Osso Bucco Sunday

Traditional veal shanks with a mish mash of farro and potatoes and veggies in tomato puree. The bone marrow was the cherry on cake, so to speak.

Slow cooked together makes for a great meal!

Curried Veal Shanks- Another Osso Bucco

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!

Curried Veal Shanks

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.

A Marrow Escape- Osso Bucco

Osso Bucco is said to be a Milanese dish, and is often served with risotto. The name means “bone with a hole” or “hollowed bone”. This refers to the veal shank bone with a large and tasty marrow filling. This slow cooked meat dish is a nice change of pace on the stews that we make today. I remember the first time I had this dish in a Spanish restaurant in Dallas called 'Rouge'... I thought I had just died and gone to bucco heaven...















Chef Joseph (originally from Basque) before opening for dinner would cook his 'marrow' stew by slow cooking the veal, or as we called it 'Oxtail' in clay pots all afternoon. Knowing this would arrive tender and falling off the bone and perfect every time; it seemed to be what I always wanted to order if we ate there. He also served the most wonderful complimentary glass of sangria when you arrived, and his hospitality was beyond measure. The restaurant would move tables aside and convert the center floor into a dance club towards the end of the evening. Hubby and I have many great memories taking friends and out of town company there...

Talking with him on our last visit, I asked if he would let me in his kitchen to learn a few of his Basque cooking tricks. Until I started preparing my 'mise' for this dish I had almost forgotten all that Joseph had taught me. He had shared with me that adding lemon to the dish while cooking gave it an extra kick of flavor. I will have to re-create more recipes from his fabulous cooking lessons back in Dallas. Many years have gone by since I made this dish, and I am looking forward to tasting it...



















Chefs, cooks, and even restaurants garnish the finale platting with a gremolata (or Gremolada), consisting of a mixture of Italian parsley, garlic and grated lemon peel, but it occurred to me goat cheese could be added as an extra layer of creaminess to the risotto. My final decision was to serve it with an Italian Lemon granita and grappa shooter to emulate the garnish and serve it with a lemon goat cheese risotto (GF- brown rice, stock, cream, goat cheese, lemon zest).

The out come... with the sourness of the lemon, smoothness of the cheese and the bite from the zesty tomatoes and vegetable...just seems of Un menage a trois in your mouth!



















We 'marrowly' escape eating more than our share, but do stick to portion control tonight...

We travel to Ethiopia again, and the chef tries out a few fusion dishes tomorrow on company...