Lamb shanks

We bought a lamb this spring, from Woodcock Farm. Part of it was for Steve and Jess as a wedding present, but the other half was for us. Before you start thinking that we bought some cute little fluffy thing, it came to us in packaged frozen chunks, nicely labeled. We also bought a ton of cheese, and had some friends over to each cheese and lamb, and it was everything we'd hoped. Anyway, the fun part about buying an entire animal is that you end up with cuts of meat you're not used to cooking. We all love lamb chops, but we don't love the $25/lb price tag, amiright? I think this may have been the first time I cooked a lamb shank, and holy moly, this will not be the last time. That was a DELICIOUS piece of meat after a few hours of braising. And braising is like the easiest cooking method out there, since you just get it simmering and then leave it for 2-3 hours. 

There are a lot of recipes out there for lamb shanks. It's pretty free-form, since you don't have to measure anything. I'll list out some bullets of the things I did that are either important or maybe different than the rest of the internet. Also, I don't really remember exactly what we did here, because this was like a month ago, and my memory doesn't stretch that far back.



Things to do when cooking a lamb shank: 

• Trim off the icky skin stuff beforehand, but don't be OCD about it
• Sear the heck out of the meat before starting the braise!
• I put in about a cup of beans (post-soaking). Beans love fatty stews.
• Sweat an onion and some garlic and add that
• Don't be afraid of heavy flavors
• Alcohol makes things delicious. I think I used some whiskey, since we didn't have any red wine
• Braise (slow bubbles) for 2-3 hours, minimum. The meat should fall off the bones

Enjoy!