Recipe: Osso Bucco

Facing an alarming backlog due to the France writeups, so I'll try my best to get everything done. Meanwhile, I discovered I had three veal shanks sitting in my freezer turning a rather unappetising shade of magenta. I'd been meaning to make some osso bucco, but never found the time to.

Well, finally deciding I'd put it off long enough, I also wanted a chance to try out my beautiful birthday present from Nicholas, who, thoughtful as always, gave me something really useful and nice to look at:



It's been such a long time since I've handled a really sharp knife, that I'd almost forgotten what it was like. Almost, but not quite. The crisp, clean shear of celery as the knife blade slipped right through, the hard carrot yielding meekly, it's truly a pleasure to cook when you have the right tools.

Anyway, this recipe for osso bucco isn't mine, I Googled if off the web and you can find it here.



Ingredients
4 veal shanks, 2 inch thick
1/2 cup flour
1 large onion, chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1/2 red pepper, chopped
4 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 can (14.5 ounces) low-salt chicken broth
1 can (14.5 ounces) whole tomatoes, crushed with fingers or fork, with juices
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon marjoram
1-1/2 tablespoons parsley
Salt and pepper to taste

When cooking osso bucco, it's important to have thick slabs of meat. You should be aiming for a minimum of 2 inches per shank. Don't worry about having to chew your way through it; the meat should be tender enough to fall apart at the touch of a fork. I went a little overboard with the herbs; chopping up about a tablespoon of thyme and marjoram, and probably something like half a cup of parsley. Too many herbs is never a bad thing.



Salt and pepper the shanks, and coat them lightly in flour. I had, of course, forgotten to do this, so it's not totally essential.



Heat some olive oil in a casserole or deep pot, and brown the shanks on both sides, which takes about 3 - 4 minutes per side. Try and brown the rims of the shanks as well, in order to improve the colour.



Once that's done, remove the shanks from the pot, and saute your garlic, onions, celery and carrots in the same oil. Try not to burn them, especially the garlic and onions, because those are the easiest to burn.



Pour in the wine and the stock, bringing it to a boil and scraping up the brown fond sticking to the bottom of the pot. If you have burned your garlic and onions, then don't scrape them up, otherwise everything becomes acrid.



Next, add the lemon juice, tomatoes and herbs. Turn down the heat to a simmer and let the liquid reduce by a third (or, if in a hurry, just boil the living daylights out of it till similarly reduced). Make sure the pot is uncovered so that all the water can evaporate.



Once the liquid has evaporated enough and turned a nice vermilion hue, you may turn down the heat if you were using a rolling boil previously. If you were simmering, then just carry right on. If you were using the microwave, you've clearly been reading the wrong recipe.



Return the shanks to the simmering liquid, moving aside the vegetables to make room. It is inevitable that the shanks will be resting on some carrots and celery, so it's important your flame is as small as possible to minimise charring things on the bottom of your pot. They really do look like brains in that last photo.



Cover the pot and simmer lightly for about two hours, until the bone socket is hollow (and has rendered its marrow) and the meat if falling off the bone and fork-tender.



Serve the osso bucco with the accompanying vegetables. The yellow thing you see on the side is polenta, which I thought went quite well with the shanks. Not bad, even if I do say so myself.

Technorati Tags: Recipes, Osso Bucco

France: 5e Jour

Déjeuner

Oh today was a good food day, perhaps the best day in terms of gastronomical experience.

Lunch was in a restaurant on the island of Porquerolles, as we were going to be cycling round the island. Being an island, fish is caught on a regular basis, so all the fish and seafood items were incredibly fresh. The soupe de poisson, in particular, was so rich and fishy that all those who had it couldn't get enough of it.



Guess what sort of an amuse-bouche we were served? No, go on, guess. Could it be? Not more tomato gazpacho? But this one was very good. It was almost a dessert, actually. Three layers of mustard ice cream, tomato gazpacho and basil cream. Amazingly complex, the flavours are not strong but piquant, and are composed in such quantities that each melds into the other with incredible lightness.



I decided to skip a starter, since I knew a big dinner awaited us. I went straight for the lamb croustillant with chutney and polenta. I'm always quite intrigued by meat served with pastry; it just seems so incongruous. I was a little concerned when the lamb emerged, because it looked slightly dry, but it turned out to be quite all right. The chutney might have been an attempt at creativity, but it wasn't as good as the Australian ones.



Dessert was an obvious choice, since they had an order of Ile Flottante with fruits and mint sorbet on the menu. When it arrived, though, I was disappointed. The traditional pool of creme anglaise was nowhere to be seen, which meant the dessert was not an ile flottante at all, but just a meringue. I was wondering where the mint sorbet was, until I discovered they had actually stuffed the sorbet inside the meringue! If anyone has any idea how that's done, I'd dearly love to know. Unfortunately, this had the side effect of making the meringue somewhat soggy.

Dîner

Dinner was at a restaurant near our hotel named Le Sud, and despite having earned no Michelin stars, it was easily the best meal we had in France. How Le Sud works is diners get no choice over what to eat; the chefs cook and prepare whatever they found fresh in the market. Your job is just to eat whatver's placed in front of you. Now, I'm a great fan of this approach to cooking because it leaves everybody happy. The clients are pretty much ensured a good meal because everything is fresh, and the chef is happy because he gets to work with fresh ingredients and turnover is rapid: no days-old fish belly sitting around in the fridge waiting for someone to order it.

We were told that we would be served three different starters, a main course, and dessert. What we weren't told was that this didn't include about three or four different appetisers before the start of the actual meal.



First came an interesting looking tomato gazpacho served in a chinese spoon, as well as a cherry tomato halve with some tapenade and a cheese stick. The gazpacho was thick, but quite lusciously enjoyable, though the tomato with tapenade was a little tart for me.



Our second amuse-bouche took the form of a truffled croute. A generous slice of truffle, coated with olive oil, was placed atop a toasted morsel of bread, with a crystal of sea salt to really bring out the flavour. Most of the truffles I've had had infused the dishes they were presented with, leaving the actual truffle bland, but this one was heavenly. The entire thing was impregnated with the heady aroma of truffles, and one bite was all it took for the intense flavour to go straight to the brain.



Next up was a cuppacino of cepes and truffles with scallops. This was yet another winner - the flavours of the truffles and cepes were perfectly melded into the creamy soup, but the scallop hiding at the bottom was a bit tough.



After that, we started the meal proper with some confited vegetables with squid, balsamic vinegar and herbs. The tomato you see had taken well to being confited, as it was almost syrupy, and the squid provided contrasting texture. Nearly everything is improved with the addition of good balsamic vinegar, so that certainly helped.



Our second starter was a lobster salad. Now usually I'm not one for seafood, but this was pretty good. The lobster was fresh, and fell apart easily, while the vegetables provided some extra crunch and moisture.



No, still not done with starters yet. Grilled Dorade with Risotto was up next, and while I think no one does fish as well as the Chinese, this dorade was at least treated with a modicum of respect. While not grilled to perfection, it was close, and the green risotto absorbed the creamy sauce and gave the dish some chewiness that enhanced the delicacy of the fish.



So on to the main event. The great thing about Western foods is that they're a lot more imaginative with their meats. Here it's chicken, beef, pork and mutton. Over there you can get rabbit, boar, pheasant, quail, probably dragon, if they still had them. Predictably though, I was the only one on the table that ordered the stewed rabbit with polenta. Delicious. I love stewed rabbit. The way the flesh just melts in your mouth, with no hint of gaminess whatsoever. The polenta was served in a separate Le Creuset mini-casserole, which was not only cute but also very practical.

All right, get ready for dessert:



How about that for a dessert spread? A vast assortment of lemon tartlets, pineapples macerated with syrup, strawberry compote with cream, fruit jam and cream, warm chocolate cake, coffee cream and mocha ice cream, as well as shortbread with figs. Everything was so good that I thought of having seconds, but my stomach was making warning noises to tell me otherwise.

Far and away the best dinner during our trip, and the restaurant didn't even have one star. Outrageous.

Technorati Tags: France, Food, Le Sud, Porquerolles

France: 4e Jour

Dîner

Lunch was in a little cafe in Saint Tropez with no food worth writing about, so it's straight on to dinner.

By the fourth day we had moved hotels to the Club de Cavaliere in Le Lavandou, and that was where we had dinner, in the hotel's restaurant by the beachfront.



The amuse-bouche was once again, surprise surprise, tomato gazpacho, this time accompanied by a cold pea soup. The gazpacho was somewhat too acidic and watery for my liking, but the pea soup, a veloute, was much more agreeable.



Starter was another soup, this time a cold leek and potato soup, or vichyssoise. What I really liked about this trip was that it allowed me to sample lots of foods I'd been meaning to try, but never got round to. Vichyssoise is one of them. The last time I served it, I didn't have the guts to chill it, coming from the "a soup isn't a soup unless it's hot" school of thought. This chilled vichyssoise though, with its shaved truffles, was so velvety smooth and flowed so easily down in cold spoonfuls that I became an instant fan.



Sweetbreads are one of the great triumphs of French cuisine. One can only imagine the first person who thought that eating snails, frog's legs and offal could have been a pleasant experience must have been sick in the head. I first had sweetbreads in a very good French restaurant in London, and was eager to try them again in France. Sweetbreads, for the uninitiated, are the thymus gland and pancreas of animals, usually veal or lamb. When prepared and cooked properly, they have the most delicate texture and mild taste. The ones I had for dinner were paired with some citrus fruits (probably grapefruit) and two moulded, custard like things. The sweetbreads themselves were not particularly enjoyable, a little on the chewy, pasty side, and the citrus fruits were not my idea of a good accompaniment.



Dessert was a panna cotta flan with an abundance of red fruits. Didn't like this one much at all, but I cannot now recall why. Probably had something to do with the fact that it was a flan and not a true panna cotta, which means it was a lot denser and less ethereal. I was by now also getting somewhat tired of red fruits.

Technorati Tags: France, Food, Club du Cavaliere, Le Lavandou

France: 3e Jour

Dîner


Dinner was at Table D'Amis, a restaurant that was somewhat difficult to find, and one that had a two star reputation.


The amuse-bouche was once again, a tomato gazpacho. With tomatoes as fresh as the ones we saw in the market, it's hardly surprising that just about every restaurant serves tomato gazpacho as a starter or appetiser.


A terrine of goat's cheese with salad was starter. I became very fond of goat's cheese over the two weeks in France, and I quite enjoyed this starter. The cheese was mild and creamy, enhanced with some fragrant olive oil and fresh vegetables.


Main course took the form of magret de canard, or duck breast, served with carrots, potatoes and leek. One thing about food in the South is that they opt for very simple foods and presentations, eschewing the spirals and towers and garish colours we so often see in haute cuisine. While the duck was good, I did think it suffered from a heavy hand with the salt, as there were conspicuous grains of salt in it. I used to think basic elements of taste like sweetness and saltiness were universal, but food in France was generally a lot saltier than it is at home.


Once again, I was faced with a restaurant with no viable chocolate dessert, so I decided to go for the pineapple tart. It was quite interesting, as it featured a fruit sorbet atop some pineapple mousse sitting in a tart shell filled with pineapple syrup. Not too bad, even if it was different.

So did the restaurant live up to its two star rating? Personally, I thought not. The food, while satisfying, didn't seem either creative or spectacular enough for two stars. The restaurant looked like the inside of someone's cottage house, so it did feel slightly cloistered, and didn't provide as much ambience as say, Le Chateau de Saint Paul. I was starting to feel slightly mystified as to what the star system was based on.

Technorati Tags: France, Food

France: 3e Jour

Oh this will be a good one for all you foodies. Warning, graphics-intensive post.

The third day was our foray into Nice, a great big seaside town which is almost what most people think of when they picture the Riveria.



Guess what those are, and guess where we stopped off first?



Ah you'll never guess, you uneducated masses.

Those beautifully luminscent globes are candied oranges, from a confiserie in Nice. We were taken through their outlet, which was rather like Wonka's factory come to life, though with no chocolate. The end products were quite amazing, sweets and fruits and jams and all manner of sugary things made from basically fruits and petals of flowers. There were also some other interesting products being sold in their shop, such as chocolate coated coffee beans - good for chocoholics who need to keep awake during all night duties in army, rice krispies around a chocolate kernel and coated with a caramel glaze, and interesting melon syrups.

From thence, we moved to Cours Saleya, the street market of Nice. Now, I'd not seen a French outdoor market before, and I was really blown away by what I saw. Like us, many French choose to shop at the market rather than at the supermarket, for the same reasons (cheaper, fresher products, better service). Unlike our local wet markets though, French markets are actually a pleasure to shop at and just walk through. There's no smell, no wetness, and most importantly, no old women trying to shove you out of the way.

But the best thing was, of course, the food. The picture speak for themselves. Okay, maybe they don't, so I shall add comments.



Fresh cepe mushrooms, which, if I'm not mistaken, is the same as the heavenly porcini. Strangely, fresh cepes are not as fragrant as you might imagine, even when cooked (more on that later).



Baskets and baskets of mushrooms. We snagged some dried morels. While they were not particularly cheap, the fact that they're unavailable here made them somewhat more attractive.



Amazing asparagus spears and what I think are baby radishes. Could be wrong about the second one though.



French grocer looking strangely at my sister. Oh yeah, and check out the stuff he's selling. Gorgeous.



All manner of candied delectables on sale here. The best part is that they all look healthy, or at least, like they won't give you cavities and disgusting gum disease.



Bunches and bunches of garlic and chillis. French garlic, I have discovered, is curiously much stronger and more intense than our local garlic, and quite spicy to boot. Garlic back here is so tame it's almost bland. Our host was telling us how she brought kilos of garlic with her everytime she travelled to her house in the US, as the sniffer dogs, apparently, aren't trained to recognise garlic.



There are no words that can adequately explain my state of mind upon seeing these tomatoes. If tomatoes were a religion, I'd have converted.



Figs. Now how often do you see figs? How often do you see figs as juicy, as ripe, as succulent and as incredibly amylase-inducing as these?



Now these are something special. Courgette flowers. I didn't even know courgettes had flowers, let alone floppy yellow things like that.



Also in Cours Saleya, we had some socca, which is a great big pancake made of chickpea flour and olive oil. Surprisingly good for something made with such few ingredients.

Lunch was at an Italian place, which, while very good, seemed somewhat out of keeping with the French theme of this holiday, so I didn't bother with photos. It was very good though.

Technorati Tags: France, Food, Nice, Cours Saleya