The Eunice Power Column

Slow cooked Lamb Shanks in Rioja with pearl barley and wild garlic oil

This is a wonderful way to cook lamb, much better cooked the day before allowing the wonderful flavours to develop overnight. The wild garlic oil is a great early summer addition to any dish – except maybe pudding!!

Ingredients

1 tbsp oil
4 lamb shanks, trimmed
2 carrots peeled and cut in half
1 teasp peppercorns
2 big onions, peeled and diced
2-3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed lightly
Bunch fresh thyme
Small bunch fresh rosemary
1 Bottle of Rioja
6-10 tbsp Apple jelly, to taste

Pre heat the oven to 160C

Heat the oil in a heatproof casserole over a high heat and brown the lamb shanks all over, until evenly coloured.

Add the carrot, onion, peppercorns garlic and herbs

Pour over wine to cover the meat of the shanks.

Place the casserole, covered with a lid, into the oven and cook for 2-2 ½ hours, or until the meat is tender.

Remove casserole from the oven. Remove the shanks from the cooking liquid and place in a roasting dish. Spoon over a couple of ladles of the cooking liquid to keep shanks moist.

Pass the remaining liquid though a sieve, removing the herbs and vegetables. Heat the cooking liquid until boiling, then boil until the volume has reduced by half. Stir in the apple jelly until melted.

Pearl Barley with roast parsnip and butternut squash

250g Pearl Barley
350g Butternut squash, peeled and cut into chunks
150g Parsnip
1 Table spoon of olive oil
Wild garlic oil
Salt and Pepper

Pre heat the oven to 190C

Toss the diced parsnip and squash in a bowl with some olive oil, season with salt pepper and put on a roasting tray , roast for 20 minutes or so until tender.

Cook the pearl barley in some water until tender. Strain off the water and stir in the roast vegetables, along with a tablespoon or two of wild garlic oil and season as necessary.

For the Wild Garlic Oil:

100g/ 4oz wild garlic leaves
100ml/ 4 fl oz olive oil
100ml / 4 fl oz sunflower oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper.

First, make the Wild Garlic Oil – simply blitz all the listed ingredients together; taste for seasoning and then store in the fridge, in a bottle or screw-top jar, until required.

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More recipes from Eunice Power are available on www.eunicepower.com

Room reservations can be made on www.powersfield.com - hope to see you in Dungarvan during the year.

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Eunice Power is a professional chef with over twenty years experience in the hospitality business. She runs Powersfield House in Dungarvan County Waterford, which is our B&B of the Year for 2012 and also the winner of the Best B&B Breakfast. Her philosophy is to use fresh, seasonal, locally produced food, sourced organically where possible. 

Eunice has a successful outside catering company, writes about food (she is the author of an excellent cookery book written for local company Waterford Stanley) and teaches at Paul Flynn’s Tannery Cooking School, where her enthusiasm and zest for a life filled with good food are given free rein."