MAIN COURSE

Paul H. Huber, E & J Gallo Winery, Fresno

Harry and Ietje Orr have been members of the Bethel Heights Cellar Club since 2006. World travelers, they have great appreciation for food and wine. When they migrated to California from Tennessee and the Carolinas in 1966, they were immediately enchanted with northwest cuisine and the great wines of California. One cookbook Ietje bought right after moving to California is Adventures in Wine Cookery, with recipes submitted by California Winemakers, and published by the California Wine Advisory Board in 1965. Ietje shares her “no fail” favorite for lamb shanks from this cookbook.

Serves four to six

• 4 lamb shanks
• 1 ts dill
• 1/2 ts oregano
• 1 large clove garlic
• 1 large onion, thinly sliced
• 1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (Ietje suggests less…3 ts)
• *1 cup white wine
• 1 1/2 ts salt
• Pepper to taste

Place shanks in roaster or dutch oven..

Add remaining ingredients. Cover roaster and cook 3 hours in moderately slow oven (300 degrees). If shanks are large, raise temperature to 325-350. At this point, Ietje suggests cooling and then chilling the meat and broth 8 hours or overnight, either separately or together, covered. This allows easy removal of the cap of fat that will congeal on top. Bring meat and broth back to room temperature. Uncover, and continue cooking for another 45 minutes until meat is very tender. Remove meat and keep warm. Reduce sauce to half over high heat. Pour sauce over meat and serve.

RECOMMENDED PAIRING

A Reserve Pinot, such as the Casteel Reserve or Southeast Block.

* Marilyn’s pondering… I am very tempted to suggest instead of white wine, use Pinot noir. All the other ingredients marry very well with Pinot, and it seems, well, more “Oregon”. Ietje said she’d be just fine with my suggestion, so let the experimentation begin!