Mothers Day Dinner - Lamb Shank Mint Ragu with Pappardelle

Cooking a great meal for loved ones if one of life's greatest pleasures. It always fills me with such happiness when I see my parents and friends enjoying something that I made. It has been so long since I've posted an original recipe and this one was absolutely delicious so I hope you guys will give it a go! It is quite time consuming though but it is so worth it! I definitely don't think I would make it for just anyone though, I was slaving away in the kitchen from 4 until 8:30, but my parents absolutely loved it which made all the hard work so worth it. I also made bruschetta so I will post that recipe next!

Ingredients

Serves 4-6 (sorry a bit vague, my parents and I were stuffed and I still have a huge tub of leftovers)

Cooking time: 4 hours 

1. 2 lamb shanks
2. Fresh mint leaves
3. 7 tomatoes
4. 1 large onion
5. 3 cloves of garlic
6. 4 shallots
7. Half a can of tomato paste 
8. 1 cup of chicken or pork stock
9. 2 carrots 
10. 1 cup of red wine
11. Pappardelle 
12. Salt and pepper

Some ingredients like the canned diced tomatoes were not used.

Directions

1. Slice up the shallots, dice up the onions, and the tomatoes. Slave away :)

2. Grate up the carrot. It is better to grate it than dicing it up because carrots take quite long to cook and you don't want chunks of carrot in your sauce.

Looks like cheddar cheese doesn't it?

3. Rinse the lamb shanks and pat dry with a towel. Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper.

4. Heat up some oil in a pan and brown the shanks on all sides. The house will smell like lamb heaven now.

5. After the lamb is browned on all sides remove them and put on a plate. This stuff on the pan is gold. Don't get rid of it! Pour in the garlic, onions, and shallots and sauté until translucent.

6. Pour in the carrots. Sauté.

7. And the tomatoes. Cook for about 5 minutes on medium heat.

8. Pour in the cup of red wine. I used Shiraz but anything is fine. Stir.

9. Pour in a cup of stock, I used pork stock. Stir and cook for a couple of minutes.

10. Add in half a can of tomato paste.

11. Add the lamb shanks back into the pan. It's ok if the lamb shanks are not completely submerged into the sauce. You will be flipping them around. Put the lid on and cook for 2-3 hours on low heat. Check on the lamb shanks every 20 or so minutes to flip them around and  to stir the sauce around.

12. Mmmm starting to look so rich and delicious. Take the lamb shanks out when the meat is tender and cut the meat away from the bones. This should be around 1 and half hours to 2 hours. Slice the meat into small pieces but not too small, you still want a bite to them.

Kind of looks like curry...?

13. Add the meat back to the sauce and continue cooking.

14. Take a couple leaves of mint and dice very finely. The mint was lovely in the sauce but make sure you start out with a little and add more after mixing it and tasting it. You don't want the mint to be too overpowering.

15. Heat up a large pot of water and salt it generously. Cook the pappardelle until al dente.

Beautiful ribbons 

16. Plate up! Make a nice pile of the yellow ribbons of pappardelle onto a plate and ladle the delicious sauce on top. Garnish with a sprig of mint. Enjoy!