WINTER'S LAST STAND

Spring has definitely sprung here in Sydney. But the nights are still cold, and some winter classics are still on the menu, for, oh, another week at least.

I don’t cook lamb shanks often, partly because I’ve never been able to settle on a favourite version, and because my previous oven used to have a hard time cooking anything to falling off the bone without incinerating it.

But all is about to change, because I have fallen in love with Guy Mirabella’s new cookbook Hungry, and in particular his knockout lamb shanks with muscatel grapes and tomatoes.

I’ve adapted it to a weeknight version, because my butcher rebuffed me when I asked for the shanks to be frenched. “What a waste of good meat,” he cried, and threw them into a bag before I could mount a case for the aesthetics of Tao. Hence, dear readers, this is the caveman version, easy to pick up, cutlery be damned.

Lamb Shanks with Tomatoes and Pine Nuts

Adapted from Guy Mirabella’s Hungry

Serves 4-6

6 lamb shanks, french trimmed

zest and juice of 1 lemon

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup olive oil

4 rosemary sprigs, leaves picked

6 garlic cloves

100g butter, chopped and softened

24 cherry tomatoes, vine ripened

1 cup dry white wine

1 tbsp Marsala

1 handful of rosemary sprigs, extra

1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted

Side

4 bunches of broccolini

2 cloves garlic, finely sliced

1 small red chilli, deseeded and chopped

zest and juice of 1 lemon 

Heat oven to 200C. 

Wash the lamb shanks and pat dry with paper towel. Rub the lemon zest and juice into the shanks and season with salt and pepper.

Pour the oil into a large, deep roasting tray, place the shanks on top and scatter on the rosemary, garlic, the butter and tomatoes and shake. Pour in the wine and the Marsala and cover with foil. Roast for 40 minutes and then remove from the oven. Turn the shanks and baste with the pan juices, cover and return to the oven for 40 minutes. Baste with the pan juices again and sprinkle on the extra rosemary sprigs. Roast uncovered for an hour, or until the meat pulls away from the bone.

Transfer the shanks, garlic, tomato and rosemary to a serving platter and cover with foil.

Scrape the residue from the sides and bottom of the roasting pan, and place the pan over high heat for 5 minutes to simmer the sauce until it has thickened slightly. 

Pour the sauce over the shanks and serve, garnished with the rosemary sprigs, toasted pine nuts and if you feel like it, extra lemon wedges.

Serve with blanched broccolini tossed in garlic, lemon juice and zest, and chilli. Couscous is also great for sopping up the juices.

Bon appetit.

NOW AND THEN

I made Melting Moments last weekend. If you don’t know what they are, they’re a butter kiss – or kiss of death – in a biscuit, stuck together with lemon butter cream. In this case, though, I used peppermint spiked pink icing, because it’s the way I used to make them as a teenager, bored in the suburbs, just wanting to grow up quickly, please...

To pass the time I taught myself to bake. I made these a lot, along with anything deliberately fanciful like marble cake, and coconut ice, and toffee... it was an area of the kitchen I could own while my mum made all the grown-up things like breakfast, lunch, dinner, round the clock, day in, day out.

Old enough to learn to cook, and try on one of the aprons we were implicitly told were the uniform of womanhood. Young enough to turn up my nose at lemon cream and choose peppermint instead. You’re in luck. In the old days I used green food colouring for the icing. 

Melting Moments

Makes 15 biscuits

250g butter

1/3 cup icing sugar

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1/2 cup cornflour

Icing

60g butter

1/2 cup icing sugar

1/4 tsp peppermint flavouring, or to taste

1-2 drops of red food colouring

Heat oven to 180C. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add sifted flours, mix well. Roll into balls the size of 20 cent pieces, place on a greased biscuit tray, and press with a fork. Bake for 12-16 minutes or until golden. Cool on a wire rack, and then sandwich with peppermint icing.

Icing: Beat butter until smooth, and gradually add sifted icing sugar, beat until mixture is light and creamy. Add peppermint flavouring and food colouring.

At some point baking got replaced by things like boys and beaches, P plates, parties and all the tomorrows my girlfriends and I spent plotting together... Then the world, and all there was to conquer. And suddenly it’s 25 years since I last made a batch of these.

I went to an all-girl’s school that told us we could be anything. We were kind of ladylike in our pleated skirts, but really we were warriors with our bow and arrows hidden in our hockey bag. Our female teachers, however, forgot the qualifier: yes, you can do anything, but only within reason because you can’t do it all at once.   

Being in touch with those old school friends over these years – many of them mothers now – some are rueful, some grateful that we were never told then we couldn’t do it all. We didn’t even know what that meant, but in our neck of the woods it has come to look like the career, or family, or the freedom to have a room of one’s own. Hardly a new discovery, but only because it’s turned out to be so common, and suddenly we understand our mothers more than we ever anticipated when we were slamming the door in their faces.   

Meeting up with the amazing women I once knew as girls at our 20 year reunion last year, that fierce determination looks more like stamina choreographed into an intricate ballet of grace. Most of us have been lucky, no matter the road. Not just because in Australia being a girl does not make you a second class citizen, but also because of the gift of education and self belief we were given as girls: You can do anything. You can be anything. That is our bow and arrow.

Not so for all girls. Check out this, I Am A Girl, and pass it on.

And to close, a taste of summer, just around the corner. 

Prawn Salad with Omelette, Peanuts and Honey Basil Dressing

 Angasi in Binalong Bay, Tasmania

Serves 6

3 eggs

2 tbsp pouring cream

1 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped

1/4 cup peanut oil

30 green prawns, peeled, deveined with tails intact

2 cups mixed baby salad leaves

3/4 cup roasted (unsalted) peanuts

Honey basil dressing

1 1/2 cups basil leaves

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

1/3 cup olive oil

Place eggs, cream, and parsley in a bowl, season with sea salt and black pepper and whisk to combine. Heat 1 tbsp of peanut oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat and pour in the egg mixture, ensuring it coats the entire base of the pan. Cook for 4-5 minutes or until the underside of the omelette is golden and the egg is set. Remove from the pan and drain on paper towel. Roll up and slice into thin strips.

For the dressing combine the honey, vinegar and oil. Stir until the honey is dissolved, and then add 1 cup of basil leaves, finely sliced. Season and set aside.

Heat the remaining oil in a large fry pan over medium high heat. Cook the prawns in 2 batches, stirring until just cooked through.

In a large bowl combine salad leaves, nuts, omelette, prawns and 1/2 cup basil leaves. Toss with the dressing and serve immediately.