Recipes, Beef Recipes

Beef ossobuco recipe

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This beef ossobuco recipe, often referred to as braised beef shanks, is a mouth-watering Italian comfort dish traditionally made with veal. This simple slow-cooked recipe is delicious all year round. In spring or summer, I recommend serving it with buttery boiled potatoes and roasted purple sprouting broccoli with feta and preserved lemon. For autumn or winter, mashed potatoes or soft polenta are perfect accompaniments. And whatever you do, don’t forget to enjoy the bone marrow!

Swaledale-Beef-Ossobuco

Serves 4

Ingredients

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 165°C.
  2. Use a heavy casserole dish with a lid for this recipe. Place the casserole over medium-high heat and add 2 tablespoons of oil. Season the flour and lightly coat the beef ossobuco, tapping off any excess.
  3. Fry the ossobuco on both sides until you achieve a deep caramel colour. Occasionally, the outer layer of connective tissue may tighten and cause the meat to contort. If this happens, use a pair of scissors to make 2 or 3 small snips where the meat looks strained or twisted – this should allow it to relax back to its original shape. Once the meat is coloured, set it aside.
  4. Add the remaining olive oil to the pot, along with the onions and celery, and season. Turn the heat down and sweat gently for 5-minutes. Then add the garlic and rosemary, continuing to sweat for another 10-minutes.
  5. Meanwhile, bring a small pot of water to the boil. Make a cross at the bottom of each tomato and place them in the boiling water for 30-seconds. Remove the tomatoes and plunge them into ice-cold water – this should loosen the skins for easy peeling. If using tinned tomatoes, you can skip this step.
  6. After the onion and celery have softened, add the meat back into the pot along with the bay leaves. Gently nestle in the tomatoes. Pour over the wine and bring the mixture to a simmer.
  7. Cover with greaseproof paper, place the lid on the casserole, and transfer it to the oven.
  8. After an hour and a half, flip the ossobuco over and return it to the oven.
  9. After another hour, check the meat – it should pull away easily from the bone. If it doesn’t, return it to the oven and check again in 30-minutes.
  10. Once the meat is ready, the sauce should be rich and silky. If the sauce is still a bit thin, remove the meat and boil the sauce rapidly until it becomes thick and unctuous.

Shop the ingredients

Anna commenced her cookery career under Jeremy Lee at the Blueprint Café and rose to the challenge of head chef at Rochelle Canteen. However, Anna’s classical cookery education, and much of what inspires her signature unpretentious European fare harks back to her childhood. The daughter of Serbian parents, Anna spent much of her youth with her hands in French and Italian soil, assisting her grandparents in their vegetable gardens. These formative experiences with field to plate food production inform much of Anna’s focus on seasonal ingredients, and her mantra of keeping it simple. Anna and her partners (the team behind 40 Maltby Street) launched Café Deco in November 2020; the timing of which really tested her mettle. However, the demand for simple, honest food, executed well, has seen Anna establish Café Deco as a sought-after destination restaurant.