the Gerry make any recommendations or in the suggestions no I just told that bring some wine hey opus 1 by 12 Atlanta I asked Jerry to prepare a dish that was both hearty and wholesome something to warm us up on those cold winter nights today we're going to prepare some Oregon lamb shanks they're going to be braised in red wine like a pinot noir braising liquid and then we're gonna serve it over a Oregon blue cheese polenta it's nice and hearty it's gonna warm you up it's like Italian comfort food okay made with nice fresh Oregon ingredients yeah so we have our sense of components we have our lamb shanks here we have our onion celery garlic cloves and carrots okay this is a kind of a rustic dish and so we're gonna leave all of the aromatics in rather large pieces okay this is gonna braise for two and a half to three hours and so we want them to hold up well okay because when we serve this dish we are going to be serving all of these components over the polenta so you want nice chunky big pieces of the aromatic vegetables to withstand that long bracing process and they aren't just gonna fall apart now this bigger case like I said I want nice big chunky pieces of celery and carrot because I want that to be part of the dish when we go to serve it and again nice big pieces of celery so you now again we want nice big pieces these are kind of like it will end up with something like strips of onion all right we'll put those in here now too so now we have our aromatics prepared we have a generous amount of peeled garlic cloves and we have our lamb shanks and now we're ready to go over to the stove and start to put it together we have a nice large saute pan here we've got a little olive oil heating up in the pan okay you can use extra virgin olive oil if you wish or you can use a pure olive oil this is pure here now we're just gonna lightly dredge our lamb shanks now you want to make sure that the shanks aren't wet because you don't want that real heavy coating of flour on the exterior so if they are damp then you'll want to take a towel and dry them off quickly but we're just going to just place them in the pan here butchering them over here oh yeah you only need a couple minutes per side now when you braise meat you have to understand that braising is a long cooking process and it's a process that was developed for cooking what or generally the lesser desirable cuts of meat and they also require a lot much longer cooking process to break down the connective tissues in the meat okay a shank for example there's a lot of tendon a lot of sinew in the shape therefore it takes a lot of you know cooking time at a lower temperature in order to get those to all break down to tenderize the meat so now we're going to place our shanks in our pan over here to see the oil in the pan here the flour is kind of coming off a little bit okay eyes we're rounding them and it's actually gonna create a little bit of a roux now that also by allowing it to get kind of brown like that it's gonna add really nice color okay to our dish carmelization and then when we go to cook the aromatic vegetables and the garlic it's gonna give them a nice flavor too and don't be afraid to let that butter that flower get a little bit of color to it yeah it has a nice nutty kind of a characteristic to it gives it depth now the first thing I'm going to add to our pan before we do any D glazing is I'm gonna add our garlic cloves okay now again you know you want these garlic cloves to cook up in the dish and when they come out and then we're ready to serve the dish those clothes are just gonna melt in your mouth they won't have that sharpness you know that raw garlic has it'll be more like a roasted garlic and it's just gonna be nice and sweet and flavorful it'll be beautiful now we're going to add our vegetables I'm gonna add a little bit of oregano you want the sauce yeah I've kind of a glazing quality and not runny but not a thick sauce either it by any means there's got a little bit of flour and incorporate that in here we're gonna delays you glaze with some pinot noir it's a local vineyard out in about the South Salem area okay and very nice local Pinot Noir so we're going to use a generous amount of this in the wine here so now we've got our aromatics here deglazed I'm going to add some stock this is a chicken base stock we're going to add to our aromatic vegetables here okay bring that up to a boil and I'm also going to add some Demi gloss and Demi gloss is kind of a who's your base brown sauce base okay and it takes several hours to cook this down to to a sauce where it's a sauce type State okay this is also going to lend nice color to our sauce and yeah we're just gonna take this for all those beautiful things over these lamb shanks and cover them and it's very important that when you braise meats that they have enough liquid to pretty much submerge them like this okay otherwise you've got a portion of the meat in the nice moist braising liquid and then you the other portion of it is not and it's sticking out and that portion will actually come out dry okay so now we're going to cover this with with foil and we'll put it into our preheated 400 degree oven and we're gonna leave it there to braise undisturbed for two and a half to three hours there we go so we can start our polenta at about 2:30 and by the time it's done lamb should be ready to come out and will be dying in fine while we waited for the lamb to finish cooking Jerry and I decided to sit down to share a glass of wine and some conversation so Jerry you were a waiter once weren't you I was I was mad well yeah actually she tastes that I always determined that in order to have my own restaurant I should know every aspect of the business and so I waited tables i bartend it I did you know banquet service and of course working in the kitchen as well you know so I was enjoyed waiting tables because there's a lot of detail to it you know you know if for good service and so you have to be very attention detail-oriented you know and just looking for ways to kind of you know refine you know your service all the time so it was an enjoyable experience I did like it I prefer the kitchen better but I did like waiting tables what do you think is it gonna marry well with our lamb all right deal well for myself a little taste here thank you and here's to you very nice Nate I've got a little bout Oh two tablespoons of olive oil heating up here we're gonna start by sauteing a little bit of garlic in there tablespoon or so yeah let's plug the equivalent about for clothes and we're going to lightly saute that for a minute or so we're gonna let it just slightly gain a little bit of color then just kind of a nice golden color before we arrest to cooking and so now we're gonna add our chicken stock okay and that we've got there's actually eight cups and stock there and we are going to now incorporate in two cups of polenta okay and you want to just kind of select that stir it in and just kind of slowly pour it in gonna have to be overly careful but you don't want to just dump it all in because you can't get lumps if you're not careful so we're just gonna stir that in and we're going to kind of keep agitating and moving it around so now we're gonna go ahead and add this is about 1/2 a cup of Corrigan blue cheese and just gonna melt that in there you don't want the blue cheese to be overpowering but you want the nuance of it okay it's going to be a complimentary underlying flavor all right take our polenta here oh yeah nice lots of these aromatics here I'm going to put a little rosemary a little bit of parsley here like so and one last thing everything needs a little parmigiana a little dusting a parm Reggiano parmesan on top here all right Nate I'll meet you at the table with our lunch Drago well food is to me represents pretty much everything is good okay food is something that nourishes our body of course keeps us alive all right but also is something that we use to celebrate good times to spend time with people that are close and dear to us you know that we hold in high esteem you know we use it in business to you know have relationships with other business people so I mean food plays a major role in our lives much more than just sitting down for our meal yeah you know and I can't really think of too many other things that you know play that big of a role in our lives you know on a day-in day-out basis yeah not to mention well-prepared food the food is delicious Thank You Nate and it warms me it warms my heart so I very much very much sir Thank You Nate whatever d-doc