I made this based on the recipe from Rick Stein’s Spain. I made it using 2 large lamb shanks and halved the other ingredients in the recipe.

I didn’t have any fresh or dried peppers so just added roasted ones from a jar. I also substituted Parma ham for Serrano and I didn’t add it to the stew, just lightly fried to crisp it up as a garnish.

After 1.5 hours of cooking at 150C, I tested the meat – it was done. I took both shanks out and let them cool, then took the meat off the bones in large ‘natural’ segments. I also got rid of any stringy or jellyish bits from the meat and the bones. I then covered the meat and bones back up with the sauce and put the whole lot in the fridge to be eaten sometime in the next couple of days. The fat will rise to the top and solidify so it will be easy to remove it before adding peppers and gently reheating.

When I reheated this I added a chopped courgette that needed using up. The flavour of the courgette went with the stew but it had the unwanted side-effect of making the stew watery. Otherwise, apart from a lack of garlic – I forgot to apply my usual rule of always doubling the amount of garlic – this stew was quite nice.