After my grandmother past away when my mother needed an Italian recipe she went to Marcella Hazen's The Classic Italian Cook Book. One Christmas she presented me with my own copy. I did not really use it until she past away. It was then I found one of my favorite recipes for Osso Bucco. Rarely do I follow a recipe to a T. There are always some minor adjustments or major improvements that need to be made. But once in a while I find a recipe that is pure perfection and I don't want to mess with that! If you have Marcella's book be sure to read her valuable notes on veal shanks. I have included the recipe for the Gremolada but I like Marcella do not use it. The dish is beautifully flavored by itself. The addition of Gremolada overpowers some of the subtleties of the sauce. Marcella and I do however differ over what to serve with the Osso Bucco. While risotto may be natural or even a tradition for Marcella; for me polenta is the only thing that enhances the dish to level of sublime!
The marrow of course is the very tastiest part of this dish. You may provide some of those neat little marrow spoons or just use demitasse spoons. It would be nice to have on hand some toasted ciabatta bread slices to spread the marrow onto.
1 cup onion chopped fine
2/3 cup carrot chopped fine
2/3 cup celery chopped fine
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
1 teaspoon garlic chopped fine
2 strips lemon peel (with none of the white pith beneath it)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
Eight 1 1/2-inch-thick slices of veal hind shank, each tied tightly around the middle
Flour, spread on a plate
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup basic
homemade meat broth [stock], or 1/2 cup canned beef broth with 1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped, with their juice
1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme or 1/4 teaspoon dried
2 bay leaves
2 or 3 sprigs parsley
fresh ground Black pepper
Salt
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Choose a pot with a heavy bottom or of enameled cast iron that can subsequently accommodate all the veal shanks in a single layer. (If you do not have a single pot large enough, use two smaller ones,dividing the ingredients into two equal halves, but adding 1 extra
tablespoon of butter for each pot.) Put in the onion, carrot, celery, and butter, and turn on the heat to medium. Cook for about 6 to 7 minutes, add the chopped garlic and lemon peel, cook another 2 or 3 minutes until the vegetables soften and wilt, then remove from heat.
3. Put the vegetable oil in a skillet and turn on the heat to medium high. Turn the veal shanks in the flour, coating them all over and shaking off the excess flour. Note: Do not flour the veal, or anything else that needs to be browned, in advance because the flour will become soggy and make it impossible to achieve a crisp surface. When the oil is quite hot – it should sizzle when the veal goes in –slip in the shanks and brown them deeply all over. Remove them from the skillet using a slotted spoon or spatula, and stand them side by side over the chopped vegetables in the pot.
4. Tip the skillet and spoon off all but a little bit of the oil. Add the wine, reduce it by simmering it over medium heat while scraping loose with a wooden spoon the browning residues stuck to
the bottom and sides. Pour the skillet juices over the veal in the pot.
5. Put the broth in the skillet, bring it to a simmer, and add it to the pot. Also add the chopped tomatoes with their juice, the thyme, the bay leaves, parsley, pepper and salt. The broth should have come two- thirds of the way up to the top of the shanks. If it does not, add more.
6. Bring the liquids in the pot to a simmer, cover the pot tightly, and place it in the lower third of the preheated oven. Cook for about 2 hours or until the meat feels very tender when prodded with a fork and a dense, creamy sauce has formed. Turn and baste the shanks every 20 minutes. If, while the ossobuco is cooking, the liquid in the pot becomes insufficient, add 2 tablespoons of water at a time, as needed.
7. When the ossobuco is done, transfer it to a warm platter, carefully remove the trussing strings without letting the shanks come apart, pour the sauce in the pot over them, and serve at once. If the pot juices are too thin and watery, place the pot over a burner with high heat, boil down the excess liquid, then pour the reduced juices over the ossobuco on the platter.
Serve with a soft polenta is desired.
Gremolada
1 teaspoon grated
lemon peel, taking care to avoid the white pith
1/4 teaspoon garlic chopped very, very fine
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
Mix together and sprinkle over veal shanks at the end of cooking.