Fall-off-the-bone-tender, succulent lamb shanks, served on a bed of fluffy mustard mashed potatoes and smothered in delicious minted lamb gravy. Make it in a pressure cooker and have dinner on the table in less than an hour!
Quick Links
- Steps – step by step guide to cooking lamb shanks in a presure cooker
- Make the minted gravy
- Make the mash – best ever mustard mash
- Equipment – equipment you will need
- Recipe – Lamb Shanks with Minted Gravy
- Related Recipes – other recipes you may enjoy
Lamb shanks with minted gravy
A Lamb shank, properly cooked, is one of the most tender, flavoursome meals you can eat. It is quite a tough cut of meat though – so it benefits from a long slow cooking time. But at the end of a long day, the last thing you want to do is spend 3 or 4 hours waiting for supper to cook. This is where a pressure cooker comes in.
With a pressure cooker you can have succulent, fork-tender, fall-apart lamb shanks on the table in under an hour. Pair these with a pile of mustard mash, smother in minted gravy and you have a meal fit for a king.
This is an incredibly easy meal to whip together. Pop the lamb into a pressure cooker, add a few simple ingredients and leave alone for 40 minutes. As it cooks, it forms the most mouthwateringly delicious gravy. All you have to do is thicken it and serve.
You can’t really go wrong with cooking a lamb shank. If you accidentally overcook it, the worst that will happen is that the meat will fall off the bone, and you’ll be left with a lamb stew instead of a lamb shank!!!
Steps
Uncooked lamb shanks -
Lamb shanks in the pressure cooker -
Lamb shanks being browned
Ingredients
You will need:
- 1 lamb shank and 1 coarsely chopped onion per person.
- 1/4 head finely shredded white cabbage – about 1 cup
- Salt
- Olive oil (for browning the lamb shanks)
- About 3 tablespoons of good quality shop-bought mint sauce
- 2 tablespoons cornflour (for thickening)
Don’t be surprised by the short list of ingredients. Trust me, this is all you need to make the most delicious lamb shanks with minted gravy. Read on for more details.
Rub each lamb shank with salt and and then brown them in a little olive oil. You need to get the shanks really brown so take your time over this. The browner they are, the more flavour they will eventually have.
My pressure cooker has a browning function so I just use that, but you could brown then in a large frying pan on the stove top if necessary. To be honest, if you are cooking more than 2 lamb shanks it will be faster to brown them in a large frying pan – that way you can do them all together. As you will see from the photo above there is really only room to do 2 at a time in the pressure cooker.
Add the stock and the vegetables
Once the shanks are nice and brown, add 1/2 cup lamb or vegetable stock (use a stock cube if necessary) to the pressure cooker and tip in the chopped onions and shredded cabbage.
Onions and cabbage contain a lot of moisture, and when you cook then in the pressure cooker with the meat, they cook away to almost nothing leaving you with the most delicious gravy. For this reason you only need a small amount of stock to start off the cooking process. You will be amazed at the amount of liquid that is in the pressure cooker at the end of the cooking time.
If you really don’t like cabbage, you can leave it out but you must replace it with 1 cup of vegetable or lamb stock to replace the moisture that comes from the cabbage.
Set the pressure cooker
I use the Stew function on my pressure cooker, because that is the highest setting. If you don’t have a stew function button, just set your pressure cooker to the highest setting.
Cook for 30 minutes, then release the pressure. The lamb should be almost falling off the bone. If it is not quite done then give it a few minutes longer. Timing depends entirely on the size of your lamb shanks, larger ones will take more time to cook.
Make the minted gravy
Once the lamb shanks are cooked, remove them from the pressure cooker and keep warm.
Pour the juices (and onion and cabbage) into a saucepan over a low heat. The cabbage will have cooked away so much that it will resemble thin translucent onions.
Mix 2 tablespoons of cornflour with a little water and drizzle it slowly into the sauce, stirring all the time. Stir until the sauce boils and thickens, then stir in 3 Tablespoons mint sauce.
Tip – don’t add all of the cornflour mixture at once – drizzle it in slowly. You may find you don’t need all of it. On the other hand, if the gravy doesn’t thicken sufficiently you may need to use a little more cornflour and water mixture.
Make the mustard mash
While the meat is in the pressure cooker, boil the potatoes in a saucepan of boiling water with 1 teaspoon of salt until they are soft enough to mash.
Drain well
Add 2 tablespoons butter, 100 ml cream and 2 tablespoons Dijon or wholegrain mustard (depending on your taste).
Mash well until there are no lumps remaining.
To Serve
Place a pile of mashed potato into the centre of a plate and position a lamb shank on top. Add your choice of vegetable on the side (broccolli and brussel sprouts go well with this). Pour over the minted gravy and enjoy.
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Equipment
You will need either a pressure cooker to make this dish.
I use the Pressure King pressure cooker and find it works really well.
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Recipe – Lamb Shanks with Minted Gravy
Lamb Shanks with Minted Gravy
Ingredients
Lamb
- 2 large Lamb shanks
- 2 large Onions chopped
- 1 cup White Cabbage shredded
- ½ cup Lamb or Vegetable Stock
- 3 Tablespoons Mint Sauce
- 2 Tablespoons Cornflour mixed with a little water to form a paste
- Salt to taste
Potatoes
- 4 medium Potatoes
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 2 Tablespoons Butter
- 100 ml Cream
- 2 Tablespoons Dijon or Wholegrain Mustard depending on your taste
Instructions
Lamb Shanks
- Rub the lamb shanks with salt
- Set the pressure cooker to 'Browning' function and fry the lamb shanks until they are nicely browned all over.
- Add ½ cup stock and the chopped onions
- Add the shredded cabbage
- Set the pressure cooker to its highest setting and cook the lamb shanks for 30 minutes.
- Release the pressure and test the lamb for 'doneness'. It should be almost falling off the bone. If it is not quite there, give it another 10 minutes.
- Remove the lamb from the pressure cooker and set aside to keep warm
Minted Gravy
- Pour the contents of the pressure cooker into a saucepan over a low heat. There should be at least 2 cups of liquid.
- Mix 2 Tablespoons of cornflour into a little water to form a slurry, drizzle it into the sauce and stir until the sauce boils and thickens
- Stir in 3 Tablespoons mint sauce
Mustard Mashed Potatoes
- While the lamb is cooking, boil the potatoes in salted water until soft enough to mash
- Drain in a colendar
- Add the butter, cream and mustard and mash well until there are no lumps remaining.
Notes
The calorie count has been calculated using an on-line calculator and is provided for information purposes only. If the calorie count is important to you, you should consider calculating it yourself, using your preferred tool.
If you made this recipe and enjoyed it, please rate it in the comments below. I’d love to know how it went.
Related Recipes
Why not brows all my supper recipes. Or check out some of my other lamb recipes below.
Tender and succulent – the perfect roast leg of lamb – complete with a timing guide so you can cook your lamb any way you want it.
Easy lamb curry – the tastiest lamb curry ever. It’s packed with spices for great flavour and enough chilli to give it heat without too much of a bite
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