The pork shank is one of the main protagonists of many traditional European cuisines, especially German. The shank needs a very long cooking time so that the heat penetrates deeply into the meat to allow it to perfectly detach from the bone at the end of cooking. This is why Ghisanativa is the perfect tool.

Ingredients for 2 people

• 2 pork shanks (taken from your local butcher)
• 1 bottle of red wine (I’m in favour of a good Cabernet or Valpolicella. How about you?)
• 6 pitted prunes
• Celery, carrot, and onion
• Bay leaves, juniper berries, black peppercorns, ½ orange
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation methodology

When we decide to prepare the shank, we start the marinade the night before.

Put the shanks, chopped vegetables, prunes, spices, and half a sliced orange in a large Pyrex container and cover with red wine. Leave the ingredients to marinate overnight in the fridge with the lid on or covered with cling film.

The next morning, drain the shanks from the marinade, dry them, rub them with salt and pepper and brown them well (1) in your Ghisanativa pot. Add the vegetables and the plums from the marinade, remove the orange and leave to take on flavour, and cover with the wine from the marinade (2).

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Bring to the boil (3), cover with the lid and transfer the pot to the oven preheated to 100°C. Let the shanks cook for about two hours and turn halfway through cooking (4).

When the 2 hours are up, remove them from the oven and place them on a serving plate. Drain the vegetables and set them aside. Filter the remaining liquid.

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Prepare a small bowl with two tablespoons of flour (use cornflour if you have coeliac guests, as I often do) which you will dilute with a little cold water – like making a batter – and add to the shank sauce to thicken it.

Put the sauce back on the heat and let it reduce for a few minutes. Then remove the shanks and return the meat to the sauce and simmer for a few more minutes.

You can make another sauce with the vegetables and plums by blending them in an immersion blender and then passing the resulting puree through a sieve or colander to make it more velvety.

Serve the shanks topped with their own sauce, mashed vegetables and a nice mashed potato.

Michela Oppo

“Cooking teacher, Venetian by adoption, born and lived until the age of 18 in the city of La Spezia from a Sardinian father and a Ligurian mother, from La Spezia to be precise, with a little Piedmontese blood. I left pieces of my heart in Shanghai, Buenos Aires and London. There are many reasons why I cook, to feed and to nourish myself of course, but I think I cook above all for love, for love of my loved ones and why not, to be loved in turn. I love the tango, the sea, books that make you dream, ceramics, fans, languages and… cooking and baking of course!”

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