Osso Buco Semplice

This is a nice dish, and not hard to prepare --- but you have to leave time, about 2.5 hours start-to-finish. I cooked it out of Hazan several times, but not often since the Osso Buco veal cut is pricey when it's even available. It's been mostly for special occasions. But today we went to the grocery, Whole Foods, and they had Osso Buco for $13/pound. Not bad. Still pricey, not as pricey as usual. And I thought, when am I going to make this anyway if not now? So I bought it. I thought I'd freeze it and use it one day for a special dinner...

When we got back I looked through Hazan and I thought, ah, well it's a little involved. Then I looked at Elizabeth David, and I thought, as usual, ah, the essential recipe. Elizabeth David understood that having the essence of the recipe meant you could then be creative with it. So I suppose Hazan's recipe might taste better, more complex, than David's, but it also doesn't show you the core of the recipe. Once you know the core, you can do what you like with it. The core of Osso Buco is an excellent dish, a marvel of simplicity actually. And Hazan isn't hard either, once you see what you're doing.

After reading David's recipe through carefully (as I do now and didn't do as a beginner,) I knew I could cook it tonight, even though it was getting late. Which would mean I didn't have to freeze and then thaw the osso buco, which makes it better. Freezing and thawing meat well makes a big difference, I'm beginning to think, in your final dishes. For example, we eat Korean bar-be-cue, and we buy American Kobe beef and freeze it. It's always been a problem thawing that, since if you don't thaw it well then the thin slices don't come apart nicely. So I started putting it down from the freezer into the fridge the night before, and now it's perfectly thawed, and I'm sure it tastes better than when I used to have to quick-thaw it in a Ziploc in warm water --- if nothing else it's more reliably thawed all the way through.

But when you have a nice piece of meat, then it's best not to freeze it at all. So here's what I cooked, based on David's recipe:

Osso Buco

2 ossi buchi cuts, good amount of butter, 2 peeled tomatoes, 1/2 cup wine. Use a pan that will fit the ossi buchi without crowding. Brown the ossi buchi on all sides in the butter. Toss in the wine, let it bubble for 10 minutes. Meanwhile chop the tomatoes. After 10 minutes, toss them in along with 1/4 cup of water. Cover. Simmer for 2 hours.

Great dishes don't get simpler than that. Osso buco is always served with risotto Milanese (do the Italians know how to live?) and gremolata. I didn't have a lemon to grate the peel of, and I didn't have Italian parsley, so I made up Jackson-o-lata, which was pretty good. I took 6 basil leaves from my plant (in the photo!), tore them, mixed them with some lime juice and a chopped clove of garlic. That goes on top of the ossi buchi and gives them a little extra flair.