Lamb Shank Tagine with Black Garlic and Vin Jaune
A Marrakech braise given a Jura accent: the sweet, molasses-like depth of black garlic and a glass of oxidative Vin Jaune, whose walnut and curry notes turn out to be what the tagine's spices were waiting for.
- 4 lamb shanks
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 onions, sliced
- 3 cloves fresh garlic, sliced
- 8 cloves black garlic, mashed to a paste
- 2 teaspoons ras el hanout
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- A pinch of saffron threads
- 1 preserved lemon, rind only, chopped
- 12 dried apricots
- 500 ml chicken stock
- 100 ml Vin Jaune (or dry oloroso)
- A handful of toasted almonds and coriander leaves to finish
- Salt
- Season the shanks and brown them hard on all sides in the oil in a heavy casserole. Set aside.
- Soften the onions in the same pot for 10 minutes. Add the fresh garlic, spices and saffron and cook for 2 minutes until fragrant.
- Stir in the black garlic paste, preserved lemon and apricots. Return the shanks, pour in the stock, cover and cook in a 150 C oven for 2 hours 45 minutes, turning once.
- Uncover, add the Vin Jaune, and return to the oven for 15 minutes so the sauce thickens and the wine's aroma settles into it.
- Check the salt. Scatter with almonds and coriander and serve in the pot.
A tagine is a slow conversation between meat, fruit and spice, cooked in the conical clay pot that gives the dish its name and returns the steam to the stew. The Moroccan pantry supplies ras el hanout, preserved lemon, dried apricots and saffron. Our kitchen wanted to add two things from the Jura mountains of eastern France that seemed, on paper, to belong: black garlic, which is ordinary garlic aged for weeks until it turns soft, black and sweet like balsamic, and Vin Jaune, a wine aged under a veil of yeast until it tastes of walnuts, curry spice and dried apricot.
The result is a tagine that reads as Moroccan on the first spoonful and as something older and stranger on the second. The black garlic dissolves into the sauce and replaces the sugar that many recipes add to balance the spice. The Vin Jaune, added at the end of the braise rather than the start so its aromatics survive, lifts the whole pot with a nutty acidity that neither lemon nor vinegar can imitate.
Notes on the method
Lamb shanks need three hours at a low heat and no shortcuts. Brown them properly first; the crust is where the sauce gets its colour. If you have no tagine, a heavy casserole with a tight lid does the same work in the oven at 150 C. Vin Jaune is expensive and small bottled; if it is out of reach, a dry oloroso sherry gives a cousin of the same effect. Black garlic is sold in most good grocers now and keeps for months.
Serve with plain couscous or, better, with thick slices of grilled sourdough rubbed with olive oil, to catch the sauce. A bowl of green olives and a pot of harissa on the side let each guest set their own heat.