Braised Lamb Shanks and the 17th century Château de Barbentane in Provence

We like lamb shanks, but they tend to be quite rich and fatty so we don’t serve them often. When I saw this recipe on Stacey’s Snacks, she made it look so tempting that I decided to give it another chance. I always look forward to checking my email each morning, because it always has a post from Stacey containing the tasty food she’s prepared the previous night. She served the lamb shanks at a dinner party and said it was great because it was so much less expensive than Ossobuco for a crowd. I like veal shanks too and agree with Stacey. I served them with polenta rounds that I browned at the last minute.

Since experience had taught us that the lamb shanks are too fatty for our taste, we refrigerated them overnight and skimmed off of the fat layer the next day. It turned out to be a good idea, because it helped to reduce the fat. I made very few other changes and my notes are in parenthesis below. Primarily I believe that if you add the herbs to the end of browning the vegetables and cook for a few more minutes, that brings out the essence of the herbs rather than just adding them to the liquids. I also thickened the sauce with a beurre manie of butter and flour.

Braised Lamb Shanks with Rosemary
Adapted from Stacey’s Snacks via All Recipes

6 meaty lamb shanks
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 yellow onions, chopped
3 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch rounds
10 cloves garlic, minced

5 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme

1 (750 ml) bottle red wine (I used a Cabernet Sauvignon)
1 (28 ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes with juice
1 (10.5 ounce) can chicken broth
1 (10.5 ounce) can beef broth

Sprinkle the shanks with kosher salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in large, heavy pot over medium-high heat. Working in batches, (Don’t crowd the skillet or they’ll steam rather than brown), brown the shanks on all sides, about 8 minutes, then transfer to a plate.

Add the onions and carrots to pot and sauté until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic, rosemary and thyme and cook a minute or two more. (I always like to incorporate the chopped herbs with the onions at the end of browning them, because I think it brings out their flavors instead of just throwing them in with the liquids.)

Stir in the wine, tomatoes, chicken broth and beef broth. (Break up the tomatoes with a large spoon.) Return the shanks to pot, pressing down to submerge. Bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to medium-low. Cover, and simmer until meat is tender, about two and a half hours.

Lamb shanks can be fatty, so I removed the pot from the heat, let it cool and refrigerated it overnight. The next day before you’re ready to serve them, scrape off all of the accumulated fat at the top and discard. Heat the pot and bring to a simmer and cook about 20 minutes longer. Transfer the shanks to a platter and place in a warm oven. Boil the juices until they thicken, about 15 minutes. Serves six.

If your sauce is not thick enough (ours wasn’t), make a beurre manie by blending 3 T flour with 2 T softened butter to make a paste. Off heat, whisk in the beurre manie, then simmer the sauce for 2 minutes as it thickens. Spoon over the shanks and serve.

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Château de Barbentane 

While we were in Provence, we toured the impressive 17^th century Château de Barbentane, 10 km south of Avignon, and were able to see what it was like to live in such a grand château centuries ago. Upon closer inspection, the château and the grounds are showing signs of wear and tear, but if I’d survived the French revolution as Barbentane did, I suspect I would be a bit tattered myself. It must be a huge expense to maintain such a massive château, even if you are a Marquis.

Here’s the château’s history according to Provence Web, “The construction of the Château de Barbentane was started in 1674 by Paul François de Barbentane, but it was only completed at the end of the 18th century. This château is the home of the Marquis de Barbentane. It is to Joseph Pierre Balthazar de Puget, who was Marquis de Barbentane and Louis XV’s ambassador to Florence, that the splendid reception rooms owe their sumptuous decoration. They are ornamented with plasterwork and Carrare marble which show off the château’s Louis XV and Louis XVI furniture to great advantage. Having miraculously survived the 1789 French Revolution, the house is still inhabited today by the Marquis de Barbentane.

Leg of Lamb and Transhumance, the ancient festival in Provence of the running of the sheep

When we were in Provence, lamb or l’agneau du Pays seemed to be the plat du jour at almost every bistro at least once a week. If your family isn’t lamb friendly, please don’t click away because I don’t want you to miss a festival in Provence that you’ve probably never seen – the ancient custom of running of the sheep. There are pictures and a link to a video, so just jump to paragraph four and I’ll join you later.

One of the places we enjoyed the local lamb happened to be one of Patricia Well’s favorite bistros, Le Bistrot du Paradou, a short fifteen minute drive from Saint-Remy. While we were waiting for our lunch to arrive, we watched the man at the next table return his lamb to the waiter and request that it be rose, or medium-rare. Meakin caught the waiter’s eye and ask that ours be rose as well. We enjoy leg of lamb and will sometimes serve it at dinner parties. I say “sometimes” because we like our lamb medium rare to rare and not everyone does. So if we’re having guests who like it well done or even medium well, we forget the lamb, just as we would forget a fillet of beef, and serve something else. 

This picture is from one of those dinner parties. I served it with one of my favorite salads, asparagus with hearts of palm, grape tomatoes, and red onion slivers, which you would not find in Provence. If the picture looks familiar, that’s because you’ve seen the asparagus salad in a post last August. The recipe for the leg of lamb is below, but first I want to tell you about a festival held in Provence in late spring that celebrates the migrating of the sheep to the hills to escape the summer heat.

Sheep are raised all through Provence and the migration is an ancient tradition in the area. In order to get them to the mountains, the sheep are herded through the winding streets of the villages. It’s celebrated with a festival known as the Fete de Transhumance, or the running of the sheep. In Saint-Remy Transhumance draws huge crowds of tourists on busses, jet-setters and locals, as you can see in this video from Monty and Marsha. They did a great job of videoing the festival, so be sure to click over and watch. You’ll feel like you’re right there, standing on the edge of the sidewalk, as hundreds of sheep run through the streets. 

Our stay ended two weeks before Transhumance in Saint-Remy, but fortunately we were able to find one being held earlier in Senas.  We hopped in our car and headed east out of Saint-Remy on the D99, a lovely plane tree lined highway in search of Senas.

Senas is a very small farming community, not the tourist town Saint-Remy is and you are unlikely to find it in travel guides. There won’t be any tour busses at this Transhumance and there won’t be any English spoken here. We will be experiencing the festival in rural France with the locals. We arrived early and strolled around the village waiting for the festival to begin and watched children riding horses in the streets, and a farrier making horse shoes. A few people came out of the boulangerie carrying baguettes, but there wasn’t a lot of activity for a Saturday morning. Around eleven we stopped at small café and Meakin ordered une petite biere, a small beer, for both of us. When the waitress replied, “Pression?” we shrugged our shoulders, not knowing what she meant. This is where charades comes in handy. She took her hand and pulled down and repeated pression. Ah, she meant draft beer. “Oui Madame, je voudrais pression,” Meakin said.

The mayor gave a speech before the festival. We caught only a few words that we recognized now and then, but we politely smiled and applauded when others around us did. Afterwards we stood with the other onlookers on the edge of the sidewalk of the narrow winding street waiting and anticipating the arrival of the sheep. Finally someone in the crowd yelled, “Something, something, something les moutons,” in rapid French that we assumed was “here come the sheep.” Seemingly out of nowhere, a large herd of sheep and a few brown long horn goats began racing through the streets. These pictures are from our trip a couple of years ago.

Notice below that only one shepherd and his dog control the entire flock. A young curious lamb stopped briefly near us and tried to eat a flower from an urn, but he was quickly corralled by the dog and rejoined the pack. No misbehaving allowed here.

We never knew who the people in the carriages were. To experience watching this ancient tradition with the locals in a tiny village in Provence was a fantastic experience and one we certainly won’t forget. 

Now, back to the leg of lamb. My favorite recipe for leg of lamb is from Patricia Well’s Bistro Cooking. The lamb is roasted on an oven rack set above thinly sliced potatoes, onions and tomatoes. The lamb’s juices drip on the vegetables, flavoring them while they cook.

Patricia Wells uses a bone-in leg, but we used a boneless one. The butcher will do all of the boning work for you if you ask. I added rosemary because it goes so well with lamb and I also have it growing in my herb garden. Instead of chopping the garlic as the recipe calls for, I sliced it into very thin slivers. I’ve noticed that Mario Batali thinly slices his garlic and I’ve found it works well. 

If you like your lamb as rare as we do, I suggest that you slice the potatoes as thinly as possible or they tend to not be done when the lamb is. This has happened to me, so now I slice the potatoes with my mandoline, but a sharp knife will do the trick. If your oven has a built-in thermometer, be sure to use it so you don’t have to constantly check the lamb for doneness.  

Roasted Leg of Lamb with Rosemary

Adapted from Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells – serves 8 to 10

1 boneless leg of lamb, about 6 to 7 pounds

5 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced into very thin slivers

2 pounds of baking potatoes, peeled and very thinly sliced

5 medium tomatoes, thinly sliced

2 large yellow onions, thinly sliced

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 T chopped fresh thyme

2/3 cup dry white wine

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

Preheat the oven to 400F. Arrange the vegetables as follows: first a layer of the potatoes, then the onions, followed by the tomatoes. Season each layer with one third of the garlic and thyme plus some salt and pepper. Pour the wine over the vegetables, followed by the olive oil.

Trim the leg of lamb if it’s fatty. Season liberally with salt and pepper and sprinkle with the fresh chopped rosemary. Place a rack over the vegetables to hold the lamb. Roast, uncovered, for about an hour and fifteen minutes, turning the lamb every 15 minutes and basting it with some of the liquid underneath.  For rare to medium rare, remove the lamb from the oven when it reaches 125 degrees for rare and 130 for medium rare. Tent the lamb with foil and let it sit for 15 to 20 minutes to rest. Slice and serve alongside the vegetables.

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This post is linked to Oh the Places I've Been hosted by the Tablescaper. Have a nice weekend everyone.