Hi, I'm Gee, and welcome back to my series
on Winter Warmers. Today I'm going to rustle up lamb shanks in
red wine and butter beans, which is perfect for a long, slow cook on a winter's day. [Music] And for all the ingredients for this recipe,
they're in the description box. So I've got four lamb shanks here, and a nice
hot pan. Now I want to get a little bit of color on
these, so a bit of oil in the pan and allow that to get nice and hot. And then you just want to brown your lamb
shanks. They've got a sort of skin on them which will
take on a beautiful bit of color, and the nice thing about that is that they'll become
caramelized and add flavor to your dish at the end. So I do them two at a time. When you're trying to brown something, if
you add too much to the pan they start to stew, as it drops the temperature, and it
starts to bubble rather than get that nice color. You can add a little bit of seasoning as well,
a bit of salt, and a bit of pepper. Now some people would coat these in flour
first, like you do with beef stew. You can do that if you want to thicken your
stew, but for me, when you start to brown flour, it starts to burn. So if it needs any thickening at the end,
I'll do it at the end, rather than at this stage. When you're browning things you don't want
to move them around too much in the pan because again, that drops the temperature. You want to leave them alone for a little
bit, so be a bit patient. So these have taken on a little bit of color
which is perfect, and I'm just going to take them out onto a plate while I brown the other
two. So the other two have taken on a bit of color,
and I'm going to take those out of the pan too, and then just reduce your heat a little bit. Now all those caramelized bits in the bottom
of the pan, that lamb fat, are what you're going to end up cooking your onions in. You just want to soften these. This is a long, slow cook, so don't worry
too much about cooking everything through too much at this stage. You don't want the onions to take on any color,
necessarily, so a little bit of salt will help them cook a little bit quicker. It draws out that little bit of moisture. And then red peppers. You can put whatever you like in this. If they're really soft vegetables, put them
in a bit later, but the peppers do hold their texture. And now to make your sauce. I've got a tin of just chopped tomatoes, and
now the good bit: good quality red wine. If you can't drink it, you shouldn't cook
with it, and this you can definitely drink. But with other stews, you know you could put
in a bit of stock. But instead, I'm going to put in quite a bit
of red wine. And because this cooks for so long, it reduces
down and becomes thick and syrupy and sweet. This is not necessarily one for the kids. So bring that up to the boil on the hob, and
then you can pop your lamb shanks back in. It should be a nice, tight fit in the pan. And now that all the wine is in, and there's
quite a lot of it, I'm going to pop in two cloves of garlic, whole. This will just let a little bit of garlicky
flavor into it. If you want, you can grate it into it in the
beginning, but you can also pop it in whole there, and it will become beautiful and sweet
as ti cooks, and then you can almost squash it into the sauce. So once it's bubbling away, cover with a lid,
and let it cook on the hub for two hours on a slow, rolling simmer, or pop it in the oven,
which is what I like to do because it gets out for the way, for about two to three hours
until the meat is really tender, at about, I'd say, 160. So I've taken my lamb shanks out of the oven
and just popped them back onto the heat. Now I'm just going to add my final touches. Because the red wine can be a little bitter
sometimes, I'm just going to add a little bit of brown sugar. You can use white, but this adds a little
bit of caramely flavor to it, and then butter beans. These are just tins that I've drained and
rinsed. You can use any beans that you've got: haricots,
anything like that. But you just want to warm them through, they're
already cooked, so it's literally just two minutes to warm them up. You don't ever want to overcook butter beans
because the skins are quite thick, and if you overcook them, they'll slip off and you'll
get them into the dish rather than on the bean. And then finally, some fresh parsley. I always think stews need a little bit of
freshness, a little bit of fresh herb, otherwise they're a little bit heavy and dark. So parsley is this stew's friend. And then finally, a bit of fresh parsley;
keep a little bit back for later on. And this is a perfect, hearty winter warmer. And you can either serve this with papardelle
pasta, or a little bit of mashed potato. If you've cooked too many lamb shanks and
you've got a bit left over, you can always strip the meat off the bone, put it back into
the sauce and then freeze it for a later date. Just a final bit of sauce over, and a little
bit of the fresh parsley. And there you have it: deliciously tender
lamb shanks with red Wine and butter beans. I hope you enjoy me in my next episode series
of Winter Warmers. [Music]
