Lamb Shanks with Orzo/ Lamb Youvetsi

[Music] hi everyone and welcome back to dimitra's dishes so today I'm going to be bringing to you another lamb recipe it's delicious it's simple and it's a definite crowd-pleaser it's called lamb shanks au vet C or lamb you bet see you can call it an echo Kinney store okay it's basically braised lamb shanks and a homemade tomato sauce and then we're gonna be finishing up finishing it off with some nice orzo pasta you can definitely switch the pasta to potatoes if you prefer but give it a try it's so delicious we're gonna go over the ingredients and then we're gonna get started we're making a tomato based sauce and if you've been with me for the past few months or the past year or so you I've made this sauce so so many times it's really easy what I have in my pan right here in my little saucepan I have an onion and a few garlic cloves that I've cooked down until they've become really nice and soft and that takes anywhere between 15 and 20 minutes and I did it with a little tiny bit of olive oil now once that's nice and soft and it's ready I have lamb shanks here that I've already browned now my favorite way to brown lamb lamb shanks especially these big giant ones over here is in the oven what I did was i preheated my oven to 475 degrees I just put my lamb shanks in my pan put a little bit of olive oil salt and pepper on both sides and then I popped it in the oven uncovered the pan was uncovered for 35 minutes and no mess no nothing they're beautifully browned perfectly and that's really what you want and then you also have the brown bits on the bottom of the oven and that on the bottom we have the bottom of the pan so that's what I did here I have my lamb shanks and then we're just going to go over the spices I have a small 15 ounce can of crushed tomatoes I'm going to use a little bit of tomato paste some olive oil salt pepper oregano then for beautiful deep nice warm hearty flavors I have a cinnamon stick I have some three cloves right here a bay leaf and some crushed red pepper flakes and then would you you're just gonna need some water that's all so once your ends are cooked you just want to add your spy sister this little bit of dried oregano the tomatoes now you can go ahead these are diced tomatoes you can go ahead and puree them if you like but it's gonna cook a really long time in the oven and they're pretty much melt into a sauce so you don't have to worry about it with this recipe a table heaping tablespoon of tomato paste now tomato paste doesn't come in smaller servings at least not in the States than this little container right here so what I like to do is I like to empty this out on a piece of plastic wrap make a nice flat package and keep it in my freezer and just break off bits whenever I need to use it it freezes perfectly like that what we're gonna do is just give this a nice mix put a little bit of salt in here if you're wondering why it's pink it's just Himalayan pink salt I like the flavor it's supposed to be healthier for you so that's what I'm using I'm gonna increase my the heat to high and then I'm going to just add water to this about four cups I don't think four cups fits in this I'll just fill it up as much as you can I'm gonna bring it to a boil and then my sauce is gonna be ready okay so once it comes to a boil you can just turn the heat off and at this point you just want to taste the sauce to make sure that the salt is okay and the tomatoes are not too acidic if you have really like a city acidic tomatoes you can just add a little teaspoon of sugar to it or honey mine is fine it just needs a little bit more salt like that and then all we're gonna do is we're just going to pour the sauce over the lamb shanks and then I'm just gonna add a little more water to cover this so my oven is already hot but I've adjusted the temperature to 450 degrees and I'm just gonna let these cook in there for an hour on that very high heat and that's just so that we could get the liquid really really nice and hot then I'm gonna reduce the heat to 375 and I'm gonna let it cook for about an hour and 20 minutes or until the meat is really really super soft and almost falling off the bone and then we're just going to take it out and the final step is just adding the orzo into this so I'm just fishing up this this have already cooked for two and a half hours almost and I'm just taking out my cinnamon stick and my bay leaf I'm not gonna bother looking for those little cloves because they're gonna be almost impossible to find that's okay we'll leave those in there but the meat is really nice and tender the sauce has thickened so lovely and so beautifully now we're just going to get it ready to add our orzo so what we're gonna do we're going to take a pound of orzo and just put it in here if you can't find orzo I'll definitely put a link down below because I like to get mine online sometimes I don't have to drive to specialty food stores but you can also use elbow little elbow macaroni honestly I love the way that orzo looks and taste so try to give it a try if you can and then I'm gonna add just a little bit of salt for the pasta a teaspoon and a half should be good and then we're just going to add boiling hot water three cups of it it already smells fantastic in here so now I'm just gonna cover this with aluminum aluminum foil I've set my oven to 425 degrees and he's gonna cook in there for 15 minutes covered then I'm going to uncover it I'm gonna let it cook for about another 10 to 12 minutes or so until the pasta is nice and al dente and it's just gonna be so delicious okay so it just came out of the oven and one trick that I've learned to stop the Orser from cooking and becoming cut becoming kind of like gelatinous I just take a little bit of ice this is about half a cup or a cup full and I just put it in there and just give it a little bit of a mix not too much so you don't disturb the lamb shanks it adds to the sauce and it stops the cooking time so that with the orzo doesn't become mushy I've also chopped up some fresh flat-leaf parsley but I'm just gonna sprinkle on top of that for some fresh freshness and that's it it's ready I cannot wait to taste this now you want to make sure you can definitely make the sauce part of it before you add the orzo many hours before you serve it and then right before your guests come you could pop the orzo on top of it about and let it cook for like half an hour and you'll be ready this this is definitely one of those dishes that you want to serve right when it comes out of the oven when the orzo is that it's best and it just smells so delicious it's so warm warm and hearty and just very comforting for especially around this time of year when it's really cold outside and perfect as you can see for a serving to a very big group of people it serves a lot let me get my plate and lamb is a really fatty kind of meat so you do want to go very easy on the oil when you're when you're cooking your onions and garlic and even when you're browning it just put a tiny bit of oil because it does release a lot of oil into the dish so you just don't want to go overboard and then I have some freshly ground parmesan you can do feta it's freshly grated parmesan actually and then let's see if I can get fancy with this I don't know how successful I'll be but these are some pretty big lamb shanks look at that a meal fit for a king or queen let me take a bite oh my god it's so delicious that tomato sauce is just perfect perfection I'm gonna put the link to the recipe as always in the description box down below WWE esckaz.com get this recipe and so so many more make this for your friends for your family thumbs up this video like it share it on your social media I would love to see pictures of your recreations I'm on Instagram I'm on facebook so tag me in any pictures that you you in any pictures that you take and I will see you guys next time thanks for spending time with me today bye everyone

Channel: Dimitra's Dishes

Views: 38,801

Keywords: cooking show, greek food, greek recipes, Dimitra Khan, euro bakery and cafe, easy recipes, youvetsi, srni, kokkinisto, lamb youvetsi, orzo

Id: O7-lVbVZkMU

Length: 9min 30sec (570 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 06 2017