Asian Style Braised Lamb Shank

I had three lamb shanks sitting in the freezer like forever ! All the recipes I looked up were leaning towards the European style cooking with red wine or port. The lamb shanks I had were not exactly bursting in the meat department. In fact it had very little meat and I was not too keen to open a bottle of red just to cook some bones.

Trawling the net, I came upon these Asian flavoured lamb shanks. This was more my cup of tea. The flavours were really good and the meat literally fell off the bone.

Ingredients
3 lamb shanks

4 Tbsp soy sauce
150ml water
5 slices ginger
2 star anise
4 cloves garlic, smashed
1 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp white vinegar or 2 tsp rice vinegar

Method
1. Put all the ingredients except vinegar into the pressure cooker.

2. Pressure cook for 30 minutes or until the meat is tender.

3. With the lid off, boil to reduce and thicken the sauce. Turn the shanks over often. Add vinegar. Season with salt if required.

4. Remove the shanks from the sauce and grill/broil for 5-10 minutes to brown the meat. This process is optional.

5. Pour the sauce over the lamb shanks and serve with rice or noodles.




Note : If cooking without a pressure cooker, simmer gently with lid on for at least 2 hours or until meat is tender, turning shank over every half hour. Increase the water to 1 cup. If the liquid dries up too quickly, top up with more water.

Recipe : Mark Bittman @ The Splendid Table (adapted)