Crockpot Herbed Lamb Shanks

It's been a while since I gave the good word to my friends at Wai-Ora, but that time has rolled around again.

I would have loved to have posted more lovely lamb deliciousness this winter, but it has not been the case. Mostly, this is because when we cook lamb we generally keep it very simple, and so there's not much to say about it, really.

The other thing is this: We are big fans of Lamb Shanks. Knuckles, Shanks, whatever you call them, there was a time, not so long ago, when they were a cheap and delicious meal that we would have at least every couple of weeks.

But something changed. The twin-packs of knuckles we used to get from the supermarket for $5 have crept up to $7 or $8, or even more. For two people (and given the long cooking time) that's not such a great deal anymore. You could pretty much buy steak for that price, and cook it in 10 minutes.

What happened to push up the price of a joint that used to be considered little more than offal?

I tell you, it's those damned Celebrity Chefs again. That, and possibly the severe shortages of lamb due to last year's weather, the declining market, the shift from lamb farming to dairy in New Zealand, and whatever else. But I'm going to blame Oliver and Ramsay. By doing the right thing and championing delicious cuts of meat like the Lamb Shank, they've pushed up demand and therefore market value for something that really should be an affordable family meal. Now it's almost a luxury.

With this small travesty simmering in my viscera I went to the market, and drooled over the selection in the Wai-Ora lamb fridge like I always do. When I saw two Lamb Shanks for $7, I was equally outraged, but then I did the math.

It was the same price as you'd pay for the ones in the supermarket, and they were slightly smaller, but, as we well know, of a much superior quality (I kid you not, and I have the pictures to prove it). Reluctantly accepting that if Lamb Shanks were now to be a treat they might as well be a delicious treat, I bought them.

No regrets.

But it does seem a shame that Lamb Shanks might now be a rarity in our diet, rather than a reasonably frequent staple. There's nothing quite like having that bone on the plate, all melting meat and oily juices. Very primal. For the sake of preserving these memories for future generations, I took the liberty of recording in great detail the cooking and even eating of these most delicious joints.

Because that's what I do.

Crockpot Herbed Lamb Shanks

(Serves 2)

Ingredients

2 Lamb Knuckles
Fresh Mint, chopped
Fresh Thyme, chopped
Olive Oil
Freshly Ground Pepper and Salt
Zest of 1 Lemon
2T Flour or Potato Flour for Gluten-Free
4 Cloves of Garlic, minced
1 Cup Beef or Lamb Stock
1 Onion, chopped
2T Sour Cream

Grind up the herbs, lemon zest, garlic, flour and seasoning with a mortar and pestle, adding enough olive oil to loosen it. Coat the knuckles thoroughly.

Place the knuckles in the slow cooker, push the onion in around the meat, and pour the stock in around the edges of the dish. Be careful not to rinse the herbs off the shanks with the stock.

Cook on High for 1 hour, then switch to low for a further 3 1/2 - 4 hours.
When the shanks are done, blend the remains in the crockpot into gravy.
Add the sour cream to the gravy, mix well and spoon onto plates.Lay the shanks on top of the gravy. Serve with couscous cooked in beef stock and fresh steamed vegetables. As promised, this is the depth of colour you'll get in the middle of one of these lamb shanks. That, my friends, is flavour, and that is why we have to do so little to get Wai-Ora lamb tasting amazing. It already is.

In case you missed it before, you can find the Wai-Ora truck at various markets around Wellington on the weekend, or you order direct from their site. And as I've said before, Wai-Ora don't pay me anything to promote their product. I'd just hate to see them disappear from my market, so get out there and support them, or I'll be cross.

Jamie Oliver's Ball Thingy (Or, Honey-Spice Crusted Lamb Roast)

Those Celebrity Chefs, sometimes I love them, sometimes I...don't love them.

But I'm always willing to cut them some slack. So when my lovely Dessert Chef presented me with this contraption:
...I had to give it a go. It's a Jamie Oliver thing, apparently, and it's sort of like a mortar and pestle, but in a jar. Sort of. That's a plastic two-part screw shaker, and the little white ball is ceramic. The theory goes that you can use it to whip up rubs, sauces, and suchlike with hard and wet ingredients in a jiffy, using less energy than it takes to drive a mortar and pestle.

I guess.

Thus presented, I decided to give it a whirl.

I had a lovely little roast of lamb, and I decided to coat it with a glaze of honey, paprika, almonds and some other stuff. So here goes.

Honey-Spice Crusted Lamb Roast

(Serves 4)

350-400g Rolled Lamb Forequarter Roast
Whole Peppercorns and Rock Salt to taste
Freshly Grated Nutmeg
1t Slivered Almonds
1t Paprika
1t Avocado Vinaigrette
1t Honey
1 Onion, cut into 1/8ths
Roasting Veges, peeled and seasoned and tossed in oil

Start with your hardest ingredients, in this case, rock salt, peppercorns, nutmeg, and almonds. Put these in the bottom section, add the wee ball, screw the top on and shake vigorously.
Hand off the hard work to a keen young helper.
Unscrew the cap and add the rest of the ingredients; the vinaigrette, honey, and paprika.
When it looks something like this, scoop it out with the little rubber spoon (Yeah, there's also a little rubber spoon, for just this purpose. Here's a photo of it).
Spread it over the roast.
Ooh, look, veges! See that pumpkin up there? I grew that.
Place the lamb on top of the sliced onion and arrange the veges around it.

Cover in foil and roast for 1 hour at 190C, or shorter if you prefer a rare cut.

Remove the foil for the last 15 minutes of cooking to brown.
Remove from the heat and allow to rest for 8-10 minutes before carving.
Slice and serve.
What do I reckon? Well, it worked for me. Easy to use, easy to clean, easy to store. I'll be interested to see how well the rubber seals last, and of course keeping the neat little ball away from the 2-year-old is a challenge too.

So I wouldn't write it off as a waste of money and drawer space yet. I've used it again since and it has served its purpose well.

So good on you Jamie. This one's a winner.

Mmmm Lamb...

Blogging both here and at The Podagogue has been a bit light this week, mainly on account of my having launched into writing my third novel. The first few chapters are surging around in my head, so I must get them down before either I go mad or they morph into something too warped and untouchable even for me to lock down in words.

However, for a moment I shall hide in the safety of foody goodness.

It's been a while since I last posted about lamb. I am a big fan of lamb, as you are all well aware.

Therefore, I'll keep this brief. Think of it as more of an indulgence than an education.
Lamb chops, herbs, freshly ground pepper and salt, fresh chopped garlic, olive oil.
Fry until lovely and brown over a high heat.
Grate with Parmesan cheese and grill (broil, my lovely North American readers).

Stick with me. A blog post of some substance will be forthcoming, I promise. In the meantime, imagine the smell of cooking lamb chops. That should fix what ails ye.

Lamb Leg Steak Burgers

I have been remiss in my duties, those duties being making people's tummies grumble and mouths water, even right after they've had lunch. I know, it's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

So without further ado I will complete my 4-part photo series on mouthwatering burgers, this time with the delicious...
Lamb Leg Steak Burger
First off, get to your local market and pick up some of the best free-range lamb you can find. If you're in my area, that means getting to the Hutt Riverbank Carpark Market on a Saturday morning or the one in Wellington on Sunday, and making a beeline to the Wai-Ora Lamb van.

Its important to have really good lamb steak that will cook perfectly, because tough meat won't come apart nicely in your mouth when you bite your burger.
Fry up that lamb in hot olive oil with freshly ground pepper and salt and bit of minced garlic. Meanwhile, layer up your homemade buns with a bit of salad and the essential sour cream on the lid.
Put it all together with a slice of cheese, and enjoy. And that concludes the summer series of burgers, I'm afraid. Of course, there's still the Great Curry Odyssey to follow, which will be covered this week too. And tonight we had our first stew, because it feels like winter's closing in fast (last day of daylight savings here today - *sigh*), so there's lots of hearty winter fare to look forward to too, as well as photos from our holiday!

(Yes, I know, you all want to see my holiday snaps from the sunny Coromandel, don't you? Well, you're going to!)

A Curry Odyssey Episode 4: Lamb Korma

Freshly Ground will be operating in Auto-Publish Mode for the next two weeks or so, as we will be away in the blue yonder, many miles from cellphone coverage and internet access. Please feel free to leave comments, but don't be offended if they don't turn up here until April.

Have a good couple of weeks. I hope you find the stuff I have lined up as appetising as I did cooking and eating it.

A Curry Odyssey - Episode 4

When I set out looking for recipes for the next stage in my Great Curry Odyssey, I was completely blown away by the sheer volume and variety of different korma recipes out there. It seems that 'korma' is really just a vague, generic term for a type of curry that has a nutty base with some tomato paste thrown in for good measure, and which, in more northern areas of the subcontinent, utilises saffron, while this is substituted for turmeric further south.

More than this, I cannot tell you.

So, in my quest for the ultimate mash-up, which I hoped would turn out like the kormas I have enjoyed in the past, and not like those which I have not enjoyed, I engaged in a very practical bit of culinary engineering to create the recipe below.

It went basically like this: Of all the ingredients I've read in all the dozens of recipes I've googled, how many of these do I actually have on hand?

Based on that, and the lovely lamb I had picked up at the market that very morning, I dived into my first ever attempt at an authentic, ground-up korma curry. I also made raita and roti bread, and even my own tomato paste, all of which I'll also cover in future installments of the Great Curry Odyssey. It was a busy kitchen that Saturday afternoon.

(Yes, other men watch sport. I cook. Get over it.)

The results: I wouldn't be overstating it to say that this recipe came out this side of superb, what with it being a first try and all that. I think that with a bit more practice I could probably pare back the prep times and wotnot, but the results were well worth the effort. You can't get a meal with this sort of depth and texture by dumping a few spoonfuls of curry powder in a pot and leaving it on the stove for an hour, that's for sure.

Lamb Korma

(Serves 4)

Ingredients

For the Cashew Sauce:
2 Cloves of Garlic
1t Fresh Crushed Ginger
1/8C unsalted Cashews
1 dried chilli, chopped (more or less according to your taste for fire)
2/3C Water
Pulverise all of the above together to make a paste and set aside.

For the Masala:
1/2 Cinnamon Quill
1/2t Coriander Seeds
1 Whole Green Cardamon Pod
2 Cloves
1t Olive Oil/Rice Bran Oil
Pulverise all of the above together and set aside.

For the rest:
400g Fresh Diced Lamb (Stewing)
1 Onion, chopped
25g Butter
1/3C Plain Yoghurt
1T Tomato Paste (I used the paste I had made that very same day! Watch this space.)
Fry the onion in the butter in a large pan. As the onion starts to soften, add the Masala of spices and mix thoroughly.Add the yoghurt and tomato paste and turn the heat down.
In a second, smaller pan, brown the meat in batches over a high heat. Remove the meat as it becomes seared all over, and when all the meat is done, return it all to the small pan and add the onion mixture.
Finally add the cashew sauce in stages, adding a bit and allowing the mixture to reduce before adding more. This should be about 1/4C at a time.
Simmer gently, stirring occasionally, until reduced to a lovely, sticky consistency with delicious tender chunks of meat - probably about 2 1/2 hours.
Serve with the fresh raita you just pulled out of the fridge, and the rotis that you just pulled from the frying pan. If you really feel the urge, you can do something resembling a vegetable or two to go with this, but after all that work, you probably just want to sit down and enjoy a lovely spicy curry with hot roti bread and cold, minty raita. I know that's all we did.

Decadent Lamb Steaks

It's been a few weeks since I wrote about lamb, (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) for no reason other than it having been a busy few weeks. As usual, I'm actually weeks behind in my posting, but that's been OK because we've been mostly having simple summer fare anyway.

Usually I like my lamb simple, a little bit of seasoning and maybe a few herbs to bring out the flavour. But sometimes the allure of dressing up a lamb steak to the nines becomes irresistible, and if there's food in the fridge to make this happen, then I can see no reason not to.

This was one of those times.

Take some of the best organic, free-range lamb steaks you can lay your hands on.
Prepare them with a gentle seasoning of freshly ground pepper and salt, and a generous dose of chopped garlic, fresh mint and drizzled olive oil.

Heat some olive oil in a pan, and cook the steaks for about 4 minutes on the first side. At the same time, slice a tomato or two in half, season and grate over some parmesan, and sit them in the pan as well.
Turn the steaks over and layer with slices of brie cheese. Fry for 4 minutes.

Pop the whole pan under the grill for 5 minutes to brown the cheese.
Serve with the tomatoes, boiled new potatoes and crispy steamed veges.

(Disclaimer: Once again, I have no affiliation whatsoever with Wai-Ora Lamb. I'm just a very, very satisfied customer, and I think you should be too).

First Barbeque of the Season

Summer is most certainly upon us now. It rained today, but it was warm. That must just about prove it.

In honour of the season of long slow evenings, sandflies, mosquitoes, sunburn, and sand in places where it shouldn't be, we have duly broken out the barbeque and given it a run, to ...er... season it ... for the season.
Cooking here we have: Wai-ora Lamb and Mint Sausages; Gluten-Free Sausages; Homemade Gluten-Free Meat Patties; and Egg-Free, Gluten-Free Meatballs (I just did a couple of meatballs before I added the egg to make the patties, and squashed them down really tight so they didn't fall apart). When everything else is done - since all of the above can happily sit on the edge of the BBQ and stay warm - we drop in the steak. Hammered with the back of a knife, seasoned with freshly ground pepper and salt, crushed garlic and olive oil, and cooked as per my Perfect Steak Technique.

Serve up with fresh bread and crisp green salad, sauce and a cold beer for a perfect summer evening's dining. May there be many more to come.

Sweet Garlic Lamb Shanks

The last time I made slow-cooked Lamb Shanks the night turned into a debacle. It wasn't the food, because the meat was absolutely delicious, but Aunty L's car broke down and I had to go out in the dark and the rain to help her get home. Thankfully, I could pretty much inhale my lamb knuckle as I ran out the door, so it didn't go to waste. It's been a while since then, so I was looking forward to doing knuckles in the crock-pot again.

It's also been a couple of weeks since I mentioned Wai-ora Lamb, and it would be unfair not to mention that these knuckles are also from them. I kid you not, these guys rear some beautiful meat.

Sweet Garlic Lamb Knuckles

(Quantities are for 2 knuckles, but that won't be enough to feed all of us for much longer, the way Isaac eats...)

In a pestle, grind up the following:
1/4t Coriander Seeds
1/4t Fennel Seeds
Freshly Ground Salt & Pepper
Olive Oil
2 chopped cloves NZ Garlic

Mix in:
1/2t Honey
a squeeze of lemon juice
Spread over the lamb and marinate in the fridge for 6-8 hours. Quarter an onion and place in the bottom of a crockpot. Place the knuckles on a raised tray in the crockpot and cook on low for 4-5 hours.
The longer, the better.
Delicious no matter what you serve them with. We had couscous with these ones, lightly seasoned with Arabian spices.
And here's the evidence. You can't do that with a knife.

Lamb Steak

I know I keep going on about this, but I did the maths and it still works out that buying this delicious free range lamb from the market on the weekend is better financially than getting it from a mass supplier like a supermarket. How can that be?

Well, here's the thing: shortening of the supply chain. In a world where we have been brought up to believe that efficiencies lie in the mass consumer market, we conclude that small operators without huge buying power simply cannot participate in a competitive marketplace driven by the megasuppliers. But as we enter tighter economic times, it is these monopolistic leviathans that feel the pinch as they try to keep their swollen infrastructure costs under control.

Maintaining a supply chain even for a country as small as New Zealand must be a huge logistical challenge with a multitude of costs at every level. Incoming expenses from vendors supplying the big stores go up as everyone feels the bite of rising fuel costs. As this happens, there are only a few ways to recover those costs: Either increase the cost of the product, or reduce expenditure within the business framework. Both of these can be a painful blow to a mass producer/retailer.

With a small operation, those pains are still felt, but not quite as often. When you buy from a grower-seller, the product you're eating has been provided down a very short supply chain indeed: Grow the product, harvest it, package it, store it, transport it to market, sell it. No warehousing, no freezing costs, no overflow, no returns written off as bad debt (and thus wasted as food), no huge promotional overheads to meet.
These three lamb steaks cost me $4.00. In the supermarket the equivalent quantity would be worth about $7.00. So for once, a premium gourmet product can be found for almost half the price of a mass consumer equivalent in the supermarket. That seems to me to be something worth shouting out about. I've gone on enough about cooking and eating this lamb. That's not to say I won't do so again in the future (I have knuckles in the fridge right now!), but I won't bore you with the details of how I did these lovely steaks, other than to say that the garlic was just on the side of the pan, infusing the oil as the meat cooked to add a subtle fragrance to the lamb and fresh herbs.

Lamb Forequarter Roast

Last Labour Weekend, we had a Rolled Lamb Forequarter Roast from the Wai-ora stand at the market. The week after, I got the same cut, but not rolled. I cooked it pretty much the same, just crushing the herbs a bit more finely and adding lemon zest and lemon juice to the dressing, then letting it stand for an hour before cooking. Because it wasn't rolled, it cooked in a much shorter time, about 45-50 mins. There is no more need for words to tell you how good this lamb is.

Labour Weekend Lamb

For us Labour Weekend was just that: work.

I'd like to say that we got out into the garden and got rows of corn and tomatoes and carrots and lettuces planted, but sadly, nothing of the sort happened. I did manage to weed a bit around the potato plants (which are coming up nicely, from what I can tell), but the weekend was not dedicated to the garden as it should have been. Rather, we kept building Isaac's playhouse. I'm keeping progress photos, and will post a timeline once we've actually got to the end. Right now the cladding is on,and we still have to do the fascia, the roof, and the windows and door. Then I guess we think about paint and stuff. And attaching a slide, somehow. But that might be a pipe dream (now there's an idea...).

So to reward all our hard work of cutting leftover fence palings and nailing them to the playhouse frame, I cooked up a lovely rolled forequarter of lamb from Wai-Ora. Will I ever get sick of praising these guys? Seriously, if you're in the Hutt, get down to the riverbank market on Saturday. (No, I repeat, this isn't a paid plug nor do they give me free stuff.)

Dessert Chef and I were trying to decide what it was about this particular lamb that kept us coming back, week after week. To her palate, the meat is not as strong as the lamb from the supermarket, possibly because it spends less time getting from farm to the table. In my more self-indulgent way I imagine I can taste the fresh air, the greenness of the grass, the wild clover and thyme, the vibrance and energy of the farm. It's a delicate flavour that needs nothing to mask it or heighten it, which is why I tend to keep my dressing of the meat simple and lightly fragrant.

Rolled Forequarter Lamb Roast

(Serves 4 - just)

Take 1 Rolled Forequarter Lamb Roast.Raid the herb garden, which is absolutely brimming with Spring growth, and chop up a pile of mint, oregano, rosemary, and thyme. Season the lamb with olive oil and freshly ground salt and pepper, then roll in the fresh herbs. Quarter an onion and drizzle it lightly with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt and pepper. Place the lamb and onion on a rack over a roasting tray and leave to rest for an hour. Dress some chopped veges for roasting. Roll in olive oil, salt and pepper, some paprika and the rest of the fresh chopped herbs. Place these on some baking paper on another roasting tray.
Cook both trays at 190C for 1 to 1 1/2hrs, depending on how well you like your lamb done and how small your veges are cut.
I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.