Shanky Saturday

So these two gigantic lamb shanks have been sitting in our freezer for like, forever. 

Fred Flintstone could have rolled his car over with one of these bronto babies on the window sill.

We bought them at the beloved and greatly missed TipTop Meats to cook for Stan and Tracy in La Jolla but never got around to it and let's face it, neither we or the lamb shanks were getting any younger.

So we had a change of plan, we would cook steaks down there instead, which would not require the dutch oven or three hours of work in a kitchen that practically has never been used.

The appointed night for the shank's consumption was tonight. 

I came home early, browned these ungulate behemoths, then prepped the usual accompanying vegetables, added a nice jammy red wine from Portugal, beef broth, tomatoes and a host of seasoning and got down to cooking. Or should I say braising? 350 degrees in the oven for two and a half hours, turned them an hour in.

I was going to make a polenta but decided there was already too much food and that it wasn't necessary. 

I sort of followed Chef Billy Parisi's recipe.

I have made shanks quite a few times but this time I removed the lamb and big chunky vegetables to a platter at the 2:30 mark and strained the liquid in a sieve.

I cooked down the liquid for about twelve minutes at high heat and made a thicker sauce, added a bit of corn starch and flour. 

Leslie came home and plated the dinner and poured the extremely tasty sauce on top.

Pretty outrageously good.