy. This is the first time I have had this as I was never much of a fan of lamb a few years ago. Carola has always told me we should try her lamb shanks one day and now I have and was very impressed.

Serves 4

Lamb Shanks in red wine sauce

Equipment

• Large pot or dish with cover
• Chopping board
• Sharp knife

Ingredients

• 4 Lamb Shanks
• 1 bottle of Red Wine (cabernet sauvignon)
• 500 ml of Lamb or Beef stock
• 10 black pitted olives
• 10 green pitted olives
• 10 dried apricots roughly chopped
• 2 garlic cloves diced
• 1 tbsp of sherry vinegar
• 1 Onion sliced
• 2 tbsp of tomato purée
• 8 Anchovy fillets diced
• 1 large sweet potato peeled and diced
• Salt and pepper
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• A few sticks of fresh rosemary

Lamb shanks in red wine sauce

Method

• Heat an oven to Gas Mark 2 / 160C
• Make a few slits in each lamb shank and push in some rosemary sprigs
• Heat the olive oil in a large pan or dish
• Add the lamb shanks and fry, turning occasionally until brown on all sides
• Set lamb shanks aside on a plate and season them well with salt and pepper
• Add to the same pan onion, garlic and anchovies and fry for 3 minutes
• Add the tomato purée and fry for 5 mins stirring often.
• Add the sherry vinegar and the bottle of red wine
• Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes
• Add the apricots, black olives, green olives and the lamb shanks
• Bring to the boil cover.
• Place all in the oven and cook for 2 hours
• Remove from oven and add the sweet potato and return to the oven with lid off
• Cook for a further minutes
• Remove and season to taste and serve with some mash potato and steamed vegetables

Lamb shanks in red wine

Lamb shanks in red wine DONE!!!

Garlic and Chilli Prawns (Simple)

Here is something very simple and very moreish. Make sure to use good quality prawns and serve with some very fresh crispy bread to soak up the the garlic and chilli oil. Preferably use fresh uncooked prawns in shells, they were out of stock at my supermarket so I had to get them ready cooked.

Serves 2 as starter

Equipment

• Frying pan
• Chopping board
• Sharp knife

Ingredients

• 8 Large fresh prawns

Prawns and Parsley

• 6 tbsp of olive oil
• 5 Garlic cloves diced
• 8 birds eye chillies finely sliced

Garlic and birds eye chillies

• A handful of fresh chopped parsley chopped
• Salt and pepper

Method

• Heat a frying pan to medium/hot heat.
• Add the oil
• Add the garlic and chilli and fry for 1 min
• Add the prawns and fry for 2 mins
• Turn over the prawns
• Add salt, pepper and half the parsley
• Let fry for 2 mins
• Stir and serve up
• Squeeze some lemon juice over and add rest of parsley

Garlic and Chilli Prawns

Garlic and Chilli Prawns Done!