Curried Lamb Shanks

Curry! You just gotta love it. It’s winter here in Brisbane and even though it’s only getting down to lows of 7 / 8 degrees celsius at night it still feels bloody cold. Strange considering we just moved from NYC where we had winters of -26c for a few years. You’d think we would be used to the cold. All this Queensland sun must me making us soft! Personally though I’m gonna blame the Queenslander homes, they are SUPER cute but they have about as much insulation as a paper bag. Hence the slow cooked food and curry recipe!!

Typically when I make curry I use chicken and typically when I make lamb shanks I use red wine and root veg. WELL as you can see neither of those occurred in this recipe. One of the drawers in AnotherFoodBlogger,s kitchen is the spice drawer and as I am a firm believer in having a well stocked pantry I didn’t just pick up a load of little jars from the local grocery store, I hit the local Indian store and Asian market. I bought in bulk and grabbed a whole load more spices than I probably needed. That is until you start to make things like a curry and realise how essential having all these spices is. There are always tins of coconut milk or cream in our cupboard because all 3 of us here love a good Thai green curry. Chickpeas are a must for the hummus monster that is my daughter and 99% of the time you will find tins of chopped tomatoes too. That is unless I have made a big batch of my braised beef cheeks – now that’s a dish to die for (ok, ok, you twisted my arm. Here is the recipe ;)). Right, back to this curry. So since I pretty much had all the ingredients in the house it seemed like the right thing to make with this cut of meat. My only gripe with curry, and this really is only a gripe for my instagram ego, is that I can never make it look “sexy” SO if anyone reading this has some tips feel free to send them my way!

To start with, for this dish I had to make a fresh curry paste. This may seem like a daunting task but honestly all it took was opening the right spice containers, a measuring spoon, some oil and a small food processor. Job done and suddenly my house smells like my local delicious Indian restaurant. Nice!

I served this dish with some garlic naan bread which the boss went and picked up from said Indian restaurant, but you could also serve it with some steamed jasmine rice too! If you aren’t a big fan of lamb shanks or don’t want to wait 2+ hours for them to cook then this dish will work amazingly with some chicken too – thighs, use thighs. The brown meat is, in my opinion, the best. So, next time you are thinking of ordering a takeaway ( I know, I know we still ended up getting the naan from the local BUT in my defense it’s just so damn good!) why not make up a batch of this curry instead. Bonus points for the fact that it freezes well too.

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