Time: 2 3/4 hours. Jeff Smedstad, chef-owner of Elote Cafe in Sedona, Arizona, learned the secrets to great adobos (a type of chile-rich sauce) in the markets of central Mexico. This lamb dish is adapted from one in his new book, Elote Cafe Cookbook.
This recipe is worth all of the work it takes to get it to the table! We have friends that grew up on a sheep ranch in New Mexico and this recipe just blows them away. This is the southwest at its best!
My hubby and I have a bendable "rule" in our kitchen that the first time we try a recipe we stick to the recipe. And we have a pet peeve of reviewers who provide reviews but then go on to describe all the things they changed in the recipe so that it really wasn't at all as published. That said, we give this recipe an enthusiastic five stars in spite of the fact that we made a change. That is rather than use lamb shanks we started with a lamb shoulder roast of about 3 pounds and trimmed it well to remove fat and ended up with about 2 1/2 pounds of lamb stew meat to make this as a stew and not shanks. It was delicious, the adobo sauce recipe is really, really good. Maybe it was the difference between using shanks and the shoulder stew meat, but we found we did not need to do the last recipe step to thicken the sauce, it was just right for thickness, and we also had virtually no fat on he sauce to be removed. Easy to make and definitely a "keeper". Added bonus, the house smelled wonderful from toasting the chiles through braising the lamb. A good make ahead and reheat dish.
With some trepidation I poured a quart of orange juice over some perfectly fine lamb shanks, but to our delight, it came out perfect! The cumin and chipotle came through nicely, and the lamb literally fell off the bone. It's a really nice presentation as well. I'll definitely do this dish again for company or just family.
