Ossobuco (Braised Veal Shank with Gremolata)

Variations

• This is a dish you eat the marrow of. Six recipes on this site use marrow bones — seolleongtang, pot-au-feu among them — and in every one they are an ingredient for the broth, with the marrow itself discarded. Ossobuco is the opposite. Over two hours some of it melts out and gives the sauce fat and gelatin, and the rest is dug out with a small spoon. Milan has a narrow spoon for exactly this, and the marrow is called lo schiribizzo — spoken of as the tax the dish pays you.
• Gremolata is a counterweight, not a garnish. Two hours of braising makes everything round and deep and, at the same time, all rather alike: nothing sharp survives it. Lemon zest and raw garlic are the two things heat destroys fastest, so in this dish they never go in the pot at all. It is fresh herbs's "delicate things at the end" taken to its limit, and here it is a question of structure rather than aroma (balancing flavour).
• Tying is not optional. The silvery ring of connective tissue round the outside of the slice contracts as it cooks. Untied, two hours later the meat has been pushed off the bone and lies in pieces with the bone alone in the middle of the pan. No other braise on this site has the problem, because this is the only cut sawn across the bone so that the ring stays a complete circle.
• It is white wine. Where boeuf bourguignon and sauerbraten build a deep brown from red wine and vinegar, the Milanese version goes white and takes its colour only from the browning and the stock. The broth has to stay that light for the lemon in the gremolata to register at all.
• The tomato arrived later. The older version, ossobuco in bianco, has none and is scented with cinnamon and bay instead. The red version everyone knows came after tomatoes reached northern Italian cooking. Both count as traditional, though tomato does bury the gremolata a little.
• What it is served with is risotto alla milanese. The saffron risotto on the same plate is the Milanese way, and that pairing has a name of its own — ossobuco con risotto. Polenta is equally northern and equally correct. The photograph is a restaurant version, on pasta.
• If not veal. Beef shin works but its connective tissue is tougher, so it wants three hours or more, and the marrow hole is wider. Pork shank is far cheaper and two hours is enough, but there is less gelatin and the sauce clings less.
• Better the next day, exactly as braising explains — but make the gremolata fresh. A day-old one does not do the job it is there for.

Tips

• Under 3cm thick and it becomes a different dish. Thin slices fall apart before the two hours are up and carry much less marrow. Order the thickness from the butcher.
• Knock the flour off. Heavy flouring is the commonest mistake here and the result is a pasty sauce.
• Brown two at a time. All four at once drops the pan temperature and nothing colours.
• Resist adding more liquid. Two-thirds up is right. Submerged, the flavour leaves the meat for the broth.
• Use an unwaxed lemon. It is the one ingredient here whose skin you eat. Yellow only — pith makes it bitter.
• Chop the gremolata together, not separately. Chopped apart and stirred, the three smell like three things.
• Put a small spoon on the plate. Getting the marrow out is how the dish is eaten, and without a spoon most of it stays in the bone.