Shank & Beans

[Walt]

Last night I seasoned two  beautiful venison shanks with garlic, pepper, salt, cinnamon,  juniper berries, all spice, &  ancho chile.
Today, the shanks were pecan smoked @ 225 with a water tray for 1.5 hrs.
They were then, hard seared in bacon renderings in a black iron skillet, then removed and will braise for 3 or 4 hours @ 325 [until tender]. The braising liquid consists of beef broth, red wine,  crispy cubed home cured bacon trimmings,  a touch of cane syrup, a chopped onion, a diced head of garlic, and reinforced with the seasoning applied to the shank. Once done, the sauce will be smoothed out with a stick blender. The shank will be served with roasted baby kale, cornbread & some black eyed peas cooked in beef broth and seasoned with salt, pepper,  home cured bacon, onion, seranno pepper, whole garlic & bell pepper. I will garnish with diced parsley & green onions & roasted garlic.

Once done, I'll try to get a picture.

Here's the work in progress.....

 

[old sarge]

That will warm up a body on a cold day!  Looks tasty!!

 

[Walt]

All done. The meat was unctuous, like ox tail but with less gelatin. The sauce was rich with alot of depth. (This would work great with many different flavor profiles.) It married extremely well with the sides: chopped herbs, roasred kale, cornbread & black eyed peas. Its an underused and absolutely outstanding cut of meat. I have read that some hunter / chefs fancy this their favorite cut. Sounded crazy but after tonight I can understand that position if not fully agree with it.
A fitting end to honor such a beautiful  animal!

 

[Durangosmoker]

Hey, thanks for this, it looks terrific, and is timely, too. A friend who I let hunt on my land just gave me 2 venison shoulders from animals he got, which I broke down and froze. So I have 2 nice (aside from my butchering non-skills) venison shanks in my freezer.  I was thinking of cooking them like a lamb shanks recipe I have, braised with dried cherries and red wine, but yours sounds delicious.

 

[Pork Belly]

meat was unctuous, like ox tail but with less gelatin

Looks like a good meal. We braise all our shanks but haven't thought to cook them into a bean dish. We cut the upper end of the shank above the knee joint. Doing this increases the coligen being cooked out and evens up the ends on the leg roasts.

 

[Walt]

Pork belly, always happy to receive your pointers. It was really good. Now you even have a name for the menu.

Durango, I think a par-smoke, hard sear & sous vide would also work well. The tenderloins, backstrap & now shank will get extra attrentin from me..

Tonight we're going to have some fried backstrap & gnocchi in the leftover sauce from last nite with some rendered mushrooms & a cesar salad.

 

[TexasSMK]

This made me drool.  Sounds incredible.

 

[Walt]

Thanks Dale. My wife & I were talking about cooking this up again soon. One last pack of shanks in the freezer! Hoping to add to that again soon.