This is the time of year when it is cold outside, so making one pot wonders seems to have its appeal. Days are long, every night I have somewhere to be, so I just want to throw all the ingredients into a baking dish. I found veal shanks for a great price a while back and bought extra to store in the freezer. I just did not feel like making a traditional Osso Bucco, so I improvised.
Okay this is not a casserole, but it felt like one. Many recipes for Osso Bucco are long and complicated (in prep), but if you really dig this cut of meat (great for crock pot cooking).
Traditionally Italian Ossobuco alla milanese (Often spelled Osso Bucco- meaning shank) is dredged in flour; add a variety of vegetables, and tomato sauce is added and is similar to stew. Slow cooking allows the ingredients to meld, making a wonderful sauce. Then often it is served over pasta, or with risotto that has been cooked with saffron threads.
I have chosen to forgo the flour and make the seasoning and Farro, another Italian grain, the star of this dish. Farro replaces the flour; it helps thicken the sauce with juices of the meat and seasonings.
Farro was once the food of the Roman soldiers; it is a healthy and filling grain that kept the troops happy!
6 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon coriander powder
1 tablespoon ginger powder
1 tablespoon madras curry powder
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
Salt/Pepper to taste
1 sliced red onion
4 veal shoulder chops, or 2 large shanks (as I have chosen)
1 cup uncooked Farro
2 1/2 cups beef stock; adjust as needed
Lightly season the veal with salt. Slather mustard all over the veal. Dust with coarsely ground black pepper. Cover and refrigerate 4 to 6 hours.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
Put the veal in a baking pan. Cover with Farro, onions, rest of seasonings, and stock. Cover with foil. Bake about 1 hour and 15 minutes (time varies depending on heat source); slowly until meat is tender, and Farro is cooked. Remove meat from bone ( pull into pieces). Remove marrow from bone center and stir into sauce, or serve bones on plate and eat with dish.
I sauteed spinach and served as base for my Veal Shanks- Osso Bucco/Farro mixture. Serve.
The one problem that bothered me with cooking this all in one pot is that I could not puree the sauce, because it would have involved messing with the Farro texture. The sauce looks grainy, but it was a wonderful flavored dish otherwise. I have been wanting to incorporate mustard into more dishes, and this one is a keeper.
