One of the best dishes we can prepare for a special occasion. I often prepare it for Sunday and holidays lunch
ingredients for 4 servings (cost about 9€ pp)
- Salt
- Black pepper
- 4 beef ossibuchi
- EV olive oil
- 100 ml white wine
- 1 medium carrot
- 1 medium leek
- 800 ml vegetable stock
- 4 tablespoons of tomato sauce
- flour for dusting
- 40 g butter
- A bunch of parsley
- 2 large garlic cloves
- zest from 2 oranges
- 4 portions risotto milanese
Ossobuco is a relatively difficult meat to prepare. It is very tough and it needs humidity and a lot of time to be cooked. A good ossobuco must melt otherwise it is not very tasty and pleasant.
The risotto milanese may be the most famous of all pairings of ossobuco. Actually this dish is one of the greatest of the Northern Italian cuisine. If we have patience we can prepare a marvellous, monumental dish. Let´s try it.
First of all we must pre salt well the 4 ossibuchi and put it in the fridge for at least 12 hours. I remind to our new readers that pre-salting the meat, we make it more tender and juicy.
The next day we wash and pat dry the meat and we make at least 4 cuts at the external tissue in order to keep ossobuco´ shape as it is. We put some pepper on its surface and we dust it with flour. We preheat a large pot with heavy bottom, we add some olive oil and we brown the ossibuchi (or the ossobuccos if you like). We add the wine.
We cut leek and carrot to very small dice and we add them into the pot along with the butter, the stock and the tomato sauce. We cover with the lid, we reduce the temperature to minimum (I remind you that when we prepare meat dishes like this we use the smallest of all burners), and we cook the meat till very very tender (more than 3-4 hours).
When the meat is almost ready (not before), we prepare the risotto and the gremolata.
For the gremolata we mince very finely the garlic cloves and the parsley and we mix it with the orange zest.
We turn the heat off and we remove the pot from the stove. We also check the salt, adding some if required. If the sauce is still too liquid we raise the heat and we cook without the lid till the desired consistency.
We serve the meat with the risotto, adding the sauce and the gremolata.
See how to prepare the milanese risotto here
