“The main difference between cooking at home and cooking professionally lies in the level of advanced preparation,” said chef Ferran Adrià in The Family Meal (Phaidon). When a professional chef makes a dish like osso buco, for instance, the taste will be much enhanced because a well-made beef broth and tomato sauce will already be on hand. Put some time into creating and freezing such basic preparations and “you can greatly expand your repertoire of everyday dishes.”
Osso buco is a classic dish whose name is Italian for “bone with a hole.” It’s traditionally made with a veal shank that’s been crosscut so that the meat surrounds marrow-filled bone. Feel free to work with broth and sauce you’ve purchased—you might ask a favorite restaurant to sell theirs by the liter. But I’ve included a broth recipe that will help provide the best results.
Recipe of the week
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Osso buco
6 veal shin pieces (3–3½ lbs)
4 tbsp flour
7 tbsp butter
1½ tbsp chopped carrots
2 tbsp chopped celery
2 onions, chopped
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 cup white wine
4 dried bay leaves
2 tbsp tomato sauce
6½ cups beef stock (recipe below)
2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
Zest of 2 lemons
Zest of 2 oranges
Season the veal with salt and pepper. Dust the meat with flour and pat away any excess. Heat large pan over high heat, then add half the butter. When the butter foams, add veal pieces, brown on both sides, and set aside. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Turn heat under the pan to medium, add rest of butter and carrots, and stir for one minute. Add celery, onion, and 3 cloves garlic and cook, stirring, until vegetables have softened (about 10 minutes).
Add wine and loosen any sediment from the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. When wine has almost evaporated, add bay leaves and tomato sauce. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes, until thickened.
Put veal pieces in a roasting pan. Add the vegetable mixture and then beef stock. Cover pan with foil and cook in oven for 2 hours or until meat is very tender.
While meat cooks, prepare the garnish—a gremolata. Combine parsley and 3 cloves garlic in a small bowl. Add finely grated zest of orange and lemon and mix well. Sprinkle over osso buco. Serves 6.
Beef stock
1 small onion, halved
2 ¼ lbs beef scraps
6 lbs raw beef bones
½ cup diced carrots
¼ cup celery
1¼ gal water
