Tim McKirdy: Sother.

Sother Teague: Tim.

TM: The ol’ Lamb Shanks for you.

ST: Let's go. I love Lamb Shanks. And frankly, here we are, it's O-N-D, October, November, December. This is the cuisine I want to eat.

TM: Comforting.

ST: Comforting, rich, unctuous.

TM: Flavorsome.

ST: Filling, hearty, super flavorful.

TM: May I also add to that, when we're looking at Lamb Shanks specifically too, just cool, right? Like a primal...

ST: Oh yeah, because it's a big chunk of meat with a big bone right in the middle.

TM: Flintstones.

ST: Flintstone looking, sure. I'm into it. I love Lamb Shanks. My partner Natalie is a dual citizen of Australia. She loves lamb, in fact, and I'll mention it just for her. Natalie, I know you're not even listening. She doesn't listen to the show anymore. She hears enough of my voice. In fact, it was the very first dish I ever cooked for Natalie when we started dating. I cooked her Lamb Shanks.

TM: Oh wow. So a strong personal association there.

ST: Yes, I have a strong personal association with that specific evening of cooking it, but I've cooked Lamb Shanks at home numerous times, and I've definitely worked in places where we cook Lamb Shanks on the menu as well.

TM: I think for us as well, it was important for us to explore other ways to cover lamb, because in our recent Cottage Pie we realized that we just haven't covered lamb enough.

ST: Right. Well, we did.

TM: Or Shepherd's Pie, sorry. We did.

ST: That was what I was about to say.

TM: Not Cottage Pie. Oh, can of worms.

ST: You're gonna get us in trouble. The internet's gonna come down on us for that. Somebody's gonna cut that out and use it against you in the future. We did Shepherd's Pie, we're doing Lamb Shanks today, and we also did Birria, where we talked about goat. We understood that most people maybe can't get a hold of it, or it's not as readily available. But I think we need to, maybe we should dial our focus in a little bit, or listen to our audience and see what they want us to do. But I think we should get off of the standards and get into a few more lesser-used cuts.

TM: The interesting thing about today's topic is that it's not one codified dish. It's a cut that we're exploring.

ST: Right.

TM: But I would argue that, more than so many other cuts, you see that on a menu and you're just like, "I don't care what's coming with it, I'm getting it." You know what I mean? The lamb shank does all the heavy lifting for whatever else is in the dish. And there's amazing ways to prepare it. So I think we get a pass there. And also, we get to choose.

ST: It's our show. We do what we want.

TM: What about professionally? I'm sure this must have been something you've cooked. It's definitely a classic ingredient of classical cooking.

ST: Yeah, we did plenty of Lamb Shanks. It's in the same vein, obviously, as Osso Buco, and I worked at an Italian place of some acclaim when I was in North Carolina, so we would do Lamb Shanks from time to time there as well. It's a dish that's just been around.

TM: This is certainly one that's cropped up on so many different menus for me. I think the serving style depended on the cut of lamb shank, whether you're getting it from the fore quarter, the fore shank, sorry, or the hind shank, and the differences in size there. Very much one during holiday season banqueting. Great dish for that, because it's already braised, it's already cooked, it just needs reheating. But this always found its way onto different main courses as well. When I worked at the bistro, picked off the bone and then maybe rolled into a ball using the crépinette.

ST: Oh, like caul fat.

TM: Caul fat. And it would just show up in various ways. It was a component as much as it ever was the star of the show. But yeah, banqueting season. If I were to ask you what is the cuisine that you associate it most with, what would you say?

ST: Huh. I don't know, because it can take on any cuisine, really, and we're gonna talk about that a little deeper in the show. But I think for me, I associate it with Italian.

TM: Oh, really?

ST: Because professionally, that's where I cooked it. So we treated it much like Osso Buco, often served over polenta, often with a gremolata. So for me it has that Italian vibe, even though, even when I say it out loud, it doesn't seem to make sense. But again, it's a very common technique applied to this particular cut. It's all about the cut. You can do what you want with it.

TM: I would say that in my mind it occupies, if you imagine a curve going from Lebanon down through what would have been Persia and then crossing over into North Africa. So Moroccan, Algerian, Lebanese, Mediterranean.

ST: Sure. Let's get some couscous, let's throw it, let's get some dates and some pomegranate seeds. I can totally vibe with that, but that was never my professional experience with it. And even my home experience is more like, when I made it for Natalie that very first time, I made some delicious mashed potatoes and a rosemary lamb braise. That sort of angle.

TM: And I think lamb really does lead you, right? You said dates, pomegranate molasses, things like that. That's one of its lanes. The other one, very classically, like you said, rosemary, probably red wine. And then the other one for me, I'm leaning more Moroccan, a tagine, moussaka.

ST: Sure. Some couscous.

TM: Gonna love that. We need to get a tagine going on here soon. That is one of my all-time favorite dishes to cook as well. I love tagine.

ST: All right, well, mark it down.

TM: Hold us accountable. What's your elevator pitch for this?

ST: The elevator pitch, I say: braised Lamb Shanks are bone-in portions of the lamb's lower leg, browned and then cooked slowly in a modest amount of flavorful liquid. Because we're not submerging and poaching. We wanna have it be braised. I always call it like the icebergs: there needs to be bits that are sticking up out of the liquid. So, in a modest amount of flavorful liquid until the connective tissue softens into gelatin and the meat becomes fork tender. But, and we've talked about this on other dishes as well, I don't want it to be, quote unquote, "fall off the bone." It should maintain its shape enough that I can lift the bone up and move it to a plate comfortably without it just literally crumbling apart.

TM: Falling apart.

ST: Because once you get to that point, and I think people have been duped into believing that that is a mark of excellence, it's not. It's in fact kind of a mark of you've gone off the rails. Because once meat is fall off the bone, it's no longer moist, right? It becomes dry and stringy. So we want it to be cooked to the point where the collagen is broken down and made it really unctuous, and you can easily cut through it with your fork, but I don't want it to be fall off the bone. So I kind of got off my elevator pitch, but that's the pitch.

TM: Fantastic. Obviously, this being a cut and not a dish, our origins are going to look slightly different here today. I just have a few different notable things, cuisines and occasions and dates and times and places, for us to briefly explore. So, I mentioned Persia before. Mahiche is the Persian word for shank, and it names the dish: a lamb shank braised gently on the stove with turmeric, cinnamon, tomato and saffron.

ST: Sounds delicious.

TM: That being the home of saffron, as we've shown in our bonus episode. It keeps coming up for some reason on a Sauced infographic on the Instagram there, the price of saffron. Its partner, the side thing that you have with it, is called baghali polo. I've never had that before. Rice with dill and fava beans. Together they are baghali polo ba mahiche. According to the food magazine Saveur, baghali polo is commonly served alongside braised lamb or whole fish for Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on the first day of spring.

ST: Sounds delicious. I love dill. I think we overlook dill a lot. We love our dill pickles, but I feel like we run out of gas on dill right about there, and I don't know why. Dill is so refreshing. What a great herb.

TM: Unique identity, very distinct, adds a lot of flavor. Love it. So this, a celebration dish, as is so often the case with the things that we cover here, even if they are long braises, because you're building up, you're putting that time into it. The shank on the Seder plate. Passover Seder.

ST: Oh, that's right. I attended my first Seder this past year.

TM: Was there a shank?

ST: There was.

TM: The ritual meal that opens the Jewish holiday. The plate of symbolic foods includes a roasted bone called the zeroa, which is Hebrew for "arm." Traditionally, it's a lamb shank bone. It stands for the Passover lamb sacrificed on the eve of the Exodus from Egypt and later offered every year at the temple in Jerusalem. Its name points to Exodus 6:6, "I will redeem you with an outstretched arm." It is the only item on the Seder plate that has no active role, or is not eaten.

ST: Right, it's just the bone.

TM: Many families use a roasted chicken neck instead these days, so as not to appear to make the sacrifice without being at the temple, or without the temple. And then you could say British interpretations, classic British cooking, roasts, pot roast, things like that. You could say French techniques, red wine braises. This is going to be good for all of them. What I was not familiar with was the standing of lamb shank here in New York, and one chef in particular.

ST: Who's that?

TM: Tom Valenti. This was news to me as well. I see that on your face here. The shank's jump from cheap cut to restaurant centerpiece runs through Tom Valenti at Alison on Dominick Street, a restaurant in Manhattan, SoHo, in the late 1980s and early '90s. He supposedly, or quote unquote, made his reputation with his, quote, "legendary lamb shanks." And those are the words of the venerable drinking magazine Wine Spectator.

ST: All right.

TM: Food & Wine magazine named him one of the Best New Chefs in 1990.

ST: Just for his lamb shank? Or that's where he planted his flag, at least.

TM: In his own words: "I became famous for braised lamb shank. I'm still known for it." When he moved to his next restaurant, Butterfield 81, never heard of that one, the shank was praised again by the New York Times restaurant critic Ruth Reichl.

ST: Reichl.

TM: Reichl. See it written down, very seldom do I say it out loud. As well as New York magazine's longtime critic Gael Greene. His take on the appeal: "There's something very primal about shanks." We're agreeing on that one, Tom. And he says it is that falling-off-the-bone thing. Food & Wine credits him with making tougher cuts like lamb shank and short ribs fine dining mainstays. He sadly died earlier this year, on April 1st, 2026. The New York Times obituary ran the headline "Tom Valenti, Who Made Lamb Shanks a Showstopper, Dies at 67."

ST: Hmm. That is young. Wow.

TM: I just had no idea that any single individual here was known for one cut of meat, or one preparation of it.

ST: No. I mean, not only here, but here specifically in New York, where we live, because that's what I looked for. I was like, "Who is the champion of lamb shank?" That didn't pop up at all for me. That's crazy. What did he say? Primal. Yeah, I think that's one of the selling points of making the dish for a group, right? Everyone's gonna get their own portion. That bone-in looks generous and really dramatic when it comes out on the plate. And again, I don't think our attempts are to make the dishes that we discuss here on Sauced the inexpensive cuts, but I do think that it can be dramatic and impressive, and they're relatively inexpensive.

TM: Even though there's only one... So you get two of the fore shanks...

ST: Are you about to say there's only four legs on a lamb? Yeah, you're right.

TM: ...but you get two of the hind shanks. No, but the hind shank is not...

ST: They're a little bigger.

TM: They're bigger, and they're not the full, they have stuff taken off them. And just the reputation, haven't they become more expensive? I thought shanks are expensive now.

ST: I think if I'm gonna have you over to my house and the four of us are gonna have a ribeye, we're gonna spend more money. We're gonna spend less money on four Lamb Shanks, for sure. Again, that first time I cooked for her, I wasn't laying down the money.

TM: I'll say this, though. When it comes to primal eating and cooking, nine times out of ten, ten times out of ten, I'm going for the lamb shank over the tomahawk.

ST: Lamb shank over the tomahawk steak.

TM: Which is the other very primal-looking, Flintstone-y cut of meat. Completely different animals and cuts, but you know what I mean.

ST: And completely different style of eating.

TM: And I think that's what it is. I prefer that style of eating, the braised. Well, then that leads us to answer: where does this stand as a dish? Princes or paupers?

ST: I'm gonna rely on something we've said in the past, which is: princes spend money, paupers spend time. And we're talking about cooks, it's us. The cook with the time is spending the least money. And that's, again, relatively speaking, and granted, it's lamb, it's not chicken. Relatively speaking, this is a less expensive cut that's gonna take you more time than it takes money. So I think it leans towards pauper. But again, another dish that we've realized has made its way from maybe the servant's kitchen all the way up to the master's table, right? A dish that can easily be elevated. Like the restaurant that I worked at where we served Lamb Shanks, it wasn't cheap. But it was something we labored over. And by the way, labor, it took time. A lot of it's passive, but you had to pay attention.

TM: But I guess the only slight pushback I would have here is that, the baghali polo, your turmeric, cinnamon, saffron, the celebration aspect of it, kicking off spring. Now look, celebrations are for everyone, for sure. But there's an opulence to it. Maybe opulence isn't the right word, but there is an exotic nature to it. And I know a lot of editors hate that word, because one person's exotic is another person's normal. Fine. But you know what I mean here. This to me is like walking through a bazaar, a real bazaar of spices and whatnot. So a souk, maybe. I've never been. But yeah, I'll give you that one. It's an every-person's dish, and it requires a lot of time. It's a tougher cut of meat, but there are only four per lamb.

ST: Which, as you mentioned on a previous episode, we don't eat enough lamb. 1% of our diet, 1% of our meat intake in America, is lamb. Wow.

TM: So there we go.

ST: What's turtle? You ever have turtle stew?

TM: Turtle soup? No, never had it.

ST: Well, next time we're in New Orleans together, we will. It's delicious. We'll go over to Commander's and have it.

TM: Actually, that is a lie. I think I've had it. I've had it at Commander's, actually. That is a lie. But often my memories of what happened and took place in New Orleans are...

ST: You don't say. Foggy memories of New Orleans? Get out of here. That's nuts.

TM: You're a maverick. All right. So those have been the origins, the personal associations, the first section of our episode here today. We're going to take a break, and then we'll be back with the culinary luminaries.

TM: All right, Sother, we're back. Luminaries. Passing the baton to you.

ST: Okay, well, I'm gonna start with Julia, but I'm gonna start with an episode of the show Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs, back in 1992. She had a guest on whose name was Joachim Splichal. I think he was German. He was the owner of a place called Patina in Los Angeles at the time. And he did braised lamb shank and kind of introduced the American television cooking show consumer to what Lamb Shanks are in a fine dining context. And he talked over and over about how the sauce has to be super rich and delicious, how the meat has to be tender but, again, not fall apart, like we spoke of earlier, with a substantial grain accompaniment. He always served his with a risotto, but he made it from barley. And so that became the signature dish of that place, probably because of his appearance on that show, and then sort of, not solidified, but certainly put Lamb Shanks more into the eye of the consumer of America. Just that one... it's incredible, the impact that our two favorite luminaries have had on the culinary landscape here in America.

TM: Well, listen, at this time, television, how many channels did you have?

ST: Three. Three, maybe four.

TM: What other forms of getting someone's attention were there, right? There's probably tens of millions of people on any given day or airing of that show watching. That does make me wonder, though. Joachim, right, or whatever?

ST: Joachim, I think, yeah.

TM: Definitely sounds like a German, if not Austrian, name, right? Germanic language. I wonder what was going on in LA at that time, because then I was like, "Oh, wait, I wonder if he was friends with Wolfgang Puck." And who, Spago, right? Was Spago Wolfgang?

ST: Yeah, of course.

TM: I wonder whether there was a mini kind of, I don't know, Austrian, German...

ST: I mean, there always is, right? I can even recall the early days here in New York, when you'd go to Blue Ribbon and there'd be a booth over there, and there'd be Bobby Flay and Mario Batali and Susan Feniger just hanging out, right? It's just who you run with. And then, it's a great example, and we're getting a little off topic here, but it's a great example of: surround yourself with the people who you want to be like, right? If you're hanging out with your buddies and just playing video games and eating Doritos and drinking beers, then that's where you're going to go. But if you're hanging out with people who are getting stuff done, then you're going to get stuff done. And it's hard to look at your own circle. But when you look around and you see that there are these circles where people, like, "Man, they just all happened to go to the same high school and they all crushed it." Well, it's because they hung out with each other, right? And they made each other better. Like you and I do, Tim.

TM: I was going to say...

ST: We make each other better.

TM: I'm like, therefore, are you the person who's elevating the circle or bringing it down? I hope I'm helping elevate.

ST: I'm definitely the weight. I'm the weight in this scenario. I'm holding it back.

TM: But I love Doritos.

ST: Jacques Pépin doesn't say anything directly to braised Lamb Shanks, although he talks about braising all the time as a technique. He talks about what cooking vessels to use when braising meat. We want something heavy-bottomed, cast iron, enameled maybe. Tom Keller talks a lot about braising as a technique. Again, not specifically to Lamb Shanks, but of course it all matters: control over browning, slow cooking, finishing the sauce. And then it brings up the question to me. We often, I think, refer to braised dishes as quite rustic, right? That's the word we pitch around, rustic. But if the chef has to spend hours and exercise a real command of technique to make the dish, and to control the dish to get it perfect, what's rustic about that? You know what I mean?

TM: Well, this brings me back to the banquet setting, or dining and events, and Christmas and whatnot, those holiday parties and catering that you do, right? Or private dining rooms. Braising, we know, is optimal, because it's all cooked ahead of time, so you only have to reheat. A lot of braising cuts are hard to make look nice.

ST: To make look nice. Yeah, you're right.

TM: There's a similarity here to the beef cheek. There's only two of them per animal, and it's a tough cut. But you have to really kind of cut that and have a certain plating method in mind. A whole shank, it's up to you whether you find it attractive, but it visually has an impact and is cool.

ST: Sure. It's stunning, whether that's attractive or not. It's still stunning.

TM: It's stunning, yeah. It will stop you in your tracks, especially if you've never seen one before. So I think it makes a good candidate for that.

ST: I just think it's funny that we say rustic to mean, like, so casual, but it seems that the rustic dishes take the most energy and effort. Anyone can throw a steak on the grill and have it done in a matter of minutes and make it look elegant. But the rustic dish took me two days to make.

TM: And a lot of time to try and make look pretty on the plate.

ST: Right, because it's real brown and thick. And, okay, well, what do you got to work with here? Oh, gremolata. I like a gremolata. I like the green thing on top.

TM: Let's get some dried apricots, orange pop, couscous.

ST: Yeah, yeah.

TM: Sounds good to me.

ST: I mean, that's kind of all I've got from luminaries. No one really, other than that guy who kind of kicked it off for the television audience alongside of Julia. No one really has stepped forward, and I'm curious why not, to sort of take over and be the lamb shank guy, or girl. Someone should take up that mantle.

TM: Own it. I like it. All right, well, those have been the luminaries. Time for our second break of the day, and then we'll be back with the non-negotiables.

ST: Ooh, we're moving right along.

TM: All right, so here we go, the non-negotiables.

ST: For our braised Lamb Shanks. Yes, what's your first one? You want to go first?

TM: I can go first, and it'll be an answer with a question tied to it.

ST: I love it. That's how the conversation moves forward.

TM: A whole lamb shank on the bone. The question is: are we doing fore or hind?

ST: I like the fore.

TM: Smaller.

ST: A little smaller, more manageable serving size. The larger ones can be too big for one person but too small for two. And I think the real genius of doing Lamb Shanks for dinner is that it's kind of one per person. So I'm gonna go for the smaller one. But I'm always gonna cook extras, does that make sense? There's four people here, I'm probably gonna cook at least five. So they got a little bit of extra meat for everybody, if necessary.

TM: Let's talk about technical considerations briefly for that, because definitely not a cut that I think most people are dealing with on a regular basis. As I seem to recall, the fore shanks might require a little bit more trimming of fat and sinew, whereas the hinds were just kind of plug and play. What is the butchery work that you're doing, if any, on it?

ST: Pretty minimal. Because we're gonna brown this thing, so that's gonna render some of the fat, so we're not really worried too much about that. There's not a lot of discernible or contentious silver skin involved that you're gonna need to go get out of there, so I wouldn't think about that too much. If there's any excess flap of meat and/or flap of fat hanging there from the original butchery, trim that off. But not a lot, to be honest, on either the fore or the hind.

TM: I want to take it back to a recent episode for us. Pulled Pork.

ST: Pulled Pork.

TM: Does the bone add flavor?

ST: This case, I think, more so than the shoulder blade inside the pulled pork shoulder, because this bone still has a fair amount of marrow inside that we will be able to access at the end of the process here. And it'll also become part of the sauce too.

TM: Cook's Illustrated's science column...

ST: I love Cook's Illustrated. I used to have a subscription, I'm getting another one. Everyone's going back to analog, and I am too. You can't doom scroll a magazine. You get to the last page, it's over. But I'm gonna re-up my subscription to Cook's Illustrated.

TM: They say the bone doesn't dissolve, because bone can't dissolve. The fine minds over there at Cook's Illustrated. Smart. In a braise, the marrow melts, as we said, and the collagen around the bone breaks down into the liquid. So the bone flavors the sauce. It doesn't flavor the meat. So in this instance, as you said, we're right, right? Pulled Pork, hard to argue. We weren't cooking it in a sauce. Lamb shank, absolutely, we're braising it. And just to tie up that argument, AmazingRibs, just on the nature of bone-in or bone-out: they said that in dry cooking, on a grill or in the smoker, AmazingRibs, the barbecue site, says bones add no significant flavor. So for shanks, the bone earns its place in the sauce.

ST: But they're a good handle.

TM: Yeah. Talk about going back analog. What was your old Mark the Dark?

ST: Mark the Dark, on the dark side of the island. Okay, so it's definitely Lamb Shanks. We're gonna go with the fores because of the right size. But we're looking for that iconic look. We want the whole bone. I think we debate this in some of the different dishes that we braise, but this dish for sure, and many others as well, we gotta brown these guys. So that's my number two for non-negotiables. Step one, lamb shank. Step two, brown it. Get it pretty deeply brown.

TM: My next non-negotiable, it's a technique. It's braising. It's low, it's slow. It's covered to begin with, but not for the duration.

ST: Oh, you mean with a lid. Not with the liquid, though. The liquid doesn't submerge the meat.

TM: No, no. The liquid doesn't fully submerge the meat. But we're cooking for the most part, I would say, I don't know, we can debate, but we're cooking for a large period with the lid on. But we're going to finish it much like the tatemada, I think it was, of the Birria. The technique of lid off, and probably turning every 20 or 30 minutes, just to get a nice color. Because I'll say this too, kind of like we said for Bourguignon all the way back then, and beef cheeks, it takes a while to get a deep color on these shanks when you're searing before braising, and you will lose color during braising, depending on how much liquid you have too. So you want to bring some of that back in, and a little texture.

ST: We need to decide which direction are we going with this braised lamb shank before we can continue with the non-negotiables, I think.

TM: So I was like, how can we define that non-negotiable even if we haven't chosen our direction? The way I had this written down is: it's a braising liquid with something to say. So Tom Valenti, he used red and white wine and white wine vinegar and anchovies, which you'd like.

ST: Ooh, wow. I do.

TM: Worcestershire. Nigella Lawson, dates and pomegranate molasses, that we spoke about. And then there was just the saffron, the turmeric and whatnot in the Persian mahiche. So I'm just saying, a braising liquid with something to say, with an identity.

ST: Well, which identity do we wanna take up? You didn't even mention, we could do Greek. Tomato and oregano and garlic.

TM: Mmm, red wine.

ST: I'm leaning red wine, because that's just kind of what I'm craving. But even when you just said dates and pomegranate molasses, I was like, "Oh, that sounds good."

TM: Shall we do red wine, almost Bourguignon? Soaked our shanks?

ST: No.

TM: No? Okay. I've seen it done.

ST: We could, we could.

TM: I've seen it done. All right. Well, I guess the thing that we should decide before then, and it's been off the table for a little while recently: the booze. Let the alcohol be your guide. For the first time in your life.

ST: That's what it is. Pretty commonly how I get through life. You let your conscience be the guide; I'll let the alcohol. I mean, I think I do want a red wine braise. We don't have to soak it, like Coq au Vin, but let's do red wine. Let's do the sort of more Frenchy.

TM: So we're going to go with probably a beef stock. Lamb, if you have it, obviously.

ST: Who has lamb stock?

TM: Beef stock, red wine. We're going to get garlic in there, rosemary, bay leaf, peppercorns.

ST: Some mirepoix.

TM: Mirepoix. And you know what, as a little nod, add a little pomegranate molasses as well.

ST: Why not?

TM: It's going to work with all of those flavors.

ST: Oh, for sure. All right, so does that change? We just kind of listed everything. Does that add anything to the non-negotiable list?

TM: No, but I think it does merit a discussion on other booze directions we could go, this being a show about...

ST: Cooking with booze...

TM: And drinking with food. Red and white, splitting the difference, Tom Valenti. What else? For a braise, it's weird, the aromatic and the fortified wines that we like to reach for a lot, I'm never really braising in them.

ST: No. And then what about hard alcohol? I don't know that it's incredibly useful. We did it in Bourguignon in the very first episode back in January, where we put Cognac, or was it Armagnac? Anyway, into our Bourguignon. It was French brandy, for sure. Very French dish. But it was put in later, as you recall, and left in, right? We didn't really cook it out. And we just recently posted that infographic all about how alcohol does and does not cook out of food. I think people think that, "Oh, all the alcohol cooks out." No. In fact, in many cases almost none of it cooks out. You're left with 85% of your alcohol in the dish if you don't simmer it for at least five minutes, right? So yeah, the booze can stay in there. I don't know. If we're doing the Frenchy red wine direction, we could go in with some Armagnac or French brandy, or even an American brandy. An apple brandy gives some fruitiness. Calvados is still French.

TM: But I don't think we're looking at beer.

ST: No, because we did that in the Carbonnade episode.

TM: You know what? Let's go red wine.

ST: We're just going red wine.

TM: Let's go classic. It's just like a European interpretation of food, whatever European is, right?

ST: Since we're talking about some fruit, and you mentioned the pomegranate molasses, and you even mentioned dates, I could see, maybe not dates specifically, but how about we could throw in a few prunes into the braise, and then they would fall apart, basically, and we could make them into the sauce. It'd just add a fruity nature. Not a ton of them. Maybe two to three prunes per shank that's in the braise.

TM: So this does bring me to a non-negotiable regarding the sauce. This is a sauce that has to be strained and finished, because you're going to get so much fat coming off of that lamb. This is not something where you'll pull it out of the oven and serve. No, we're going to strain it off.

ST: Give me some sauce work at the end here.

TM: I think that is...

ST: That wraps us up.

TM: That wraps us up.

ST: For now.

TM: And we've pretty much covered all my other ingredients I had here too. Mirepoix: onion, carrot, celery. Tomato paste, obviously. We're just going to be on autopilot with that. Garlic, thyme, rosemary, bay. Oh, America's Test Kitchen went chicken stock, but I think we'll go with Better Than Bouillon beef.

ST: I love that stuff. It's so easy to use.

TM: And then anchovies, or...

ST: Well, maybe Worcestershire would be the better answer, but I could go for either. Just to bring some saltiness. It doesn't bring fishiness. I think people get nervous that it's gonna make things taste fishy. It's not. It's gonna bring some umami, some depth.

TM: I'll meet you halfway, and I'll do some fish sauce. We just got some great new Vietnamese fish sauce over here.

ST: At Sauced HQ. Well, I'll have to check it out.

TM: All right. Those are the non-negotiables and the negotiables.

ST: Kind of rattled right through them.

TM: Kind of just surprising ourselves here with the simplicity of the lack of, it's weird...

ST: Well, again, it's a dish that is simple, but the results are spectacular.

TM: But the broader our focus, the less there is, in a way, right? We've gone from Chicken Tikka Masala. It's a very simple, straightforward dish, but so much to talk about, but something pretty clear and codified. This, we're just like, a cut that's braised, and we're just plowing through it. Anyway, in a good way. Plowing like a shepherd or a farmer. Time for another break, Sother.

TM: All right, Sother, we're back. It's the preparation. Take it away. Lamb Shanks.

ST: So get your shanks laid out and pat them nice and dry with paper towels. If you've got the time, get them out and pat them dry, and then put them on a rack in your fridge overnight, or even for two nights, so they're super, really good and dry. This is just gonna help you brown them, right? If they're still moist and wet from being wet-packed or whatever from the butcher, they're just not gonna get as brown. We wanna get these guys really, really brown. Season them pretty generously with salt and a bit of black pepper, and then get them into whatever vessel it is you're gonna braise them in. One would be ideal, but if you need to do two different things, then do that. But something heavy-bottomed, possibly enameled, your biggest Dutch oven that can accommodate all of these things. So make sure you get the proper size. I don't advocate for flouring them. I don't think we need to flour them. We're gonna cook this long enough, and then we're gonna do some sauce work at the end. The flour is usually there just to help aid in the thickening of a sauce like this, but I don't think in this case we need it. We can do sauce work at the end. As we mentioned, if there's any loose flaps or connective tissue, trim that off. And then let's get them nice and brown in just some oil, right? And it doesn't take much, because the lamb's got some fat on there as well. Work in batches if you have to, right? We've talked about this all the time. I just wanna make sure we're touching on all the technique, the points that matter. Because again, crowding the pan is gonna create steam, and steam does not result in brown. You're just getting pallid cooking. Pull them out and transfer them to a tray as you go, and then get your aromatics in. Pour out any excess fat that's in the pan, just leaving behind enough to add in your mirepoix, which we talked about already: onion, carrot, celery. Cook those until softened and beginning to brown, but we don't need those to be completely cooked. Obviously they're gonna get braised for quite a long time, but what you're really using them for is the moisture that starts to weep out of them when you're sautéing them. That's what's gonna start the deglazing process of the pan. Add in your garlic. We did say garlic, right? Add in garlic and tomato paste, and cook that for several minutes until it starts to look kind of jammy and thick, and you'll start to smell that cooked tomato aroma. Then we're gonna go in, and we're gonna be using a wooden maryse to really scrape the bottom and get those... I don't know what to call that one. Maryse is the plastic one, for sure. And our good chef... But scraping up the residue on the bottom, and then bring that to a simmer and reduce it by about a third, depending on how much wine you've put in there. But you should be using a pretty good amount of wine. Like I'm saying, if I'm making Lamb Shanks, I'm probably making at least four of them. I'm probably using most of a bottle of wine. So let's call it minimum 500 milliliters of wine, which is how much in ounces? You have no idea.

TM: Well, a bottle is 750, which is 28.6 ounces, right?

ST: 24.6.

TM: 24.6. Okay, so what's two-thirds of that?

ST: Doing the maths. Anyway, so you're bringing that down, just to cook off some of the wine. But we talked about that too, that'll happen over this long, slow process. Anyway, get your shanks back in the pot. Add in any herbs at this point. We talked about rosemary, for sure. We talked about bay leaves, for sure. I think maybe a little bit of thyme as well.

TM: Oregano.

ST: You want to put oregano this time? We talked about oregano as the Greek version, but do we want that in this one?

TM: Can't hurt, can it?

ST: Can't hurt. Listen, let's get all the herbs. Got some sage and lamb around, get it in there. I love sage and lamb. So get your herbs in there, and then fill in up to two-thirds of the way up the meat with your stock. And we decided on beef stock. We'll use a Better Than Bouillon or what have you. And then, on the stovetop still, let's get this to a gentle simmer before hitting it with a lid and putting it down in a 325-degree oven. You should not even bother checking on this for the first two hours. And then at two hours, we'll pull that lid off. And then, as you said, we'll kind of rotate the meat so that different parts of it are sticking up, every 30 minutes. If you need to add liquid during this process, please do. Don't let the liquid get too low. It should again never be violently boiling, and it never would in a heavy cast iron thing in a 325-degree oven. It'll never be a rolling boil in there. It should just be burbling. I hate that word.

TM: Gargling? No, no. Burbling.

ST: Burble. To burble.

TM: Like a swamp.

ST: Yeah, although that's not how swamps work.

TM: Listen...

ST: I've been to many a swamp, but that's how they work in the movies.

TM: Listen, I've seen it in the Budweiser advert.

ST: Yeah, the Bud-weis-er. Oh man, we just showed our age.

TM: That's a classic campaign.

ST: Yeah, but it's even before... why's that? We're really going back.

TM: They were really on a tear for a while.

ST: So then rotating them every 30 minutes for another, so three rotations, so that's another hour and a half, right? So now that's a total of three and a half hours, right? Then you're gonna lift the bones gently out of the liquid and set them aside, maybe loosely covered, so they can just stay warm. Strain the liquid... Oh wait, we forgot! When we went in with the mirepoix...

TM: Mirepoix.

ST: Let's go in with some prunes. I just want that fruity nature of the prunes in there. About two per shank. Let's go. And we'll codify this in the recipe that you get as a subscriber, that comes in your email the day the show drops, so you've already got it. And then, so, pull the shanks out, leave them loosely covered to keep warm while we then do some sauce work. Sauce work: we're gonna strain the sauce first, maybe even pluck those prunes if they're still even reasonably recognizable, and put them past the strainer, get them into the sauce.

TM: Absolutely.

ST: Because then we can go in and emulsify that if we need to. But we can finish the sauce by, first, I wanna strain it into something that's taller and thinner than what it was in before, so that I have less surface area, so the fat can rise up as quickly as possible. I'm gonna skim that fat off, and then I'm gonna start bringing that sauce down to a texture that's nappe. We've talked about that before. That's when you can dip your spoon in there and then run your finger across the convex side of the spoon and see that you leave a trail behind before it just gets coated back over. You might wanna whisk in at this point a couple of tablespoons of cold butter, to give it a glossy sheen. Adjust your seasoning. Maybe a little lemon zest would be good. And then it's time to plate and serve. That's how you make Lamb Shanks.

TM: Love it. What are we serving this with, given our desire, our chosen...

ST: Man, you got a few choices here. I think top of the list are polenta, mashed potato, some kind of hearty but creamy white bean, great northern beans, lima beans. What do you got?

TM: I kind of stop at polenta or mash, because one of those is grabbing my attention before I look any further.

ST: One's the clear winner, right? Those are clearly the top of the race.

TM: I want it creamy. I don't want it too creamy, but I do want a creamy polenta, right? I don't want it to be stiff and whatever.

ST: Sure. We can go back to Joachim's barley risotto, and/or another risotto, actual risotto.

TM: You know, I love pearl barley risotto. Oh, you know what I might do?

ST: From your days at the Grain Store.

TM: So I'm going to take, separately, or just, here's a serving suggestion for you. That pearl barley risotto we're going to make, and you just have to cook the pearl barley. You can make it like a risotto, but it's more like you don't really need to, right? I'm going to roast some butternut squash, which will be peeled, obviously, roasted garlic, rosemary. I'm going to make a kind of puree with it, not using an electrical instrument or anything, just cook it enough so that I can whisk it into a rustic puree. And I'm going to probably reheat, loosen my pearl barley with some stock, and here we're going to go in with the puree. So it's kind of binding it together. A bunch of Parmesan, which I learned this week is a very high source of protein. So another reason to love it. I'm going to separately toast off in some butter some sage leaves.

ST: Ooh, yeah.

TM: Shank goes on.

ST: You are speaking to the season right now. I don't know when you're listening to this, listener, but he is speaking to the season.

TM: Got my prunes in there, my pasa de ciruela.

ST: I'm sorry, what did you just say?

TM: Pasa de ciruelas. I always confuse... I've got to the point where I'm like, I know what that is in Spanish. It's ciruela. And I think it's prune, but in English I'm confusing prunes and dates.

ST: Well, because you mentioned dates earlier, but I was like, not dates for this one.

TM: Prunes.

ST: Prunes for this one.

TM: So it's the prunes. Ciruela. And then sauce, and just that little sage. Probably not going to eat it, but it's just going to be the aromas.

ST: Oh, I'm eating it. I love that crispy sage.

TM: It's like my lemon zest. I twist and discard my lemon for my Martini, in case you didn't know.

ST: You do. We call it "disco." Discard, right? That's what we say in the biz. Twist and disco.

TM: Nice.

ST: Anyway, I'm liking any of these choices. And what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna put whatever that thing is down on the plate first. I'm gonna beautifully arrange my shank on top of it so that it's reaching skyward in some way, so it's got a dramatic look. And then I'm gonna ladle this now-rich sauce all around the whole situation, and drape some of it right over the lamb, so it can be shimmering down as the plate lands in front of my guest.

TM: There's a 50-50 chance, I believe, that you will know the answer to this question, which I don't know the answer to.

ST: 50-50, those are good odds.

TM: I think so. I'm like, it's highly unlikely you'll have the answer to this. But if anyone does, on the spot, and can recount it, it's probably you.

ST: Let's go.

TM: Why is it called a shank?

ST: Oh wow. You know what? Your 50-50 is off. I have no clue.

TM: No, this is too convenient. I literally have no... Is it because it's where the shin meets the ankle?

ST: Shank. That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense.

TM: Sort of.

ST: That makes sort of a lot of sense. I'm gonna go with that, to be honest.

TM: So why is that... Why is that an impromptu, or improvised, device for prison beefs?

ST: Oh, right. Well, I think maybe...

TM: I think that's just more like, it looks like the bone.

ST: Sure. Or there's some totally unrelated etymological reason. But I think shank: shin and ankle.

TM: It's the more...

ST: It's the shin-ankle joint, the shank.

TM: What was the cankle?

ST: It's just when you have large... it's just when the leader of your country has really large ankles that poke out of his shoes.

TM: Those are not desired.

ST: Not desired.

TM: Shin and ankle. Great. All right.

ST: Shank. All right, we're gonna look that up and make sure. I'm sure someone who's listening will correct us if we're wrong, and we love that. I've always said, and I'm not the first to say it either, if you want the correct answer, you post the wrong answer on the internet. You will be given the correct answer immediately.

TM: All right then. So that has been the preparation. You mentioned one of the options as a side was mashed potatoes. Mashed potato is a side dish that we covered in our very first ever bonus episode, back in January.

ST: That's right.

TM: And we released it out to the public feed more recently. We said those bonus episodes, they only go out to the paid subscribers.

ST: But we needed to show some of the non-subscribers what they were missing.

TM: Show your receipts.

ST: They needed to know there's more content. There's more of us delivering good, solid information in a fun and jovial way. So yeah, become a subscriber. It's pretty easy. It's $7 a month, but if you sign up for the full year, we'll cut off two months. So $70 for the whole year, saving you a whopping $14. But that's a good savings. And you get a monthly bonus episode that is, as you just mentioned, either a side dish or a technique, or a single ingredient deep dive, or something historical about food and beverage. And they're all tons of fun. I'm having a lot of fun doing them. I hope you are. And they're quite informative, and they're great.

TM: Love it.

ST: And then, of course, the other things you get: you get every recipe of both the food and the cocktail, which most episodes we create a cocktail for, right to your email inbox at 5 a.m. Eastern time, United States, every Thursday when the show drops.

TM: That's the weird thing. When we're talking about this, we're always saying to people, "Oh, and you'll see this," or, "You'll hear that." No, you've already seen it. You've already seen the show art. You know what I mean? If you're listening to this right now, I know this is a weird kind of breaking the whatever...

ST: The fourth wall.

TM: But I'm like, you've already seen the show art. And if you are listening to this and you're a premium subscriber, you already have the recipe card.

ST: Right. But we're not talking to them. We're talking to the ones who don't have it.

TM: True.

ST: Subscribe and get all these things before we tell you that you already got them.

TM: There you go. All right, Sother, time for our final break of the day. An ad break. If you're a premium subscriber, no ads as well. Just another little small thing.

ST: It'll be like we didn't go away at all.

TM: Almost. Sort of. Play the music.

TM: All right, Sother, we're back.

ST: Time to get some drinking.

TM: Time to do the pairing. I'm going to kick off with wine. It's been a few weeks since we've done a bit of a wine deep dive.

ST: Okay, let's go.

TM: So I did mention earlier, I said moussaka. I said it shortly after I said tagine, and I was talking about Morocco and North Africa. And I know some people will be thinking, "Moussaka, that's Greek." It is Greek. Sorry, folks. Sometimes you've got a lot going on. But we are heading to Greece, and we are honoring Greece with some of our wine picks today.

ST: Oh, cool.

TM: As well as one other country that I think is unexpected. Northern Greece. In the mountains of Macedonia. No, not the different country, the region within Greece. Xinomavro.

ST: Whoa.

TM: You know Xinomavro?

ST: No. It's a brand new grape to me.

TM: So the name joins xino, which means sour, and mavro, which means black. Obviously that tells you quite a lot about this wine grape. It's a red wine. The skins aren't necessarily black, but this is a wine that has searing acidity.

ST: Searing.

TM: Firm tannins and notes of tart, bright red fruits. So in that respect, it's like a cross between Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo. This is kind of a poor man's Barolo. Not poor man's. This is a more economical option, but no less interesting alternative to Barolo. You will additionally get notes of tomato, olives, dried plum, tobacco. I love it. The thing about Xinomavro is, this is the only grape in the world where I have personally... well, not, it's about me. I once went to a dinner where every single wine on the table was made with Xinomavro. However, the first wine we had was a white sparkling wine made in the Champenois method, right? Much like your Blanc de Noirs of Pinot Noir. Wine number two, a light, chilled rosé. Spent very little time on the skins. Again, those skins very tannic. Wine number three was a lighter interpretation, an unoaked version of the wine. Or if there was oak, it would be large barrels, multiple uses, so not much character getting from the wood. The second red was a heavier interpretation of it. And finally, there was a dessert wine. I don't know any region or grape off the top of my head where a similar experience would be commercially possible, right? I'm sure we can say this guy makes this random weird sparkling or whatever. It blew me away. Xinomavro, I think, is one of the world's great grapes. And I think one of the reasons it suffers is, here at least, the spelling. It begins with an X.

ST: Ah, yes. That's in marketing. Marketing matters. We talked about it in another episode. The avocado pear did not sell in America.

TM: The Hass avocado.

ST: The avocado flies. Change that name, baby.

TM: Wait, was it the avocado? No, it was something else pear. Oh, yeah.

ST: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I said avocado. Alligator. It was alligator pear, and then it became the avocado. But it did not sell as the alligator pear.

TM: No.

ST: The Chinese gooseberry didn't sell very well either. Then they renamed it the kiwi. I mean, I can say it and it sounds nice, but honestly, I thought it was a Z until you said it was an X. And so that just throws in further confusion.

TM: The next one is just tough from a spelling and pronunciation standpoint. Agiorgitiko. Agiorgitiko. A-G-I-O-R-G-I-T-K-O. This is the Greek word for St. George. It's from southern Greece. It is the grape of the Peloponnese, the southern peninsula. And its wines can be called Nemea, if you are looking at the region rather than the label with the grape on it. It's the largest red wine appellation in Greece. In a young expression, it has red fruit and soft tannins. Aged in oak, it picks up sweet spice and chocolate. I think that would be amazing for this preparation that we have today, the route that we've gone down. And then one final region, country.

ST: You said it was going to be a surprise, as if the Greek one wasn't.

TM: A surprise. But it has come up today, as a nation. Start doing process of elimination.

ST: I mean, I can't even remember what nations we've talked about today. We talked about a bunch.

TM: We talked about New York.

ST: It's not a nation.

TM: We talked about Britain.

ST: Britain, yes.

TM: France.

ST: We talked about Africa.

TM: Italy.

ST: Italy.

TM: I'm getting rid of all the obvious ones here.

ST: We talked about Persia. We talked about North Africa.

TM: North Africa.

ST: Sudan. The Horn of Africa.

TM: No, no, no, no. Then we went... Remember my curve? Where did I start on my curve?

ST: I can't recall. Oh yeah, Lebanon. You did say Lebanon.

TM: So Lebanon has two wine regions, but the main one is the Bekaa Valley. They make mainly reds from kind of southern Rhône varieties: Cinsault, Syrah, Carignan, Grenache. They probably had spent more time focusing on Bordeaux varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon and whatnot, just to be able to sell them to the international market. They also make Arak, the region's anise spirit. I hope we're going to get a little representation of that later in the cocktail. Maybe not.

ST: We're not, but I should lean on things like that a little bit more than I do.

TM: For white, Sauvignon Blanc is the one that I've come across the most. And just to highlight a producer, there's one called Massaya.

ST: That's a bold name.

TM: Massaya.

ST: Oh, Massaya.

TM: Not "Messiah." Massaya. So I came across this story years ago, and it turns out that also Anthony Bourdain covered them and visited them. I didn't realize this at the time, but... So the Ghosn, I think that's how you pronounce it. G-H-O-S-N. Or it reads as Ghosn. Anyway, it's pretty common, I think, Lebanese surname. The Ghosn, or Ghosn. The family that ran it during the civil war left the country, left their winery, left the country, came to America. And I think 17 or 20 years later, or whatever, Sami, the oldest of the sons, or one of the sons whose winery it would become or whatnot, felt that there was time for unfinished business. Felt like it was his duty at that point. And with the war having died down, it was his duty to go back and reclaim his family's winery. He was committed to doing this to the point where... And I wrote about this for VinePair, probably eight years ago or whatever. This is how I know the story.

ST: Early days.

TM: Yeah. Guys, you can go and read the article there, right? Massaya Winery, Lebanon, VinePair. You'll find it. He felt so strongly about this, but also was so wary of the journey ahead, because he didn't know what he was going back to. He knew from reports that there were squatters on the land, and that people had taken over it. So he handed in his green card. He said, "I cannot be tempted to come back to the US. I have to go there, and this has to be my destiny."

ST: Burn the ships.

TM: What's that?

ST: It's one of my rings. This is a naval military tactic, which is when things are looking very, very bad for you, you burn your own ship, because there's no going back.

TM: Yeah, exactly. Very much that philosophy. And so he went there, and there were indeed people living on his roof, or living, sorry, in the property. I don't know how it came to be where he was able to regain control of it. I don't know the people who were there. Obviously there's a lot of conflict in the region. But to the point where, once he regained control of his winery, he said he spent nights sitting on the roof, protecting it with an AK-47. I don't think he killed anyone, but, you know, security. Bourdain later visited Lebanon, and this guy specifically, and this winery specifically. I think didn't Bourdain also get stuck in Lebanon because a war started, or a conflict started, while he was there?

ST: I remember something about that.

TM: Or he had to evacuate.

ST: He had to get out.

TM: I think he evacuated, and then he later came back. But yeah, so they have their property in the Bekaa Valley. They have one elsewhere. And I interviewed him, obviously, remotely. But their wines are available here. And a few years after the article, or one year after the article came out, he said, "Tim, I'm going to be in New York. Let's go." We went for dinner at Ilili, a great Lebanese restaurant. And he brought his Arak and his wines. And I was like, wow. I mean, a story like that, just unbelievable. But yeah, long story having run very long. If you're looking for Lebanese wine, it doesn't seem that common. But Massaya, by most counts, is the most available. And certainly here, if you're in New York City or a major metropolitan market.

ST: That's pretty awesome, man. I'll look for it. Or, well, we should have some.

TM: We should.

ST: We should have some Arak. Let's drink some Arak.

TM: Tell me about Arak, for those not familiar, and how you feel about it.

ST: That's the thing. I don't think I know enough about it. I've only worked at a couple of places that even had Arak. But it's, as you said, an anisette liqueur. A familiar one in your mind might be Sambuca. They're typically clear in color and pretty sweet and syrupy in texture and mouthfeel. You drink them, like, again, the Mauresque, which is just like a Collins, basically, with some orgeat. Arak, orgeat and seltzer. It's a really refreshing way to drink it.

TM: Or even just Arak and really cold seltzer. It's going to turn it cloudy. That's the louche effect that you mentioned before. I believe even when we had that lunch, I think the chef might have even incorporated that as a kind of dressing or whatever. But big on herb. It's a strong spirit, strong flavor, sorry. But if you have something like a tabbouleh salad that's got more herbs than grains and vegetables, or whatever you have in there, if you keep packing it and packing it with herbs, and I will grant you parsley, sorry, I meant to say that earlier, I'll allow you parsley for today's dish...

ST: Oh, thanks. I appreciate that.

TM: That really does help sort of temper the effect, or the strength of it. But yeah, Arak, I certainly don't drink a lot of it.

ST: Right. And I feel like it's where we're denying ourselves something that's wonderful and delightful, only because, as with anything, you fall to the familiar. It's just not a thing that pops up on my radar. I do remember the bottles that we had. The bottles themselves were quite attractive. They have a lot of bevels. Just really pretty bottles. Couldn't remember a brand name if it was a gun to my head. Well, cool. So that's wine. Let's talk about beer. I don't have a whole lot to say on this one. I think, and we've talked about this before with other braised dishes, something like a brown ale that's got some malty components to it, right? That malty sweetness with a light bitterness works really well with long-braising, unctuous meat like this. You could also obviously reach for a stout, but let's go for one of those higher-proof stouts that you mentioned once before. Because the higher the proof on the stout goes, the lower that heavy mouthfeel feels. So I'd want something that felt thinner but was higher in proof, so it would cut through the unctuousness of the dish. And by the way, when I say that stout, I mean, you know, Guinness.

TM: The American Lamb Board officially approves of both of those picks.

ST: The American Lamb Board? Oh, well, all right. Thanks, fellas.

TM: They say brown ale and stout are both appropriate choices for shanks.

ST: Well, I appreciate their seconding my emotion. But I said specifically a stronger stout. I hope they agreed. And then, cocktail. I always talk about what a classic cocktail that could go with the dish, and then I talk about a cocktail that maybe I've created or that I think is a modern classic. The cocktail that I think exists that should go with... let's have a Manhattan, right? Two parts rye whiskey, one part sweet vermouth, two dashes of bitters, stirred until chilled and diluted, served up. I don't like a cherry in mine. I'm a lemon twist. That's how I serve them at my bar. We don't even have cherries. Not that I'm a hater to the cherry, I just don't think it was the original garnish, if there was one at all, to be honest. But a lemon twist is going to give it a bright, aromatic pop that's going to lighten up your palate for this unctuous, rich dish that you're about to either eat this with, or you're going to have this Manhattan beforehand. And I think we've gotten away from that. We need to get back to talking about, especially for dishes like this that take a long time to cook, what are we drinking while making the dish? We used to talk about what are we drinking while we're making it, and then what are we drinking while we're eating it.

TM: Fair.

ST: We slipped away. But I've got a little drink here, and I'm going to pull it from one of my favorite books, called I'm Just Here for the Drinks...

TM: Nice. Who wrote that?

ST: ...which I wrote. Yeah, that's my book. And if you're staring at me now, you'll see I took a photo of the page to bring as my notes, because I was like, "I need to remind myself about my own drink." But I got a drink in here called the Burning Love.

TM: Ooh.

ST: And as the name implies, there's fire involved. So we're going to take a fresh sprig. In the Burning Love in the book, I use thyme, but I think for this dish I would use a sprig of thyme and a sprig of rosemary. So we're going to take a sprig of both thyme and rosemary, a half an ounce of Génépi des Alpes or Chartreuse, something similar to that. You're going to pack both of those down into your double rocks glass, and then ignite them. But not quite yet. So have that ready. But then, in your mixing tin, a half an ounce of lime juice, an equal measure, so a half an ounce, of maraschino liqueur, and then one and a half ounces of gin. And I choose Plymouth for this one, because it's not as aggressively herbaceous, because we're going to have all these herbs, literal herbs, and also the génépi. Get those into your mixing tin with a pretty healthy dose of pebble ice. So it's not a whip shake. I don't want to shake it until the ice is gone. I want to shake it and still have a pretty healthy amount of ice in there. So then, once all that's in the tin, the ice included, then ignite that génépi that's on the herbs and let it burn in the glass while you give a good shake, and then pour it all into the glass. So all the ice and everything goes right into the glass. I think even the photo, you can see that that's happening. Maybe you can't see it there, but you can see it. Everything goes into it all at once, which will extinguish the flame. But you'll get this charred nature. You'll get some caramelization from the génépi burning. You'll get this very aromatic, pungent aroma from both the thyme and the rosemary and their oils that will all be extinguished by the liquid hitting, and then the oils will be swirling around in the liquid as well, and become part of the drink. Delicious and herbaceous and cutting, to go with this unctuous, meaty dish.

TM: Love it.

ST: Plus a little show.

TM: The great news for me is that I don't even need to name it.

ST: Yep, I already named it for you. Unless you want to change the name for the dish.

TM: Well, I was going to say, I know this was a big seller in terms of books, but I believe you're still paying back the Presley estate for all the royalties you owe them.

ST: For "Burning Love." "A hunk, a hunk of burning love."

TM: I think I only heard half of the cocktail, because I was singing the song in my head while I was thinking about it.

ST: Well, I hope everyone was doing that too. And we'll print that up for you. I know you were jotting it down as I talk, but if you're a subscriber, we get both the food and the drink recipes printed up for you in your mailbox every Thursday morning, the day the episode drops, at 5 a.m. Eastern Time.

TM: You haven't received next week's episode card yet, but if you're listening to this...

ST: You've already got this one.

TM: All right, so the final thoughts for the day here for you. Lamb Shanks.

ST: I mean, we talked about it kind of throughout the episode. There's tons of techniques that we use over and over again in classic cooking. This dish, we chose to go French, which is sort of the classic cooking in the Western world, anyway. You're gonna learn how to brown, slow cook, tend to your sauce. Like again, when we go back for that last hour and a half, we're gonna rotate the meat around, so that it can get equally browned and braised at the same time. And you're gonna have a showstopping dish that's delicious. And we stuck to the sort of French, but we outlined for you that there's other avenues that you can go down with this dish to have a different result. And I think that that's a cool thing to learn, that we're giving you a template, but within that template is a pretty enormous amount of creative freedom.

TM: Plug and play.

ST: Plug and play.

TM: Mr. Potato Head approach to cooking.

ST: How are we gonna cook the Potato Head? Boulangère?

TM: Fried. French fries. I would just add to that, I'm struggling to think of another dish that we have covered to date that is easier to make than this one. There is so little, if any, technique involved, and there's no butchery. There are things you can do to make browning easier, but you're just browning. The result is in the name. And then you can literally just, you can make your base, you can do the stuff like we've done, but you could literally just put it in a braising liquor, get that going, make a side dish. You're done. You don't need to cook off the stuff, right? Put your herbs and aromatics in. Get your mirepoix in there raw. Who cares?

ST: I think what you're saying is maybe not that it's so easy, but it is quite forgiving.

TM: I know, but I think easy is the word that I'm using here. It is forgiving as well, but Pulled Pork is forgiving, but Pulled Pork, we had to navigate the stall. Birria, we had to make the adobo. Birria was quite involved. Beef Bourguignon as well was more of a process. I just think this is literally pretty easy to go. But love it. All right, Sother, time to put on the apron.

ST: Break out the shaker.

TM: And let's get cooking.

ST: And drinking.

TM: Cheers.

ST: Cheers, buddy.