Ossobuco alla Milanese

(Italian Ossobuco)

Italian Ossobuco is a delightful regional dish, which is popular all over Europe. This variant, Ossobuco alla Milanese, comes from Milano (that's Milan to us English-speakers), where bone-marrow is considered a tasty and nutritious delicacy. The locals either suck it out with gusto, or scoop it out delicately with a small spoon.

Ingredients

8 shin of veal chopped into 2 inch (5 cm) slices of bone
80g butter
1 small onion
1 clove of garlic
1 small carrot
1 small stick of celery
1 glass of white wine
250 ml of broth (stock)
1x 500g can (tin) of peeled tomatoes
salt and pepper to taste

Ingredients for the Gremolata Sauce

4 tablespoons of parsley
grated peel from 1 orange or lemon
1 clove of garlic

Dust your Ossobuco pieces thoroughly in flour, then brown the slices on both sides in a frypan of butter. While they're browning, quickly slice up the carrot, celery, onion and garlic into thin slices. Add them to the pan of Ossobuco, and season with a few shakes of salt and pepper. Stir the mixture gently to avoid sticking, and turn the veal slices to make sure they are sealed on both sides.

Once everything in the cooking pan has turned a beautiful golden brown color, add the vino (your white wine) stir it in gently.  Once the wine has almost all evaporated, you can add the canned tomatoes.

Slowly cook your Milanese Ossobuco for a little over one hour, or until you can see the meat falls easily off the bone. If the sauce becomes too thick, you have been cooking it a bit fast. Not to worry! Just add a little more stock/broth to thin down the gravy.

Lift out the Ossobuco and arrange it appetisingly in a pre-heated serving dish, but keep the gravy sauce in the pan for now.  To make the Gremolata sauce, chop up parsley finely at the last minute and mix in the citrus peel and garlic. Stir the new ingredients into the simmering gravy which turns it into Gremolata sauce. Now pour the sauce over your veal and serve the dish to your delighted family or guests. Ossobuco alla Milanese is traditionally eaten with rice or rice risotto.

Memories

This is not a quietly-eaten dish, at least not by mama who liked to suck every bit of marrow out of the bone when all else was eaten. To enjoy this dish and to get its full value, forget your manners and get your hands - and chin - dirty.