Lamb shank pie with red wine & rosemary recipe

This lamb shank pie with red wine & rosemary is the best lamb pie and feeds four people generously. I took my favourite lamb shank recipe and slowly braised the shanks in red wine, rosemary & bay until they were fall-off-the-bone delicious. I draped a sheet of buttery puff pastry over it all and turned it into a showstopping pie.

You can keep the shank bones in to serve as pie birds and give your pie an impressive effect, or simply shred the meat into the sauce and do a more classic pie topping or pastry lattice. These could also easily be turned into individual pies with the shank bone protruding out. Just divide the meat and sauce evenly between 4 pie dishes. This is the perfect dish for Easter feasting.

I developed this recipe for a project for Kanonkop to pair with their Kadette Cabernet Sauvignon and I styled it two ways.

*Cooks notes – this recipe takes a bit of effort and it’s well worth marinating the meat overnight. The flavours really permeate. Once the shanks are in the oven, they cook themselves so there is a lot of hands-off cooking time too. This dish is guaranteed to impress anyone you serve it to and is the only thing you should be making this Easter.

Recipe serves 4

Ingredients

4 lamb shanks – approx. 1.2 – 1.6kg
6 cloves garlic crushed
4 x sprigs of rosemary approx. 10 - 15cm long
4 – 6 fresh bay leaves
olive oil
2 Tbsp butter
1 large brown onion chopped
2 medium carrots chopped
2 medium celery stalks trimmed and chopped
4 Tbsp tomato paste aprox 100gms
1 cup 250ml red wine
1 cup 250ml beef stock
1 tin chopped peeled tomatoes
1 ½ Tbsp finely chopped parsley about 15gms
1 Tbs sugar

Instructions

You can either marinate the lamb shanks in the garlic, rosemary, bay leaves and olive oil overnight or make this straight up. The flavour really penetrates the meat overnight, so this is the better option.
Rub the lamb shanks with olive oil and the crushed garlic and season well with salt and Pepper. Lay these on a small tray lined with half the rosemary and bay leaves. Top the meat with the remaining rosemary and bay leaves, cover tightly with cling film and leave them in the fridge overnight. When you are ready to cook, scrape all the herbs and garlic off the shanks.
Heat a splash of olive oil in a large nonstick frying pan and brown the shanks on all sides. Once brown, remove the shanks and set them aside in a dish.
In a large ovenproof cast-iron casserole dish with a lid, heat another splash of olive oil and the butter, and sauté the onion, carrots, celery until softened. About 5 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F
Add the tomato paste to the mix and cook for around 10 minutes over low heat until the tomato paste darkens in colour and develops flavour. When it has darkened and is starting to stick, deglaze the dish with the wine and allow this to cook off scraping any bits off the bottom.
Add the garlic (either scraped off the overnight marinade or what you have crushed), the bay leaves and the rosemary and cook for about a minute.
Add the stock and tin of tomatoes to the pan along with the 4 reserved lamb shanks & their juices. Add the chopped parsley and bring to a simmer on the stovetop (about 10 – 15 minutes).
Put the casserole into the oven and cook for 2 hours.
Remove from the oven and carefully remove the lamb shanks setting them aside. Allow the sauce to settle for about 5 minutes. Place a sheet of kitchen paper over the fatty top layer of the sauce and allow the fat to be absorbed briefly then remove.
Repeat this step 3 more times in order to remove the fat from the sauce.
Return the casserole to the heat on the stove top and remove all the rosemary stalks and bay leaves, stir to heat through. Now either shred the meat off all or some of the lamb shanks (at least one) and add this to the sauce, stirring through.
Decant the meat and sauce into an appropriate high-sided pie dish and position the remaining lamb shanks if still intact. The meat will be falling off the bone here so be careful.
Dust a surface generously with flour and place the sheet of puff pastry. Dust the top with flour and gently roll out to widen if necessary (this will depend on the size of your pie dish). Gently place the pastry over the pie filling – and where necessary cut a slit in the pastry to accommodate the lamb shank bone protruding out. Scrimp the edges and bake for 20 – 30 minutes until golden brown.
Serve with mashed potato (or any potato dish you prefer) and a side or two of vegetables. I love steamed green beans with this lamb shank pie.