Lamb Stew

Here's a perfect example of why I love leftovers.  It was a blustery New England day and JG and I both got home chilled and hungry.  We had a leftover shank. We made soup. It tasted like something we'd labored over for hours, when all the work had been done by a slow cooker a couple days ago.

No recipe here... We sauteed another onion, threw in a couple bunches of coarsely chopped kale and let it wilt [kale is a superior soup green because it won't turn to mush], then threw in a can of garbanzo beans [including canning liquid], the leftover meat juices [the sauce had congealed from the gelatin in the bones], 4 cups of water, and a Parmesan cheese rind [I save these in the freezer for just such a purpose]. Once it came to the boil, we threw in some of the leftover risotto in the soup, checked the salt [it had plenty from the lamb], threw some bread in the toaster, ladled out the soup, pulled the toast, and dinner was ready.

Slow-Cooked Lamb Shanks

The leaves are starting to change here in Yankee Land, and that makes me want to break out the slow-cooker.  To whit, I present an epic-looking dish which is actually an easy midweek dinner that's just about ready whenever you walk in the door.

 

[Mark Bittman totally stole my thunder on this one.  The good news is, I was going to tell you that preserved lemons take time to make but are easy to buy, but Bittman just posted a recipe that only needs a few hours... so there you go. His uses sugar as well as salt (many do) so it won't taste exactly the same as mine, but I'm sure it'd be great.]

The wet rub for these shanks was actually JG's creation from about a month ago... I think because the weird jar of salt-packed lemons had been taking up pantry space and we weren't using them very fast, so he created a marinade with them and a few other powerful ingredients that was fantastic smeared on lamb steaks...  but I also thought it could be great for slow-cooked hunk o'lamb with just a little modification [reducing the oil and adding a bit of salt].

In the end, the texture of the meat [fall off the bone tender] and flavors were great and the onions were pure caramel-y goodness.  The sauce was a little on the salty side, so recipe below reflects my "notes for next time" adjustment.  People tend to call anything with preserved lemons "Moroccan-style." I think these flavors -- particularly with the rosemary-- are more eastern Mediterranean, but I don't really know.  I do know that they taste great together, and that's all that really matters to me.

Recipe: Slow-Cooked Lamb Shanks with Rosemary and Preserved Lemons