Lamb shank pie with pickled purple cabbage recipe | EUROtoday

The considering behind this was to make Lancashire hotpot – which is served with pickled purple cabbage – right into a pie, however I feel it has ended up being extra like Irish stew in a pie! Lamb shanks aren’t low-cost however they produce a implausible filling because the meat is so sticky and intensely flavoured. Got the thumbs up in my home. Make the pickled cabbage a few days earlier than. You can even prepare dinner the lamb shanks the day earlier than.

Timings

Prep time: 45 minutes, plus salting, cooling and chilling time

Cook time: 3 hours 45 minutes

Serves

6

Ingredients

For the cabbage

• ½ purple cabbage, core eliminated, finely shredded
• 35g salt
• 165ml cider vinegar
• 65ml white balsamic vinegar
• 250ml purple wine
• 165g granulated sugar
• 2 dried purple chillies
• ½ tsp black peppercorns
• 10 juniper berries, crushed
• ½ cinnamon stick

For the pie

• 4 lamb shanks, about 350g every
• 35g seasoned flour, plus flour for dusting
• 2 tbsp rapeseed or groundnut oil
• 2 giant onions, reduce into slim crescent-moon-shaped slices (0.5cm on the thickest half)
• 4 very giant carrots, peeled and reduce into chunks
• small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, leaves chopped and stalks tied in a bundle
• 6 sprigs of thyme
• 1.2 litres lamb inventory (or hen inventory, or water)
• 3 Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and reduce into chunks
• 320g puff pastry
• 1 complete egg and 1 yolk, crushed

Method

1. Layer the cabbage in a colander set on a plate, sprinkling with the salt as you go. Leave for 4 hours. Wash and drain the cabbage and pat it dry.
2. Meanwhile, put the vinegars, wine and sugar in a pan and warmth, stirring a little bit to assist dissolve the sugar.
3. Bring to the boil and cut back by half.
4. Add the spices and go away off the warmth for half-hour, then warmth to boiling once more.
5. Put the cabbage in a bowl and pour the recent vinegar over it by means of a nylon sieve. Cover and put within the fridge till you need to serve it.
6. Coat the lamb shanks in seasoned flour, shaking off the surplus.
7. Heat the oil in a giant pan (I take advantage of a cast-iron one which has a lid). Brown the shanks in two batches, shifting them round to get a great color. Season. Transfer the meat to a bowl.
8. Put the onion and carrot within the pan, stir them round within the fats then add any leftover seasoned flour.
9. Put the shanks again in, including the parsley stalks and three sprigs of thyme.
10. Add the inventory or water and produce to only beneath the boil.
11. Turn the warmth proper down, cowl with a lid  – go away a little bit hole on the facet – and prepare dinner actually gently for 1½-2 hours, or till the meat is falling off the bone.
12. Remove the lamb and pressure the greens, conserving each the greens and the inventory (do away with the herbs).
13. Add the potatoes to the inventory and prepare dinner till simply tender – they may prepare dinner extra so that they don’t must be mushy proper by means of. Scoop out the potatoes and add them to the greens.
14. Boil the inventory to scale back it to about 800ml (although do style it – you need to intensify the flavour however not a lot that it turns into too salty), then let it cool.
15. Cut the lamb into chunks, eliminating bits of extra fats. Scrape any marrow out of the bones and add it to the meat – it provides to the flavour of the pie.
16. Layer the weather in a pie dish, alternating the greens and the lamb, and placing chopped parsley, the leaves from the remainder of the thyme and seasoning between every layer. Pour the decreased inventory, at room temperature, into the pie dish.
17. Roll out the pastry to 3mm thick on a evenly floured piece of greaseproof paper, to suit the highest of your pie (my pie dish holds 2.5 litres and is oval-shaped, 29  5cm). Brush the rim of the dish with water and put the pastry firmly on high, urgent it down. Trim off the surplus.
18. Press the tines of a fork into the pastry rim. Make 4 small slits or  1 gap within the center. Score with a lattice sample or adorn with leftover pastry, securing every bit with water or a little bit of the egg wash.
19. Chill the pie within the fridge for half-hour – it will assist cease the pastry from shrinking.
20. Heat the oven to 200C/190C fan/fuel mark 6.
21. Holding a pointy knife horizontally, faucet across the edges of the pastry to knock it up. Carefully paint the pie with the egg combination.
22. Bake for 45 minutes, or till golden.
23. Let the pie accept 10 minutes – the juices thicken a bit extra.
24. Serve with the purple cabbage on the facet.