Recipes

The shanks make the broth, then become the soup — two jobs, one pot

Some soups you build on a stock cube. This one builds its own. Two lamb shanks go into the pot with the vegetables and simmer away for a couple of hours, the bones and marrow turning plain water into a broth with real backbone. Then you lift the shanks out, shred the meat that's fallen off the bone, and stir it back through — and suddenly a humble winter soup is one of the most satisfying dinners in the repertoire. It's mostly hands-off, it feeds four with bread on the side, and it's the sort of pot you're glad to find leftovers of the next day.

No slow cooker, no casserole dish — just foil, garlic and time

This is the campfire trick moved indoors. Each shank gets sealed in its own foil parcel with smashed garlic, a couple of rosemary sprigs and a splash of stock, then the oven does three hours of quiet work while the parcel bastes the meat in its own steam. Nothing can dry out, because nothing can escape. You unwrap them at the table — carefully, there's a puff of steam with your name on it — and the meat has already left the bone. Two shanks, seven ingredients, one baking tray to wash.