Lamb shank confit, Hungarian style, with fennel hash brown

Total Preparation Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Course 4 servings

Difficulty Level: Medium

Ingredients:

4 lamb shanks, about 250g each, salt, 1 onion, 2 bay leaves, 2 tsp Erős Pista or Édes Anna
for roasting: approx. 500g pork fat
for the fennel hash brown: 1 small fennel (250-300g), 300g potato, 1 red bell pepper (250g) 1 small bunch of parsley, salt, freshly ground white pepper, 3-4 tbsp flour and 2 eggs
for frying the hash browns: oil

1. Wash and dry the lamb, sprinkle with salt. Just melt the pig fat in a smallish pan, add the peeled onion and the bay leaves, then put the lamb shanks in. The meat should be completely covered in fat. Keep heating – over medium heat – until it starts visibly roasting. Then reduce the heat, put on the lid – leaving a small gap – and cook the shanks for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave them in the fat.

2. While the lamb is roasting, prepare the garnish. Having pinched off its dill-like outer leaves, remove the fennel’s stalks. Cut their tips off and then slice the stalks into 2mm pieces. Peel the potatoes and finely grate them. Cut the bell pepper into four, remove its core and cut the quarters into 2mm slices. Place all of the greens thus prepared into a bowl, add finely chopped parsley, you can also add its set aside leaves chopped, then add salt, pepper, flour and the eggs. Mix and knead the resulting patty.

3. Heat 2-3 tbsp oil in a larger frying pan. Place a heaped tablespoonful of the hash brown mixture into the pan and flatten it with the bottom of the spoon into a patty approx. 1cm thick. Make 2-3 more of these, depending on the size of your frying pan. Fry them over a slightly lower than medium heat for about 4 minutes on each side. Put them on a paper towel to absorb the excess oil.

4. Remove the hot roast shanks from the fat – let the fat drip off. Take 2 tablespoonfuls of its fat, mix it with Erős Pista if you like it hot or Édes Anna if you prefer it mild, and then coat the lamb shanks with this mixture using a brush. Place 3 hash browns on a plate and lay the roast shanks over them.