Shankarama

Another often overlooked cut of meat, especially when it comes to home cooking, is the humble shank. It is basically the portion of meat around the leg bone beneath the knee, it's pretty tough so requires a long and slow cooking process. Not ideal if you're in a rush (I thought it would be a good idea to cook this on a Monday night - didn't eat till 11pm!) but if you have a couple of hours to spare on a Sunday evening it is one of the most delicious and rewarding dishes that you can prepare.

Ossobuco (veal shank) is a personal favourite of mine and one the most ridiculously tasty things around, especially when eaten with the traditional 'risotto alla milanese', but as veal shin is fairly hard to come across I'll talk about that another time.

For this particular dish all you need are a couple of lamb shanks, the rest of the meal is pretty damn straight forward to prepare.

Serves 2 hungry people

2 lamb shanks
2 shallots finely chopped (small onions will do)
1 stick of celery finely chopped
1 clove of garlic (crushed)
1/2 a dry red chilli
1 sprig of rosemary
1 tbsp on tomato puree
250 ml of red wine
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp of red wine vinegar
400ml of beef stock
1 tin of butter beans
1 large handful of flat leaf parsley

Preheat the oven to 140-150 degrees C.

Grab a tall pan and brown the shanks in a little olive oil for a few minutes before removing and setting to one side. Add the onion, celery and garlic to the same pan the lamb was in and cook on a medium heat until translucent. Throw in the whole sprig of rosemary, the dried chilli and stir in the puree - cook for a further 5 mins or so ensuring that the onions don't begin to take on too much colour.

Tip the shanks back into the pan, turn up the heat a little and after a minute or two pour in the wine, bring to the boil.

Pour in the chopped tomatoes and butter beans, season, stir and add the vinegar.

Now add the stock (this should cover all the meat in the pan), bring to the boil one more time, cover and slide in the oven for 2 and 1/2 hours stirring every now and again.

That's it! The meat will literally fall off the bone...

I served the shanks on a cushion of olive oil and rosemary mash. To do this just bring a few spuds to the boil with a clove of garlic and a sprig of rosemary. When the potatoes are tender just pour in a few extremely generous glugs of extra virgin olive oil, season well and mash. If in doubt as to how much oil to add to just add a little at a time until you have smooth consistency.

Place a dollop of mash in the centre of nice plate, position the shank on top, pour over the sauce and garnish with chopped parsley. SHANKARAMA!

But best of all you'll end up with enough sauce to make a bloody fine pasta sauce for the following day! Plenty for more than two people.

Just bring a pan of salted water to the boil and add some nice hearty pasta like fettucine, tagliatelle or even tortelloni.

As the pasta cooks for the required time just heat up the sauce adding a little flour to thicken if necessary. Spoon the sauce over the pasta, grate over some fresh parmesan and sprinkle with some of the leftover parsley. Unbelievably good....

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