Sausage and Lentil Stew

A great winter warmer -- the secret ingredient which knits together all the flavours is crushed fennel seeds.

Ingredients

• Six good-quality meaty Italian or French-style sausages
• 10-12 pickling onions or shallots
• 3 rashers bacon
• 1 carrot
• 2 sticks celery
• 4 cloves garlic
• generous glass of red wine
• 150g green lentils
• 2 tsp fennel seeds
• 100g vacuum-packed, canned or rehydrated chestnuts

Method

Chop the sausages into short pieces and top, tail and peel the onions. Trim any tough fat off the bacon and cut into strips. In a large Le Creuset or similar pot, fry the sausages, onions and bacon together for a few minutes, until some of the sausage skin is crisping. Meanwhile, dice the carrots and celery and crush or finely chop the garlic. Add to the sausage. Fry, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes more, then deglaze the pan with the red wine.

Crush the fennel seeds lightly in a mortar and pestle, then add to the stew, along with the lentils. Top up with a little hot water, so that the lentils can cook. Cover and simmer for 1-2 hours, checking and stirring occasionally so it does not stick to the pan. Cook until the onions are soft, sweet and falling apart -- usually slightly longer for shallots than for pickling onions. Stir through the chestnuts and allow to heat through. Serve with mashed potato or potato Colcannon.

Osso Buco

Still winter, and I'm still craving those yummy sticky warming dishes. Here's one I've never made before: osso buco, a Milanese speciality of cross-cut veal shanks. I was inspired by seeing a cheap pack of ox-tail at the butcher's, and figured a cow's tail is probably pretty similar to a calf's leg. I followed this recipe from taste.com and it was pretty yummy and very rich. So much so that we only had fairly small servings -- one large piece of ox-tail per meal was more than enough. So this recipe would serve six people, or maybe four if they've been hill-walking or ice climbing!

Ingredients:
Osso buco

• 1kg veal shanks or ox-tail
• 2 tablespoons plain flour
• 2 medium red onions, coarsely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 3 medium carrots, thickly sliced
• 2 sticks celery, thickly sliced
• 410g can crushed tomatoes
• a glass of dry white wine
• 250ml beef stock (cube/powder is fine)
• 2 teaspoons dried Italian herbs (oregano, thyme, rosemary, mint)
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste

Gremolata

• 1 garlic clove, crushed (optional)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon rind

In a deep casserole dish with a lid, toss the veal shanks in flour and fry briefly to caramelise. (Or skip, if you're strapped for time). Chuck everything else in, stir well, and cook, just simmering, for about six hours, or until the meat is falling off the bone and the vegetables have disintegrated into a thick sauce. Check every so often to make sure it's not burning.

Combine the gremolata ingredients and serve on top of the osso buco, on a big pile of fluffy mash or gooey polenta.

Braised Lamb Shank with Shallots and Red Wine

Earlier today I ran 12k. I knew in advance I was going to be pretty much crippled afterwards, and also desperately craving protein. So we picked up a couple of hearty lamb shanks at the butchers' yesterday, ready for a long stew into tenderness. In deference to my sad throbbing legs, we even did the grocery shop in a car, instead of on the bikes as usual! Fun times.

Anyway, back to the recipe. It's a Nigel special but seriously, I think people have been cooking meat like this since the Middle Ages. Or whenever it was that wine was invented. We also found out that in stews, you can happily use pickling onions ($6/kg) instead of shallots ($12/kg): after an hour they taste identical. I'm going to go fall over now.

Ingredients:

• two lamb shanks (or one, or four, depending on how much meat you feel like!)
• 250 ml red wine (doesn't have to be good enough to drink, but shouldn't be vinegar either)
• 250 ml vegetable or meat stock
• 3 sprigs of rosemary
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 8-10 shallots, or pickling onions
• 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard

In a casserole pot, fry the lamb shanks, turning once or twice so that they sear and get nice caramelised edges. Meanwhile, tail and peel the shallots, and split or cut any large ones in half. Slosh the wine onto the meat and add the shallots/onions, vegetable stock, rosemary, and crush in the garlic. Stir once, cover and simmer for an hour and a half, until the meat is falling off the bone. (Or you can pop it into a 160C oven; either way.) Stir in the mustard, and serve with fluffy mashed potatoes and some wilted spinach, with black pepper grated and lemon juice squeezed over.