Monday, April 26, 2010

Osso Buco...

I always wanted to do a slow cook dish - osso buco, lamb shank, roast chicken etc etc... But unfortunately, what I lack in the kitchen is one of those big heavy lidded casserole! 

This time, we've invited our dear friends Iva and Freddy (and Sunday - Iva's dog - how can we leave him out!) to come over for dinner to have a catch up. (Although we see each other every sunday at church, but very rarely that we get the time to really sit down and catch up) And this gave me a very good reason to go out and get a casserole to do an osso buco dish!

What I love about osso buco is not the meat itself, but the bone marrow that sits inside the hole! The soft slippery texture that you sip straight out of the hole and down your throat is just amazing. Someone told me that a restaurant actually serves the bone marrow raw! Ummm... I'm not too sure about that though! 

Serves 4

Ingredients:
40g butter
4 pieces of osso bucco (1kg)
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves
1/2 cup of port
1 cup beef stock

1. Preheat oven to 170C


2. Melt the butter in a casserole, brown both sides of the veal. Add garlic, rosemary, port and stock. 
3. Cover, bake in the oven for 2.5 hours. 

EASY! Only 3 steps! And you can just leave it in the oven and let it cook its way through while you do other things! 

I used the salt reduced stock for this dish, which I found there's a lack of flavour to the beef. Probably next time I'll use the normal stock, or add a bit of salt and pepper to enhance the taste. But overall, it wasn't bad, the meat was soft and fell off the bone, and we all enjoyed it! We had the beef with some bread and truffle butter (yummmmm....) but I think it matches well with some mashed potato or polenta too! 

After we were all full, I had one piece of osso buco left - that means my hubby can take it to work for lunch. I quickly made some pasta, and chop up the meat in chunks and mix it in along with some sauces left in the casserole. Done!

At the end of dinner, I had a little problem... I now need to find a space to store this giant casserole! But funny enough, after moving and stacking things around inside the kitchen cupboards. I managed to fit the casserole in without problem! Haha... does that mean I can invest in more of my toys?? =P

Just a little side story... Sunday seemed to be more comfortable around Mochi this time, at least Sunday didn't try to escape the house! And Mochi got a little jealous when I tried to feed Sunday some of his dinner, it was funny seeing Mochi tried to use his nose to shuf Sunday away!! I think they can be friends.... eventually! =P 

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