Lamb Shanks with Chickpeas

Name: Lamb Shanks with Chickpeas
Yield: Serves 6
Ingredients: about ½ bottle of white wine; 1 teaspoon dried mint; salt and freshly ground black pepper; 2 large onions, roughly chopped; a bunch of parsley or coriander, chopped; 3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped; 3 celery sticks, roughly chopped; 6 lamb shanks; about 250 g/9 oz chickpeas, soaked in cold water overnight, or 2 x 400 g/14 oz tins of chickpeas (look for a brand that adds nothing but salt and water); a generous pinch of saffron; 3 leeks, roughly chopped; 2 tablespoons tomato purée; 5 tablespoons olive oil

Preparation info

Serves
6

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

The Eagle Cookbook

By David Eyre

Published 2009

About

A dish for patient people. The key to tasty lamb shanks and soft chickpeas is time, lots of it. The meat should be cooked until it is almost falling off the bone; the chickpeas should be creamy, with very little bite. This dish is quite brothy – the stock pretty much makes itself, due to the long cooking processes.

Ingredients

5 tablespoons olive oil
6 lamb shanks
2 large onions, roughly chopped

Main course
Gluten-free

Method

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over a fierce heat. Brown the lamb shanks in it and then put them to one side. Pour the fat and juices from the pan into a large casserole and use them to fry the onions, garlic, leeks and celery, adding a little more oil if you need to. When the vegetables have softened but not browned, add the wine, mint and saffron. As soon as it is bubbling, stir in