Always remember: If you're alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who's going to know? Julia Child
I needn't have worried, all month long, about getting these lamb shanks...the butchers at the Viktualienmarkt (photo above) were well stocked with them and the meal was worth the trip, Liz. While unimpressive in its pre-cooked stage, the braised lamb was out of this world...what I couldn't find was herbs de Provence, so had to make my own. I never appreciated that they included lavender, but fortunately we had some in the garden...I just pulled off a few dead flowers and threw them in to the mix...we found the sauce was thick and rich enough without thickener and our Austrian Esterhazy Pinot Noir complemented the dish beautifully...
We would have preferred it with plain rice or potatoes...I loved the risotto...but felt the flavors of the parmesan rice clashed a bit with the lamb...and all of the butter and cheese in the rice makes it very rich with the red meat...I'll enjoy the leftover risotto next week for lunch.
The apple pudding cake was delightful...took a walk to our local orchard for the apples...made my own caramel topping (slightly burned because I was on the phone with Mary while cooking it). We finished off the dessert with our own homemade French vanilla ice cream.
Next time, I'd start cooking earlier...the meal took four hours to prepare and by the time it was on the table, there was little patience left for any creative composition with the photos...we even considered skipping that step altogether we were so hungry...we stuffed ourselves and in the end, needed an hour's walk through the village, blanketed in thick fog, to help digest it all.
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