Moroccan slow roasted lamb shanks

Well, my version anyway. We had a bizarre cold snap here on Saturday so I capitalised on the last throes of wintery weather with the following. (I even measured out the oil so it’s WW friendly)

The lamb – before

The lamb – after

Moroccan slow roasted lamb shanks

  • 2tsp olive oil
  • 6 lamb shanks
  • 2 onions
  • 2 carrots
  • 2 sticks celery
  • 4 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1tsp ground cumin
  • 1tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tbs tomato paste
  • 2 tbs plain flour
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 1/2 cup dried dates
  • 1x4oog tin crushed tomatoes
  • stock*
  • pumpkin, cut into chunks
  • 1 sweet potato, cut into chunks
  1. Preheat oven to 160C
  2. Heat 1tsp of the oil and brown the shanks all over, then place in roasting dish
  3. Heat remaining oil and sweat down the onion, carrot, celery and garlic
  4. Add the cumin, coriander, tomato paste and flour and cook for a minute or so
  5. Add the tinned tomatoes and then fill the can with water three times, adding to the vegetables.
  6. Add the cinnamon stick and dates
  7. Pour over the shanks
  8. Cover tightly and cook for 1.5 hours
  9. Add the pumpkin and sweet potato, cook covered for half an hour
  10. Remove cover and cook for final half an hour, turning shanks and pushing pumpkin and potato into juices so they get covered and mooshy.

I served it with some finely chopped coriander and finely grated lemon rind.

* I had some home made concentrated vegetable stock in ice cubes, I normally do a cube to a cup of water, so I threw in about 4 ice cubes to the almost litre of fluid. If you’re using stock powder just follow their instructions or add about a litre of liquid stock.