Rich And Comforting Slow Cooker Lamb Shanks In Red Wine - cooking recipe

Ingredients

6 lamb shanks
4 -10 garlic cloves, minced
375 ml red wine
200 ml balsamic vinegar (optional)
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon harissa or 1 teaspoon cayenne
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 (15 ounce) cans French onion soup
1 (15 ounce) can chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon cornflour or 1 tablespoon cornstarch

Preparation

Brown the lamb shanks and place in the slow cooker. Add the onion soup, minced garlic and the chopped tomatoes.
Add the oil and spices to a frying pan, and heat and stir. As the spices start to cook (darken in colour, very aromatic), add the wine and vinegar, whack up the heat and reduce to half volume. Add the reduction to the slow cooker and cook for 7-8 hours. An hour before serving, add the made-up cornflour to thicken the sauce. Alternatively, if you're not a fan of cornflour (am starting to go off it myself!), then you can add some instant mashed potato to thicken the sauce instead.
I tend to take the shanks out at about 6 hours, remove the lamb skin (yuk!) and take the meat off the bone and back into the sauce to absorb more flavour. It also means that instead of serving one shank per person, you can actually get 9 good sized meals out of the 6 shanks.