Osso Bucco

Winter is approaching and as the weather is getting cooler in the afternoons and evenings I tend to focus my cooking on soups, roasts and other slow cooked meals. One favorite recipe is Osso Bucco. My first encounter with this recipe was when I was cooking in the SAS Officer’s Mess as part of my National Service Training.  Santo Ferarra, a civilian cook employed at the Mess, was my mentor and taught me all the tricks of the cooking trade including how to make this dish. Back then we would have used beef shin instead of veal and this works perfectly, it just may require a bit more cooking.  Fortunately now we have good supplies of veal in our supermarket and local butchers so I recently stocked up in anticipation of making this recipe.

Long_mach and the truffle were coming over to share Sunday dinner so it was an opportunity to make this recipe and also have a go at making the Master Chef recipe Crème Brulee. Happy to say the Osso Bucco and accompanying wine was a success. Unfortunately the Crème Brulee did not set, so it will be back to the test kitchen to see what went wrong – I’ll try again and post of the recipe when I have nailed it!

Osso Bucco

Ingredients (Serves 4)

4 centre bone cut pieces of veal Osso Bucco (approx 800gms)

½ cup plain flour seasoned with sea salt and ground pepper
4 tbs extra virgin olive oil

100gms butter
2 brown onions diced

2 celery stalks diced

1 carrot diced
3 cloves garlic diced
1 cup dry white wine

2 tbs tomato paste
2 x 400gms tins diced tomato
1 cup chicken stock
2 sprigs fresh thyme

200 gms Button or Swiss brown mushrooms
2 bay leaves
Sea salt, ground black pepper

Gremolata
1 bunch flat-leaf parsley finely chopped

1 clove garlic finely minced

1 lemon zest finely minced

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Preparation

Preheat fan forced oven to 180°C. 

First make your base – the ‘Holy Trinity’ or ‘soffritto’ (used in most soup and casserole recipes and consist of onions, celery and carrot lightly sautéed in oil and butter.)

Add half of the olive oil and butter to a large baking dish or cast iron casserole and lightly sauté the onion, celery and carrot – remove and set aside.

Dust veal portions in seasoned flour.

Add the remaining olive oil and butter to the baking dish and lightly brown the floured veal portions - remove and set aside.

Deglaze the baking dish with white wine and when the wine is nearly fully reduced add the tomato paste and cook for a minute then add the canned tomato, vegetables and veal.

Add the stock, bay leaves, thyme and seasoning - if necessary add additional water to just cover the Osso Bucco.

Bring to the boil, and then cover the baking dish with foil or casserole lid and place into the pre heated oven for 1.5 to 2 hours. Check the veal for tenderness and adjust cooking time until the veal falls off the bone. Check seasoning adding extra if necessary. If there is too much liquid do not replace foil or lid to allow any excess liquid to reduce to a nice sauce consistency.

Prior to serving stir through the gremolata.

Serve with mashed potato and steamed green vegetables.

Beverage: Fraser Gallop 2008 Cabernet Merlot.