If like me you love lamb dishes, then this it the perfect recipe for you.
My Hyderabadi slow cooked lamb shanks and they are delicious.
The recipe is in my new cookbook, so it's all about how you cook gorgeous Indian food
in the slow cooker.
These shanks work really really well in the slow cooker because it gives it time to cook
really low and slow, get lots spices penetrating into that meat and you want the meat to cook
right down and until it literally melts away from the bone.
So, the way to start is get your slow cooker on sear, if you have that function.
If you haven't then you can do this on a stove top, but it is a really good idea just brown
your lamb shanks.
But before you do that just make sure that they do fit in your sow cooker.
Once they are brown take them out and pop them in to a dish so that you can start your
spices roasting and we can start to cook our onions.
As the oil is hot we are going to add our first layer of spices and that is always your
whole spices.
So, I have got some cassia bark going in, I've got some cardamom and I've got some cloves.
So they are just going to go in to the pan, there is already the oil in the pan from us
browning our meat, so we don't need to add anymore.
Just give those a little stir and as I always say, as soon as you can smell them, as soon
as those aromatics come through, then you can add in your next ingredient.
So in this case we are adding in our onions, and what I have done, is I've just very finely
sliced through four onions here.
So pop those straight in, you can just put your onions in and put your other ingredients
in and then put your meat back in and let it cook for the time required.
I'd say about 6 or 7 minutes, just to get them going and get them turning that lovely
dark brown colour.
Whilst the onions are browning, you can carry on with your other prep.
So, I have got my pestle and mortar here and just to make it easy I am going to put some
ginger and some garlic and I have also got a green chilli that I've chopped in here.
And I am just going to bash it all together.
Saves so much time.
Now I have used three green chillies in this because I think that with this kind of dish
that is really meaty you need a little bit of heat, but obviously cook to your own taste
and cook to your own palate, so if you don't like it that hot just reduce the number of
chillies you are adding.
OK, so my ginger, garlic and chillies are ready.
I am also just going to chop up four tomatoes.
You don't have to be precise about it, but try and do them fairly small, so that they
break up in the sauce really easily.
The other ingredients that I have already got prepped here, I have got a tablespoon
of coriander seeds that I have just put in a pestle and mortar and given them a bash.
You can use pre-ground if that is what you have in your cupboard and I've also got a
teaspoon of cumin seeds, again that I have just bashed in my pestle and mortar.
I've got some sea salt and I've got my chilli powder, and I've got some turmeric in here
as well and I am going to be adding that at the right time.
I'm going to go now in with these ingredients, so I've got my ginger, garlic and chillies.
Try and get any juice that is in the bottom of your pestle and mortar because that's where
the flavour is.
So stir that through.
And then we go in with our spices.
So the ground coriander, and ground cumin, some chilli powder, some turmeric and a good
sprinkling of salt.
So stir that all through and now you can really start to get those lovely earthy aromatics
coming in.
I am going to add my chopped tomatoes, stir all of that through, and that's going to cool
the pan down a little bit, but it's just the start of that masala starting to cook now.
So as the tomatoes go in and you stir them through and they start to cook, we are going
to put those beautiful browned lamb shanks back in.
It's a bit like a jigsaw puzzle, you have to get them in the right way.
Try to just coat those shanks with that masala.
Now you'll get a lot of moisture coming from the shanks themselves, but in this dish, I
am going to add just a cup of water because they need just a little bit extra just to
help them slowly cook through.
Pop the lid on.
So, leave the shanks to cook for the designated time, I'm leaving mine for 8 hours on the
low setting.
I am going to come back to that in about 8 hours time and I will show you what they look
like.
So, amazingly tender.
When your house starts to smell with all of these lovely aromas, you know that it is pretty
much ready, which is why this slow cooker is such an amazing little gadget.
I just want to show you how tender this meat actually is.
Look, just look at that, it literally is just falling apart.
It's just delicious.
Right, because of the cut of this meat it can be quite fatty, it can be quite oily,
so when you are left with your sauce that is still in your slow cooker, if you feel
that it is too greasy and you'll be able to see it.
Just take a ladle and literally just skim away any excess fat that might be in there,
because you don't want it to be too oily.
So all you need to do is, just dip the edge of your ladle in and just skim the fat away,
and you can just throw that in the bin.
The next step is to just remove those chunky pieces of cassia bark that you've got in the
sauce, add your garam masala, you want quite a substantial amount in here so half a tablespoon.
Using an immersion blender we are going to blitz the sauce so that it is nice and smooth
and it also helps it thicken a little bit too.
So once it is blitz through, the sauce changes colour and it gets a little bit thicker, but
just give that a mix and it's really important to have a little taste because this is the
point that you adjust any seasoning.
So good!
That's really good.
All you need to do is take this lovely lovely luscious yummy sauce and just pour it over
the top of your shanks.
Now you know that is going to be tender, it's going to be delicious, and it's just going
to be full of amazing flavours and aromatics.
I like to finish with a good sprinkling of coriander and good pinch of very thinly julienned
ginger because it gives it almost like a tangy zesty-ness to finish that dish.
And there you go, there's my Hyderabadi Lamb Shanks, slow cooked in the slow cooker for
8 hours, beautiful, succulent and really really delicious.
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