Lamb shanks

Eastside Road, February 5, 2012—

EXCEPT THAT THEY WERE (1) not lamb shanks, but goat; (2) almost completely ruined, by my own ineptitude.

I followed the classic Richard Olney recipe, from Simple French Food: brown the shanks in olive oil in a heavy pan; throw in a dozen or so unpeeled garlic cloves; turn the fire down to the lowest possible, cover the pot, cook for an hour, throw in a handful of herbes de Provence, continue cooking until the shanks simply sizzle in the pan, remove them, deglaze the pan with white wine, run the result with the garlic cloves through a food mill, coat the meat with the resulting sauce, grind fresh black pepper over, serve with noodles.

Well: all went well until it was time to deglaze the pan. For that purpose I removed the shanks to a plate, then pulled the cork from a bottle of white Morey-Saint-Denis, Domaine Ponsot, 1974. This was a pretty old wine, and I offered a glass to one our guests to verify. At first it seemed sound though old; quickly, though, doubts arose. I'd turned the flame up under the shanks' pan, with the remaining juices and dozen or so cloves of garlic, and before I knew it smoke was filling the kitchen. The wine was corked; the sauce was ruined.

The genius of Olney's recipe is its simplicity, its faith in the deliciousness of the ingredients, their perfect marriage of savor, scent, and texture. The meat, some salt, the garlic, the thyme and savory and marjoram (in this case); finally the white wine — all converge in a perfect focus. And I had let it burn, turn to bitter carbon. The stink filled the house.

I've made this dish a dozen times, I'm sure. I no longer need to read the recipe: it's engraved in my hands and nose and mind and eyes. But I'd failed it, and Olney, and our guests, and worst of all the goat itself. Che disastro!

Well, Lindsey cooked the egg noodles; I threw out the burned stuff; we served the shanks without their sauce. They were delicious, of course, though robbed of the nobility of their enrobement. One shrugs off the disasters and makes the best of things.

Green salad; later, blood-orange ice. You can do worse.

Champagne, Laurent-Perrier, nv; Cheap Pinot Grigio; Beaujolais, Côte de Brouilly, Potel Aviron, 2009 (thanks, Tom); Cabernet sauvignon, Château St. Jean, 2001 (thanks, Kendall)