I love lamb shanks. But because Bill and I get one lamb a year, we only have lamb shanks once a year. Last year’s recipe is one of my favorites. I was torn: I love sticking with a recipe I know is good but I also like experimenting. So for New Year’s this year I decided to try Rosemary Lamb Pot Roast with Cannellini Beans. The recipes are similar except this one doesn’t call for any tomato.
My lamb shanks only weighed about two pounds so I cut this recipe in half, except for the cannellini beans. I ended up dumping the whole can in by accident but I was glad I did in the end!
Here are the lamb shanks browning in olive oil with herbes de Provence.
After browning, you add the wine, onions, rosemary, and garlic. I didn’t have cipollini onions so I substituted with two red onions, quartered.
Because our lamb is pastured, I always err on the conservative side for cooking. For example, the recipe called for a 350-degree oven but I set mine at 325. And, I only cooked two pounds of pastured lamb shanks for two hours, then checked to see that the meat was starting to fall off the bone. It was, so that’s when I added the carrots and beans.
Forty-five minutes later, perfection!
I actually let the meat rest about 20 minutes while Bill and I enjoyed our first toast of the evening. The meat and vegetables were so tender. It was a nice one-dish meal and we ate the leftovers the next day with brown rice.
Life Is Fare 