Main: Lamb Shank Cacciatora
From Delicious Magazine – June 2019
Dessert: Lime Bavarois
From: Woman’s Weekly Dinner Party Cookbook No. 3 (Pg. 96)
“If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with them….the people who give you their food give you their heart” . Cesar Chavez
Hi there everyone,
Well with the weather at night still very cool, this absolutely delicious Lamb Shank Cacciatora was such a winner. You know I have often steered away from the shanks because I have found them too oily but I wanted to give this recipe a go because the sauce looked so very inviting. The shanks are Frenched lamb shanks. Now, as I have said a number of times, I am no chef, so please forgive my ignorance. Off I go to my favourite local butcher and ask for these “frenched” lamb shanks and when I got home and opened the packaging I couldn’t see any exposed bone like in the picture in the magazine. So, I sent the MAV back there to gently complain only to be told that they were indeed “frenched” and the bone would reveal itself upon cooking. How dumb did I feel? Yep, very because low and behold the bones did reveal themselves. (In this photo the bone is not exposed after browning)
A lot of people get put off recipes from the Delicious mag as they think they’ll be too hard but this one is very simple. The slow cooking really brings the flavours of the wine, stock, herbs and tomatoes together and the smell throughout the house was just wonderful. The recipe calls for skimming off any fat that rises but I can honestly say there was very little of it and not worth the effort. This is a must for serving with some crusty bread. In the mag it is served with a simple Bean Salad (green beans and cannellini beans) so I followed through with that wondering how that would go together and was once again wonderfully surprise. The dressing is zingy and the whole thing works so well with the shanks that I will definitely be doing this one again and again. How did MAV like the salad – he was held down and forced to eat a mouthful and said it was ok. The next day I was told by MAV that he would like that recipe served with mash and peas next time! From everyone else the salad got 8/10 and the shanks got 8/10 also.
Dessert? Oooh yum, anything limey or lemony goes down very well at this house so the Lime Bavarois was consumed with gusto. Beware, this has three layers (cake base, firm lime filling and passionfruit jelly on top) and is therefore a labour intensive recipe – you must start the day before. I am not keen on working with gelatine because I have had some really bad experiences with it going gluggy so I was determined to concentrate and work my way through this recipe slowly. The cooling and the setting of each layer is what takes the time, making it fiddly. I also got put off by the blending of the eggs and the heated milk, it just didn’t seem to go as smoothly as I was hoping, however, I needn’t have worried because it all set in the fridge and not only looked great but was very smooth in texture. This is an impressive dessert and worth a go for sure. This scored a 9/10. By the way, if passionfruit is not in season just two tins of the passionfruit pulp will do the trick for the topping.
Give all of this a go, the family will love it! Until next week…….
From my table to yours with love!
