Slow Roasted Lamb Shanks With Parmesan Mash

The weather is shivery and miserable. Everything feels damp, and chilled to the core, even inside. Without being overly dramatic about it, the day is too revolting outside to even contemplate leaving the house, and a long weekend looms ahead. So be smart about it - race out and grab your provisions today and hunker down for the weekend. I promise if you make these shanks, you will feel a whole lot better about the weather. In fact, it might start to feel a bonus that the rain is driving in horizontally, and the wind is screaming around the neighbourhood. Warming, comforting and easy, this meal will warm you to the core. It is really easy to pull together too. All you need is time for a nice slow braise in the oven. They even taste fantastic reheated, so put them together in the afternoon. You'll have loads of time for a kip on the couch before serving them up for dinner, or even lunch tomorrow.

The recipe comes from a nifty recipe book called "Madison Entertains" by Bridget Palmer, and is the first thing I have made from it. If everything else lives up to this recipe, it will be a winner. The thing that drew me to buying the book in the first place is that unlike many entertaining type books, this is food that doesn't demand an indecent amount of time or attention. After all, you want to give that to your friends or family, or even that afternoon kip. I made this for 12 recently, with 16 shanks - I tripled the sauce ingredients to cope with the extra shanks. And the sauce has so many vegetables that apart from a green salad, there is no need for any other sides. It was perfect for everyone from the kids to the more aged around the table. You'll be glad to know the leftovers were sensational too. Incidentally, the recipe below is for 4.

Slow Simmered Lamb Shanks With Parmesan Mash

from "Madison Entertains" by Bridget Palmer

Preparation 25 minutes Cooking 3 hours

4 lamb shanks

1 cup plain flour

4 tbsp olive oil

1 large red onion, peeled and chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

1 red capsicum, seeded and chopped

4 cloves garlic, crushed

2 x 400g tin diced tomatoes

1 cup (250ml) red wine

1 cup (250ml) beef stock

2 bay leaves

3 sprigs thyme

salt and pepper

2 tbsp chopped parsley, to serve

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Coat the shanks in the flour, dusting off any excess. Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat; add the shanks and cook until browned. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Place the remaining olive oil into a large baking dish or flameproof casserole dish. Add the onion, celery, carrot, capsicum and garlic and toss to coat. Top with the browned shanks then pour over the tomato, wine, stock and herbs and season. Cover with aluminium foil or a lid and transfer to the oven for 2–3 hours (the longer the better), turning the shanks halfway through cooking.

To serve, spoon some parmesan mash on to 4 plates and place a shank on top. Spoon over the vegetables and sauce and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Parmesan Mash

1 kg mashing potatoes (such as desiree), peeled

²⁄³ cup (185ml) milk

50g butter, chopped

½ cup (45g) parmesan, finely grated

sea salt

Roughly chop the potatoes and cook them in a saucepan of boiling water until tender. Drain. Return the potato to the saucepan and place over low heat. Add the milk and mash until smooth. Add the butter a few pieces at a time, whipping with a wooden spoon until well combined. Stir in parmesan, season and serve.

Cornbread Stuffing For Roasted Chicken or Turkey

Earlier this year I made cornbread for the family, to eat alongside some soup. Cornbread is not something you see often around here, and sadly, the family didn't really enjoy it as much as I had hoped. I hate it when that happens. Away into the freezer went the cornbread, until I could decide what to do with it. Last week, darling husband was arriving home from overseas, and as roast chicken is his very favourite dinner, I thought I would tart it up a little. The cornbread stuffing my sister-in-law made for us at Christmas time was playing on my mind, and so two great ideas collided. The recipe below was an improvisation on a Julia Child stuffing I found on the net, and it was great. Not too heavy or stodgy or (even worse) mysterious like most of the stuffings around here; it was light and tasty and delicious, and the leftovers were every bit as good. Because I was running late with dinner, I baked the chicken separately from the stuffing because I wanted to avoid any extra cooking time on the chicken. Is stuffing still stuffing when nothing is being stuffed? Not sure. I'll let you ponder that one.

Incidentally, the cornbread recipe was one of the 08 Barefoot Blogger Challenges that had come and gone before I joined the group. I have included the recipe for the cornbread below as well.

Cornbread Stuffing
adapted from Julia Child's Cornbread Stuffing Recipe, on plaincook.com

5 cups cornbread, crumbled
500g sausage meat
2 cups chopped onions
1 1/2 cups celery ribs, chopped
2 cups breadcrumbs, unseasoned, lightly pressed down
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3 tablespoons dried sage (more if you like - I didn't use because I forgot to buy it)
120g melted butter
1 large apple, cored and diced
1/2 cup toasted pecan nuts, roughly chopped

Brown sausage meat in a pan over medium heat. Lift into a large bowl, leaving fat in pan.
Using the same pan, saute onions for 5-6 minutes (or until translucent). Add celery and saute for 2 minutes. Add the onion and celery to the sausage, along with the cornbread and bread crumbs. Combine sage and eggs, and pour into mixture. Fold in the melted butter. Season to taste.

Stuff cavity of chicken or turkey with mixture and bake according to poultry roasting times. If baking separately, place mixture in a baking pan, cover with foil, and bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes, maybe even less. Do not overbake otherwise the stuffing will dry out.

Jalapeno Cheddar Cornbread
from Barefoot Contessa at Home

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons baking powder
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 cups milk
3 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted, plus extra to grease the pan
8 ounces aged extra-sharp Cheddar, grated, divided
1/3 cup chopped green onions, white and green parts, plus extra for garnish, 3 scallions
3 tablespoons seeded and minced fresh jalapeno peppers (I left these out although I would definitely include if we were to make again)

Combine the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, eggs, and butter. With a wooden spoon, stir the wet ingredients into the dry until most of the lumps are dissolved. Don't overmix! Mix in 2 cups of the grated Cheddar, the scallions and jalapenos, and allow the mixture to sit at room temperature for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 by 13 by 2-inch baking pan.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smooth the top, and sprinkle with the remaining grated Cheddar and extra chopped scallions. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool and cut into large squares. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Lemon Chicken With Croutons

Halloween is over for another year. Thank heavens. The trouble with importing festivals from other parts of the world, is that the weather here often won't co-operate with you. Friday afternoon was spent wandering the streets with the younger darling daughter in 35C heat (95F). She was dressed up in a big heavy costume, when she really should have been at the beach in her swimmers. Melted chocolates, gooey lollies... but none of this worried her. She told me it was the best halloween ever.

So now it is time to get back to grown up food. This recipe comes from "Barefoot in Paris" by Ina Garten, and in the usual Barefoot style, it is not difficult to make, and it is very delicious to eat. Crunchy croutons soak up the juice of the chicken as well as giving a wonderful texture contrast. If you are interested, you can actually watch a video of Ina making it here. You might be wondering why I would make a Barefoot recipe outside of my Barefoot Blogger commitments, and the simple answer is that some recipes scream out to be tried, and this is one of them.

Lemon Chicken With Croutons

from "Barefoot in Paris" by Ina Garten

1 chicken

1 large brown onion, sliced

Olive oil

2 lemons, quartered

2 tbls unsalted butter, melted

4 cups bread cubes (use a good quality sourdough or something similar)

Preheat the oven to 215C. Wash the chicken and pat dry. Toss the onion with some olive oil in a roasting pan. Place the chicken on top. Place the lemons inside the chicken. Brush the chicken with the melted butter and season well with salt and pepper. Tie the legs together with kitchen string.

Roast for 1 1/4 hours to 1 1/2 hours, or until the chicken is cooked. Remove from the oven and rest the chicken covered with foil for 15 minutes. Don't be concerned if the onions are very brown - their flavour is great.

Heat a large pan with 2 tbls of olive oil until very hot. Lower the temperature to medium low and saute the bread cubes tossing frequently until they are browned all over. Add more oil if you need to. Season the croutons, and place on a serving platter. Slice the chicken and sit it on the crouton bed. Pour over any extra pan juices and serve.

Chicken Stuffed With Orange, Sage and Squash Couscous

The blog world, as I am now discovering, is full of all sorts of food challenges and groups. Among them are the Barefoot Bloggers; Tuesdays with Dorie; The Daring Bakers; Whisk Wednesdays; Sugar High Fridays and Weekend Herb Blogging. In fact, there is a group that will be cooking pretty much anything that takes your fancy. Some of these groups are cooking at a level that would be considered at least close to a professional chef; others are tackling simpler fare. And for those who want to get their own creative energies flowing, there is the impressively named Royal Foodie Joust. The premise of the Joust is to create a dish that incorporates three random ingredients selected by the previous winner. I am enjoying doing these challenges because what seems to be impossible flavour combinations at first glance somehow marry up in my head as I contemplate them. A very satisfying process.

This month those ingredients are: acorn squash, oranges and sage. Unfortunately I don't think acorn squash is available in Australia (I can't recall ever having seen it anyway), so dispensation has been given to use another of the winter squashes. I chose what we would call butternut pumpkin. After contemplating a range of options, I decided that couscous might be a good way to bring everything together, either in a salad, or in a stuffing. And while I wound up using it as a stuffing, the combination was delicious enough to stand alone as a couscous salad. Even the kids kept wandering into the kitchen and nibbling at it as they waited for dinnertime. And serving it with the chicken worked extremely well - I will definitely make this again. Scrumptious.

Chicken Stuffed With Orange, Sage and Squash Couscous

1 medium roasting chicken

150g couscous

Juice and zest of two oranges

2 tbl olive oil

1 cup diced butternut squash

80g pistachio nuts

2 tbl shredded sage

Preheat oven to 190C. Boil the diced squash for 5 mins. Drain. Mix the couscous in a bowl with the juice and zest, olive oil, squash, pistachio nuts and sage. Add 1/2 cup of warm water. Stir again. Season to taste. Stuff chicken with the couscous mixture, reserving any extra mixture in an oven proof dish. Sprinkle the chicken with sea salt, and drizzle with a little olive oil.

Roast chicken at 190C for 1/2 hour, then drop the temperature to 170C and roast for a further hour. Pop the leftover couscous into the oven for the last half hour to warm. Allow the chicken to rest for ten minutes, then place on a serving platter and carve, allowing the chicken juices to soak into the couscous.

Everyone Likes Roast Chicken

Roast chicken is one of those fallback recipes that I would make at least once a week. Your approach can be as complicated or as basic as your life dictates, and regardless you are rewarded with a delicious dinner, and a house that smells of contentment and good things. My husband is also convinced that things cooked "on the bone" always taste better.

So how do you make a great roast chicken? The simplest version that I make is no more tricky than:

- Rinse medium-sized chicken under the tap, and dry with paper towel
- Pop it into a baking tin
- Give it a good sprinkle of pepper and salt
- Shove it into the oven for 1 hour at 200C (drop to 190C if you think the skin is getting too brown). Check it is cooked by piercing the thigh and looking for clear juices.
- Remove from the oven and rest for 10 minutes (or if you live in my house, serve straight away because everyone is too starving to wait a moment longer for dinner)
- Serve with whatever takes your fancy: vegetables, salad, potatoes rice
- NB no added oil, butter or anything else, and the chicken comes out with delicious skin and moist flesh.

But some days, I want to do something a little fancier, and this recipe delivers a great roast chicken and lovely vegetables as well. I found it when I was looking for the Sizzling Beef recipe in "Heart and Soul" by Kylie Kwong. The chicken is beautifully moist and tender, and the vegetables are delicious.

Kylie's "Radical" Roast Chicken
adapted from "Heart and Soul" by Kylie Kwong

1 x 1.5kg chicken (free range if available)
1/2 bunch tarragon
4 sprigs rosemary roughly chopped
100g unsalted butter (I used only about 25g)
1 whole garlic bulb
10 fresh bay leaves
1 tbl sea salt
2 medium-sized carrots, peeled and cut into wedges
2 small sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into wedges
6 medium sized kipfler potatoes, peeled and cut into wedges
5 small golden (aka french) shallots, unpeeled but cut in half
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
pinch cracked white pepper

Preheat oven to 220C. Rinse chicken under cold water. Place chicken in roasting pan, breast side up. Place tarragon, and half of the rosemary inside the cavity. Using your hands carefully separate the skin from the meat over the breast and thighs (this is easier than it sounds - just slide your hands in between). Spread butter under the skin ( or lay very thin slices of butter).

Lightly crush garlic cloves and scatter over chicken with bay leaves, salt and remaining rosemary. Place carrots, sweet potatoes, potatoes and shallots around the chicken. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with pepper.

Cover roasting tin with foil and roast for 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and reduce temperature to 180C. Take off foil and bake for a further 20-30 minutes or until chicken is just cooked through and vegetables are tender. To test the chicken, insert a skewer into the thigh and press against the meat. The chicken is cooked when the juices run clear. The chicken should be lightly browned. Remove chicken from oven, cover with foil and leave to rest in a warm place for 10 minutes. (If you would like to brown up your vegetables a bit more, remove the chicken from the tin for resting and return the vegetables to either a hot oven or put them under the grill briefly.)

Remove the chicken from the tin and serve with the roast vegetables.