HI

I have some lamb shanks inthe freezer and have eaten them at a restaurant before with a delicious redcurrant, possibly red wine sauce. Does anybody have any good recipes for this pelase?

cheeky girl, Heat olive in a large deep pan/tray. When it is smoking, seal off shanks. Then roughly chop some onions, celery, bulb garlic, carrots and leek. add to the pan with shanks in. Add some rosemary and thyme. Then cover your shanks with a good chicken stock (homemade) and about half bottle red wine. Place in a low oven about 150 degees C for about 4hrs until shanks are ready to fall off the bone. Leave the shanks in the braising stock overnight. Then remove them, pass the braising stock through a fine sieve and throw veg away. You may have to skim grease off the top (this is from the chicken stock) When ready to eat, heat braising stock in deep fan until boiling, reduce to a simmer and place the shanks in to reheat them. This should take 10 mins. Trust me, leaving the shanks in overnight makes a hell of a lot of difference.
As for the sauce, i would assume it would be a simple red wine sauce with redcurrant jelly/jam added to it.
For this reduce chicken stock by half, pass through sieve, add red wine and reduce by half again. Add jelly/jam and a bit of the braising stock and reduce again until a lovely rich sauce.
Hope this helps.
P.S This is my day off from my job (head chef) and yet still i talk about food, how sad!!!

If you want something a bit different to redcurrant Fergus Henderson cooks lamb shanks with juniper berries, allspice and port. I have the recipe at home so I'll dig it out then. It's delicious.

Thanks davor1chance. Sounds delicious, didn't know the trade trick of leaving the shanks in the braising stock overnight, I'll try that one.

Re the red wine, does it matter what quality? Occasionally (or should I say rarely) I have a half glass or so left at the end of a bottle but after 4-5 days it's too rough to drink, can that still be used for cooking? Also does it matter what wine you use? i.e vin de table or Chateuaneuf du pape?!

Lucky you, a head chef ... sometimes I wish I had done that sort of career, but then the hours are too antisocial for me, but food 24/7 can't be that bad surely!

throw: not keen on port or juniper berries really, but post it anyway, I'm sure many others will be interested in trying that one. Cheers.