Saba Braised Lamb Shanks - Tender Braised Lamb Shanks with Saba Grape Syrup

[Music] hello this is chef john from food wishes calm with saba braised lamb shanks that's right if you're looking for a foolproof wintery braised meat dish this one is virtually impossible to screw up and as if that wasn't enough i'm also gonna show you a great product called saba which I'm betting many of you have never used or even heard of before but we'll get into that in a minute step 1 here we're gonna prep our lamb shanks and as you can see I have for them and in case you're wondering that is the anklebone which is attached to the foot bone and on the other end attached to the leg bone I always enjoyed that song anyway you're gonna need four lamb shanks and to those we're gonna apply a little bit of a wet rub so I'm gonna drizzle over some oil olive oil to be exact along with a whole bunch of salt some freshly ground black pepper and then a little bit of smoked paprika oh yeah the bacon of ground spices sure you can use regular paprika but I really like that a little bit of smokiness here we're also gonna give it a little dusting of cinnamon not too much but a little bit really brings out the sweetness in that lamb and then last but not least some dry rosemary oh don't worry we're gonna use some fresh later but for the roasting and braising stage I like the dry and then we're gonna go ahead and take our tongs and mix that thoroughly now please use your hands the only reason I use tongs because I don't want to get my camera dirty and it took like 45 minutes to mix this which not being fine after like five minutes so anybody use your hands and mix it really well and when those are coated just set those aside until we prep our roasting pan which is so easy so what you want to use here is a roasting pan that's very heavy-duty and it should also be just deep enough and just wide enough to fit the shanks you'll see what I mean in a second here when I put them in but to prep that we're gonna do a bed of onions a lot of the few cloves of crushed garlic oh by the way bed of onions is actually the second least comfortable bed in history only behind every futon ever made but anyway we're gonna lay down some sliced onions and garlic and then we're gonna put our shanks over the top and at first I thought they were gonna go in this direction and I was like that's not gonna work so I flipped them the other way and as you can see they fit much better and that's basically what you're trying to go for when you're choosing a pan you want the pan just wide enough for them to fit and have just about the same depth as the lamb shank itself alright and then once we have that situated properly we're gonna go ahead and put those in a very hot 450 degree oven for 30 minutes on covered to give them a nice browning a nice sear in the oven and after 30 minutes they should look something like this which already looks pretty good and we're not even close to being done yet so we're gonna pull that out leave that on the stove while we make our braising liquid which is two ingredients first of which being chicken broth or chicken stock can you use lamb stock of course but you don't have any so use chicken stock and then to that the star of the show Saba which is described here as a dressing cooked grape Musk so this is basically a sweet syrup they make with all the remnants of the winemaking process all the grape skins stems seeds so they use all those leftover scraps to make what's basically similar to an aged balsamic vinegar just an absolutely delicious product and we're gonna add a big splash of that to our chicken broth we'll give it a mix and I'm gonna simply pour that over our brown lamb shanks and then what we're gonna do for the second phase of this cooking is we're gonna cover that with foil lower our oven down to 200 and let it braise in the oven until it's tender so we're gonna cover that in foil and because I went to culinary school and was brainwashed I'm gonna put a little piece of parchment on top first totally optional you just put foil on it's fine so we're gonna wrap that tightly and carefully and you notice I have that on a baking sheet which I like for spills and splashes and my hands are asbestos so be careful when you do this maybe use a towel but you want a really nice tight seal and then we're gonna pop that back in covered into what's now a 200 degree oven and we're gonna roast that for about two-and-a-half or three hours or until a knife goes in fairly easily so we're gonna pull that out we're gonna unwrap it to test and you can see right there our paring knife goes in fairly easily although please note the meat is not falling off the bone all right that would be overcooked if it just falls off with the slightest pressure but that knife should go in fairly easily and at this point we are ready for the third and final phase of roasting we're gonna give these a toss in the sauce and right there see that splash that's why I like the baking sheet underneath but anyway we're gonna give those a toss in the sauce and then we're gonna put our oven on to 350 and we're gonna put those shanks back in uncovered until a few things happen one the lamb is gonna finish cooking all the way until perfectly fork-tender secondly because we're cooking this uncovered that sauce is going to kind of caramelize onto the surface so what I'll do is I'll pop them in for 10 or 15 minutes take them out give them one turn pop them back in for 10 or 15 minutes and at that point they should be done but only you know if they're still not fork-tender continue cooking the only way to screw this up is to undercook do not under cook and this is what mine look like after another 20 minutes or so of cooking uncovered at 350 like you saw I gave them one turn during that final glazing process and at this point I've determined they're perfect so I'm gonna remove the shanks to a bowl to keep warm I'm gonna strain that liquid into a saucepan and you really could serve it just like that but I'm gonna boil mine for about five minutes to reduce it a little bit you know we do that a lot it's gonna get just a hair thicker and I've already said it but of course it's gonna keep continuing to reduce and intensify in flavor and of course any time we're reducing the sauce especially one made from roasted meat you're gonna be able to skim a little bit of fat off the top which I did here so feel free to defy your leisure and when it gets down to where you like you're gonna do one final adjustment with the salts and at that point you can turn off the heats and if you want you can stir in a little bit of freshly chopped rosemary which I think it's gonna be the perfect finishing touch for the sauce and at that point you are ready to serve I serve mine on some nice potato puree with an undressed arugula salad that's just a prop I know I'm not fooling anybody we're gonna spoon over that amazing sauce and that is just a thing of beauty or at least it would be if you could see it I'm totally blocking the light so let's switch camera angles that's much better and right there you can see just how gorgeous and sticky and succulent that meat is and yes as much as I enjoyed that succulent sticky ribs meat what really blew my mind is just how amazing that sauce is so incredibly simple no thickeners no ruse no nothing just 100% pure natural goodness so go find some Saba it's at that fancy gourmet cheese shop probably or you can find it very easily online and give these amazing braised lamb shanks a try soon so head over to food wishes calm for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 228,151

Rating: 4.9559956 out of 5

Keywords: Shank, Lamb And Mutton (Gender Or Age Specific Animal Name), Braising (Culinary Technique), Saba, Tender, Grape, Syrup, meat, winter, stew, roasted, chef, john, foodwishes, Food, Cooking, Roasting (Culinary Technique), Eating, Kitchen, Recipe, entree, main course

Id: 5p7BT6-X-yg

Length: 6min 37sec (397 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 06 2014