1. Pat the lamb shanks dry with kitchen paper and sprinkle with salt, pepper and a little of the garam masala.
2. Preheat oven to 160°C / gas mark
3. Mix the yoghurt or crème fraiche with Shemin’s Indian Curry Paste and the rest of the garam masala, set aside.
4. Put the oil in a very wide flameproof sauté pan or casserole dish, large enough to hold the shanks easily and set over a medium to high heat. When hot, put in the shanks and brown them on one side. Turn them over, dropping the onion slices in between them. Brown both meat and onions moving them around the pan as you need to. When the other side of the shanks has browned, stir in the curry paste mixture and water. Bring to boil.
5. Cover the pan and place in the oven for 3 hours, turning the shanks over every 30 minutes.
6. Skim the oil over the sauce if you want to, and serve with mash potato or rice and nann bread.
Suzanne Masters –
Scrumptious!!! Make sure you brown the onions so they are as dark as you can get without burning. This is my go to show stopper and it never fails! I use whole legs trimming off all the skin and fat and brown the meat first one leg at a time then remove and then brown the onions. For 1 leg I double quantities for sauce (we love the sauce and save any left over; it’s tte best part!)