Lamb shanks with pumpkin, cranberry and quinoa salad and broccolini with garlic

A couple of weeks ago, I held a dinner party for some close friends at my house.  I have belatedly discovered that my slow cooker is the hostess's friend, as you can get on with doing a myriad of other tasks while dinner looks after itself in the slow cooker.

To take advantage of my slow cooker, I decided to make Lamb Shanks with Cannellini Beans in the slow cooker.  I accompanied them with a pumpkin, cranberry and quinoa salad, for which you can find the recipe here, broccolini poached in chicken stock with garlic, the recipe for which can be found online here.

The recipe for the Lamb Shanks with Cannellini Beans came form one of my newer recipe books, Slow Cooking by Catherine Atkinson (p118).  The sauce is white wine based rather than being based on red wine or tomatoes, but is equally delicious in a different way.  My guests enjoyed lamb shanks cooked this way, and what is even better, once the initial prep is done, you can leave these shanks to cook away while you get on with other things for your guests.

To make these shanks, as well as a slow cooker, you will need:

1 x 400g can cannellini beans, drained (Catherine used dried beans)
4 lamb shanks
2 tablespoons plain flour
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 chopped brown onion
2 sliced cloves garlic
1 sl;iced celery stick
1 sliced carrot
leaves from 2 sprigs rosemary (I used a shake of dried rosemary)
2 bay leaves
175ml white wine
2 tablespoons tomato puree
600ml hot water
salt and pepper

Season the lamb shanks with salt and pepper then coat them in the flour.  Heat the oil in a large fry pan and brown the shanks in the pan until browned on all sides.  Transfer the shanks to your slow cooker.

Add the onion to the pan and cook until golden, then stir in the garlic, celery, carrot, rosemary and bay leaves.

Pour in the wine and allow it to bubble and reduce, then add the tomato paste diluted in the hot water. Bring the micture to the boil, season with salt and pepper, then pour it over the lamb shanks in the slow cooker.

Cook the shanks on high for 4-5 hours, stirring occasionally.  Taste for seasoning before serving.

FFWD - Lamb and Dried Apricot Tagine - Cook's Choice for Food Revolution Day

Today is Cook's Choice for Food Revolution Day for our French Fridays with Dorie group.  Our assignment:  choose a recipe from Around My French Table that you loved (or would love to try, if it’s a recipe we haven’t made yet!) and Cook it. Share it. With family, friends, colleagues.

What is Food Revolution Day?  To quote the website:

Food Revolution Day is a global day of action for people to make a stand for good food and essential cooking skills. It's a chance for people to come together within their homes, schools, workplaces and communities to cook and share their kitchen skills, food knowledge and resources. Food Revolution Day aims to raise awareness about the importance of good food and better food education for everyone by focusing on three simple actions – cook it, share it, live it.


I chose to make Lamb and Dried Apricot Tagine from p284 of Around My French Table.  You can find the recipe to make it in the book, or online here.  The photos below take you step by step through that recipe.

First, you put some dried apricots in chicken stock to plump up:

In the meantime, you brown some cubed lamb shoulder in a little oil on the stovetop:

Next, after removing the lamb from the pan, you cook some chopped onions and garlic in a little more oil:

and add a tin of tomatoes:

After reducing the tomatoes for 10 minutes, you add the chicken stock (sans dried apricots), dried chilli, coriander, saffron, ginger, cumin, cinnamon and two teaspoons of fresh coriander  (if you have it):

Put the meat and dried apricots on top:

cover the pot with alfoil, pop the lid on your pot, and cook the tagine in the oven for an hour.  Add a handful of toasted almonds and cook for another 15 minutes.

Serve and enjoy:

This tagine has a lovely zing to it - if you don't like zing, you can adjust the spices to your taste.  However, the overall flavour is just devine in my view - sweet and savoury and spicy, with soft, melty meat.  I served mine with steamed veges and leftover risotto.

You can find out what the other Dorie cooks made for Food Revolution Day by visiting the LYL section of the FFWD website.

WWDH - Indian Lamb Curry

For Wednesday with Donna Hay this week, I chose Indian Lamb Curry from p100 of Modern Classics I.

The recipe as Donna wrote it did not contain any vegetables, and lots of meat.  I halved the meat and added 500g frozen veges to my curry so that it became a one pot dish.  I served it over boiled rice to suck up all the juices.

When making this, I made the mistake of adding ground spices to the pan, not realising that Donna intended to use non-ground spices, make them pop in the pan and then grind them.  As a result, a burned my spices a bit.  However, I was still really happy with the  finished curry and I would make this again.  Note that it is a fairly mild curry, so if you like it hot, bump up the amount of chilli powder that you add. 

To see what my fellow Donna devotees, Kayte, Margaret and Chaya, thought of this dish, visit their websites on Wednesday US time.

FFwD - Braised Cardamom-Curry Lamb

This week's French Friday with Dorie recipe is Braised Cardamom-Curry Lamb.  As the name suggests, it is lamb cooked with curry powder and ground cardamom, with potatoes, raisins and figs thrown into the mix.

It doesn't look pretty: 

but it was tasty.  I like fruit with my meat - it's the sweet and salty thing.

To see what the other FFwD participants thought, visit the LYL section of the FFwD website.