The bistro dish that made shanks famous, back in your own kitchen
There was a time when butchers practically gave shanks away. Then some clever cook braised one in red wine until the meat slumped off the bone into a glossy, wine-dark sauce, put it on a bistro menu, and the secret was out for good. This is that dish — a proper sear, a soffritto, half a bottle of red and two and a half unhurried hours in a low oven. It asks for twenty minutes of real work and repays you with the kind of dinner people order at restaurants because they assume they can't make it at home. They can.
Ingredients
- 2 Your Farmer grass-fed lamb shanks
- Salt and pepper to season
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 brown onion, finely diced
- 1 carrot, finely diced
- 1 stick celery, finely diced
- 3 cloves garlic, sliced
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 375ml dry red wine
- 500ml beef stock
- 2 bay leaves
- 3 sprigs fresh thyme
- Mashed potato, to serve
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 160C. Season the shanks generously. Heat the oil in a heavy casserole over medium-high heat and brown the shanks well on all sides, 8 to 10 minutes total — this colour is the backbone of the sauce. Set aside.
2 lamb shanks2 tbsp olive oilLower the heat to medium and cook the onion, carrot and celery for 6 to 8 minutes until soft and starting to colour.
1 onion1 carrot1 stick celeryAdd the garlic for 1 minute, then the tomato paste for 1 minute more, stirring it through the vegetables.
3 cloves garlic2 tbsp tomato pastePour in the wine, scrape the browned bits off the bottom, and let it bubble until reduced by about half, around 5 minutes.
375ml red wineAdd the stock, bay leaves and thyme, return the shanks and their juices, and bring to a simmer. Lid on, into the oven for 2 and a half hours, turning the shanks halfway, until the meat is falling from the bone.
500ml beef stock2 bay leaves3 sprigs thymeLift the shanks out and keep them warm under foil. Set the pot over medium heat and simmer the sauce for 10 to 15 minutes until glossy and thick enough to coat a spoon. Fish out the bay leaves and thyme stalks, and season to taste.
Serve the shanks on mashed potato with the sauce spooned generously over.
mashed potatoAppears in
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The shank earned its place on menus the honest way. It's the lamb's working lower leg — dense with connective tissue, hopeless cooked fast, magnificent cooked slow. Braising is simply the technique that unlocks it: a hard sear for flavour, then hours barely submerged in wine and stock while the collagen melts into gelatine. That gelatine is what makes the finished sauce cling to the spoon without a gram of flour, and it's why the reduced braising liquid tastes so much bigger than its ingredients. Grass-fed shanks like the ones from Your Farmer® reward the method most — the meat has genuine lamb flavour to give the wine, not just texture. They come two to the pack in the Share B pack of our CSA pastured lamb share.
Swaps and Variations
Any dry red you'd happily drink works — shiraz braises darker and richer, pinot lighter and brighter. Half a cup of the stock swapped for port takes the sauce somewhere plush. Rosemary can stand in for thyme, and a strip of orange zest in the pot is a quiet, excellent addition. The same braise, times unchanged, is superb on grass-fed ox-tail if you're cooking from the beef side of the freezer. For the mash underneath, regenerative potatoes are the natural partner.
Storage and Leftovers
This dish was practically designed for making ahead — braise it a day early, refrigerate the shanks in their sauce, and reheat gently, covered, in a 160C oven. The flavour is genuinely better on day two, which makes it the least stressful dinner-party main going. It keeps 3 to 4 days in the fridge and freezes for 3 months. The leftover move: shred the meat into the sauce and serve it over pappardelle with gremolata — a second dinner that outranks most first attempts.
Frequently asked questions
What red wine should I use?
Can I make it without wine?
I don't have a cast-iron casserole. What else works?
Can I make it ahead for guests?
My sauce is still thin after reducing. What went wrong?
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