This week’s Guest Chef – Paul Montgomery from Harvey's Point

Paul Montgomery started working as a kitchen porter and pot washer in the early 1990’s. Finding a passion for the kitchen, he attended Killybegs Catering College, served his apprenticeship and 20 years later, after a lot of seriosly hard work, is now the Head Chef in the multi-award winning and internationally recognised lakeside located Harvey’s Point Hotel,  near Donegal Town, Ireland.



Paul Montgomery - the Head Chef at Harvey's Point Hotel near Donegal Town

Paul loves taking traditional recipes and bringing them back to life. “I love using simple ingredients,” says Paul. “Here in Donegal, I think, we have the tastiest lamb, beef and seafood in the country and the rest of Ireland is slowly recognising this."

"The visiting foodie-tourists had their eyes opened during the recent  Taste of Donegal Food Festival. They just couldn't believe the honest flavours, that we're so used to, here in the North West of Ireland”.

Simply Braised Donegal Lamb Shanks

Ingredients:

4 lamb shanks seasoned with salt & pepper

50g butter

1 large onion

½ head celery

1 head leek

2 carrots

2 large tomatoes,

6 mushrooms

1 bay leaf, sprig of thyme, sprig of rosemary

2 tbls tomato puree

½ cinnamon stick

1 star anise

2 glasses red wine

1 litre chicken stock

1 litre lamb or vegetable stock

you can use stock cubes!

If it's good enough for Marco-Pierre-White it's good enough for home cooking!

Method:

1. Chop roughly the onion, leek, celery, carrot & mushroom. Sweat off the veg in a medium pot with some butter until soft.

2. Add the chopped tomatoes, herbs, cinnamon, star anise and let this start to cook slowly.

3. Meanwhile in a hot frying pan with a little oil, brown your lamb shanks well on all sides and place them in a large ovenproof casserole dish - leave aside.

4. Add some red wine to the frying pan to deglaze (to lift the flavours from the bottom of the pan) and reduce this wine by half.

5. Add the tomato puree to the cooked vegetables and stir. Then pour the reduced wine over the vegetables with the chicken & lamb stock. Mix all together well.

6 Pour this over your lamb shanks and cover with a lid or tinfoil. Cook, in a pre-heated oven at 150ºC for 4½ hours. Serve with mashed potatoes & the juices and vegetables from the pan.

Don't forget to Feed the Fish at the bottom of this Post!
zack