Wilson Zhao

Ingredients

• Things you should always have: onions, garlic, olive oil, S&P, chicken stock
  • 1 white onion, >=8 cloves garlic, 1.5 cups chicken stock
• Aromatics: parsley, lemon zest (or orange peel), bay leaves, oregano
• 3-4 lamb shanks
• A bunch of carrots
• 1 big can of pureed tomatoes
• White/Red wine
• Flour (to dredge shanks)
• A braising apparatus (Dutch oven preferred)

Instructions

1. Heat dutch oven to medium high. Add oil.
2. Cover shanks with S&P. Dredge with flour if you want. Brown for 10-15 mins on all sides. Perhaps in an ideal world, an overnight dry brine would bring the most flavor.
3. While browning, prep. Dice onions. Smash garlic. Peel carrots and split lengthwise. The carrots are the star of the show: they soak in all the delicious juices.
4. Remove lamb shanks and set aside. Using the same oil (maybe adding a bit more) sweat onions. Add garlic and carrots after.
5. Now’s a good time to preheat the oven to 375.
6. Add a couple glugs of wine (red/white doesn’t really matter here) and wait for it to boil. Scrape the fond from the pot.
7. Readd the lamb shanks to the mixture
8. Add diced tomatoes and citrus exterior. Add other aromatics.
9. Add chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add more salt if needed.
10. Braise for 2.5-4 hours @ 350F. Braises are extremely forgiving so you don’t need to be strict on this one. In fact, the longer the better, more time for the fibers to break down.
11. Serve with bread and freshly chopped parsley/lemon zest.

Pictures

Attempts

11/10/2020

• Added tangerine peels + lemon zest and three bay leaves. Flavor is way better, elevated.
• Braised for 3hrs

9/26/2020

• Salted the shanks right before browning, and didn’t add salt before placing in the oven.
• The shanks could have been more salty. An overnight dry brine would have helped.
• No flour dredge. Only parsley and bay leaves.
• Used cabernet as wine of choice.
• Shank texture was amazing though. Another hour of braising would have been perfect, only did 2.5 hours this time.