Osso Buco Milanese

For 4-6 (see below)

(Adapted and revised from Ada Boni, Italian Regional Cooking)

4-6 pieces of osso buco (see step 1 below)
flour
salt, pepper
2T butter or margarine
2T olive oil
1/2 c dry white wine
2-3 sprigs of fresh rosemary (or dried to taste)
1 15 oz/400-450 gr can of peeled whole tomatoes

Gremolta
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
lemon rind from 1/2 to 1 lemon
1/4 -1/2 c flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

1. Get the number of pieces of osso buco that you figure will feed the number of people you want to feed (remembering that the result of this recipe keeps very well in the fridge). The number of pieces may vary according to the size and/or thickness of the individual pieces as well as the appetites you predict. The amount of sauce in this recipe used to feed four in our house and now works for four adults and two kids. Leftover Osso Buco sauce is great on pasta. It almost worth using 2 cans of tomatoes just for the pasta sauce bonus.

2. If you have a very sharp knife you really ought to cut through the membrane around the edge of each osso buco piece. Cut the membrane entirely through in four or five places. Doing this means that the pieces will lie flat when they are browning and cooking later. Now get ready to coat the pieces in flour. Put some flour, salt and pepper on a flat plate.

3. You will be browning the meat and then cooking everything in the same pan, so make sure you have a skillet, casserole, saute pan, or that kind of thing, that is large enough to contain all the pieces of osso buco either lying flat or nearly so.

4. Put the butter and olive oil in the pan and heat over a medium flame until the butter melts. Raise the flame to quite hot and (quickly) flour the first three pieces of osso buco on both sides. When the butter foam begins to subside, add these pieces and brown on both sides. Take them out when they are brown and keep them close by. Do the rest of the pieces and keep them too on one side. Watch the heat: you do not want to burn anything, but you do want a nice brown coat.

5. Return the meat to the pan. Add the white wine and rosemary and mix things around. Boil off all or nearly all of the wine.

6. As the wine is boiling away, open the tin of tomatoes. When the wine is gone, pour the tomatoes over the meat (again, watch the heat, you do not want to get splattered). You can use that messy, but cool, technique of catching each of the canned tomatoes and squeezing it before it goes into the pot, but that is actually not necessary.

7. Bring the contents of your pan to a boil. Lower heat to a simmer. Cover the pan. Cook for 2 hours (about). Check now and then to see that things are only simmering and to stir so that the pieces of osso buco are cooked on all sides.

8. About 1 to 1 1/2 hours in, you should be able to extract the bones from the middle of the pieces. Since the osso buco pieces are going to fall apart anyway, you might as well take out the bones. The marrow has its uses, if you like that sort of thing (see step 10 below).

9. Shortly before serving MAKE THE GREMOLTA. I need to put this in caps because I can't tell you the number of times I have forgotten to do it - and Osso Buco Milanese without gremolta is just stew. For the gremolta, you chop up the parsley and the garlic and put them into a small bowl and then grate the lemon rind over (I think that coarsely grated lemon rind is best). Then you toss all of three together in the bowl with your fingers. Some folks chop up anchovies and add them to the gremolta too. You can do that if you want.

10. Cooking times are approximate. You could make this in the morning and reheat it to eat at night or the next day or the day after (and it might even be better). The gremolta - which should always be made shortly before serving and does not keep - is sprinkled over each serving when it is served. Traditionally Osso Buco Milanese is served with Risotto Milanese made with the marrow from the osso buco bones.