Heya everybody!

Little bearkitty  Ghosty writing and today I have something very tasty for you.
As you all might know by now, I'm a big fan of the Italian cuise and a fan of slowly braised dishes.
So, why not combine that? :)
One of the dishes that do that (the Italien cuisine is full of awesome braised stuff actually) is a classic Milanese speciality by the name of Ossobuco ( translated "bone with a hole").
Cross cut veal shanks that are slowly braised with greens, white wine and stock or broth.
Traditionally served with Gremolata (ital. Gremolada) and Risotto alla Milanese.
So here we go... :)

Ingredients for Ossobuco and Gremolata:
4 cross-cut veal shanks (about 3 cm thick)
1-2 marrowbones
1 pack of greens (carrots, leek, celery or celeriac, Parsleyroot etc)
1 can peeled tomatoes
5 garlic cloves
1 onion
Approx. 700-800ml veal or beef stock
Dry white whine
Clarified butter or lard
Tomato paste
Flour
1 untreated lemon
Fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano)
1 bunch of smooth parsley, 1 bayleaf, a few grains of allspice, Cinnamon
Salt, pepper, spices after your taste

Preparation:
Clean the vegetables and cut them into pieces. Peel garlic and set it aside. Directly before use, crush it lightly with the broad side of your kitchen knife. Wash and dry the herbs. Take the seeds out of the peeled tomatoes and cut them into pieces as well.
Use a paper towel to tap the veal shanks dry, cut in the connective tissue at the sides with a sharp knife and cover the meat in flour.

Heat up clarified butter oder lard in a roaster and roast the meat, together with the bones. Part of the thyme and rosemary and one garlic clove can be put directly into the fat. Take out the meat, cover it and set it aside.
Remove the fried herbs, put in the greens and roast as well. Put in 1 tablespoon of tomatopaste and continue to roast.
On the bottom of the roasting pan you will notice a dark brown buildup. That is supposed to happen and will be the basis and the source of the full taste for the sauce. Remove some of the fat before deglacing.
Deglace with a glas of white wine. Let the liquid evaporate, pour some more wine and stir. Continue until the brown buildup is gone.
Put in the meat again and pour in stock or broth until everything is just covered and add the tomatoes. Put the remaining herbs, garlic, allpice and bayleaf into a paper tea bag and palce it into the liquid. The tea bag will make for an easy removal later.
Cover the roaster and let everything simmer at low heat for about 3 hours.
At the end of the cooking time, throw away the tea bags with the herbs, take out the veal meat and place it aside and cover it.
Remove the cooked out vegetables. Puree it with a food mill or press it through a fine metal sieve and put it pack into the sauce.
Season to your tase, place the cross-cut veal shanks back into the hot sauce and keep it warm until serving.

Shortly before the end of cooking time, prepare the Gremolata.
Chop two cloves of garlic and the parsley, then grate some of the yellow part of the untreated lemon (or cut some zests) and mix everything together.
Directly before serving, mix some of the Gremolata into the sauce.

About 30 minutes before the end of cooking time or, to make things less stressful, after the Ossobuco is done and just kept warm, prepare the Risotto alla Milanese.

Ingredients for the Risotto alla Milanese:
600-700ml stock or broth
~ 100ml white wine
1 tbsp olive oil
~ 1 tbsp of Bonemarrow
~ 30g butter
½ onion
1 piece of celery, about one finger in length
1 garlic clove
~ 200g Risotto rice
Salt, pepper
Pinch of saffron
1-2 twigs of thyme
2 tbsp Parmigiano, frehsly grated

Preparation:
Wash and clean the celery, remove the long fibres. Peel onion and garlic.
Chop celery and onion very finely and gently crush the garlic with the broad side of your kitchen knife.
Scrape the marrow from a piece of marrowbone. You can soak the bone in cold water for about 1h, which makes the job a little easier.
Heat up stock or broth close to simmering and keep it hot.
In a large enough pan, melt ~15g of butter, 1tbsp of bonemarrow and add 1 tbsp olive oil, thyme, garlic, celery and onions.
Sweat until the onions are glassy and soft.
Now add the risotto rice, turn up the heat a little and continue to sweat until the rice turns slightly translucent. Be careful with the heat, neither rice nor onions should brown.
Pour in about 100ml of dry white whine and sprinke in the saffron. From now on you will have to stir continously.
Let the wine evaporate while stirring, turn down the heat until the rice is just simmering.
Add one lardle of hot stock and a good pinch of salt and continue to stir to losen the starch from the rice grains without damaging them.
When the liquid is almost evaporated, add another lardle of stock. Rinse, repeat.
Don't stop stirring, don't let the rice fall dry.
Cooking time will be about 15-20minutes.
The rice is done when the outer part of the rice grain is soft, while the inside has still a little "bite" (called al dente) and there is still a little liquid in the pan left. The Risotto shall still be very slighty "runny", make sure it's not to dry.
Take it off the heat, remove the herbs and garlic clove, add the rest of the butter, let it melt while stirring. Add about 2 tablespoon of freshly grated Parmigiano and mix it in. Cover the pan with a lid and let it rest for 3 minutes.
The butter and Parmesan will make it incredibly creamy, the saffron will give it a wonderful yellow color and, together with the bonemarrow, adds very special taste to the dish.

Serve your Ossubuco with the Risotto alla Milanese and sprinkle some Gremolata on top.
Enjoy your meal! :)