A few weeks back I shared my recipe for slow cooked lamb shanks with lemon and cinnamon. Have you tried it yet? Today, I’m getting slippery swift ‘n’ efficient and sharing a shank trick that’s fast, versatile and can stretch ingredients further. Oh yes, you’ll be shanking me for this shanky share!
So. It works like this. Shanks can be rather large, often 400g each. Which, even when the bone is removed from the equation, I personally think is too much meat in one sitting, for both sustainability and health reasons.
Also, one often buys shanks in bulk and one might not want to cook up a whopping great casserole with six or eight of the buggers. One might, instead, want to use the meat in different ways. Or one might only have two shanks to one’s name, which you can’t really justify slow cooking for 8 hours in a slow cooker.
Which is why I’ve played around with this idea:
par-slow-cooking the shanks first…
…then splitting up the meat, freezing it and using it in a variety of dishes.
Yeah, I love the idea, too.
The recipe below uses three shanks, which can then make 5-6 different meals (recipes below). Here’s how to do it:
Par-Slow-Braised Lamb Shanks
- 2-4 lamb shanks
- 2 tablespoons olive oil