Nigella's Aromatic Lamb Shanks

This is a very very nice recipe that I've adapted from 'Nigella's Bites', love the spices in this recipe that somehow makes you heady at the first taste. Here's the original recipe from Nigella, and of course i tweaked the amounts of spices to my liking, so feel free to do so if you ever make this.

6 tbsp peanut/vegetable oil
8 lamb shanks
2 onions
4 cloves garlic
sprinkling of salt
1 tbsp turmeric
1 tsp ground ginger
1 dried red chilli pepper, crumbled or 1/4 tsp dried red pepper flakes (to your taste really)
2 tsp cinnamon (can substitute with 2 cinnamon sticks)
1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
black pepper
3 tbsp honey (too sweet for me)
1 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp marsala wine
6 tbsp red lentils

to serve:
3 tbsp chopped pistachio, chopped blanched almonds or a mixture of both or NOTHING!

Put 3 tbsp oil into a large, wide, heavy-bottomed pan and warm over medium heat. Brown the lamb shanks, in batches.
Chop the onions and garlic finely and fry the onion-garlic mush until soft, sprinkling salt over to stop it sticking (now that's a neat trick, it really works!)
Stir in the turmeric, ground ginger, chilli, cinnamon and nutmeg, and season with some black pepper. Stir again, adding the honey, soy sauce, marsala wine. Add the shanks back into the pan, add cold water to almost cover, bring to the boil then put a lid over the pan, lower the heat and simmer gently for 1-1 1/2 hours or until meat is tender ( took me about 2 1/2 hours!)
Add the red lentils (i used yellow ones as that's what i have in the pantry) and cook for about 20 mins without lid (now that didn't work me, i suggest soaking the lentils overnight then maybe, otherwise it would take about an hour for the lentils to soften in its original form) until lentils have softened into the sauce and the juices have reduced and thickened slightly. Check for seasoning.
Toast the nuts by heating them for a few minutes in a dry frying pan and sprinkle onto the lamb as you serve.

Serves 6.