On Monday while trawling through our local supermarket I saw a tray of pieces of shin of beef sawn across , on the bone and “Ping “ the little bulb in the head came on.

Osso Bucco.

This is a wonderful Italian dish of shin of Veal , slow cooked until it falls off the shin bone, in tomatoes and wine.

I got out my much thumbed Elizabeth David Italian Food and set to on tuesday morning.
The idea was that I’d cook in on Tuesday to eat on Wednesday night.
(these slow cooked dishes are always better the second day)
I did a double check on the internet and the consensus of opinion was that the dish was even better if you used beef instead of veal.
I diced about three carrots and two medium onions and peeled and left whole six fat cloves of garlic and sweated these in a knob of butter in a stew pot until soft.
I floured the shin slices and seared these in oil until well browned.
I threw two tins of chopped tomatoes and a glass of white wine onto the onions, added a bunch of thyme from the garden, seasoned well with salt and a grating of black pepper and then pushed the slices of beef on the bone into this.
I brought it to a simmer as I was preheating the oven to 160 C (320F, Gas 3)
and then put the lid on the pan and put it into the oven for an hour and a half.

The traditional accompaniment to a dish of osso Bucco is a Risotto Milanese.
Nothing daunted I set out to do this – again the recipe taken from my old reliable Ms. David.

This consisted of a medium onion chopped finely and softened in a knob of butter.
Once this is soft add a cup full of arborio rice , cook these for a minute or so in the butter and then add a glass full of white wine.
Heat two cups of good chicken stock in a pot and then add this to the risotto ladleful by ladleful (as each one is absorbed you can add the next ) until the rice is cooked and there is just enough liquid left to make a creamy sauce around the rice. (If you run out of stock add some water.)
Just before the finish tradition says that you should add a good pinch of ground saffron.
Do if you can- I was lucky I had a tiny bit in the store cupboard.

And so last night we sat down to eat this dish.
The sauce was fantastic, the rice unctious, some of the meat was palatable but most was tough as an ancient boot.
I had forgotten to include an extra hour in the cooking time to compensate for the meat being beef and not veal.
However we survived, as well as the sauce and the rice being good the beef marrow (which the Italians say is the whole point of the dish ) was a delicious rich savoury jelly.

Nothing daunted I put the tough bits of meat back in the pot along with the marrowless bones and resolved to make a stock from them the next day.

And so to this morning.
There is so much geletine in the leg of beef that the sauce had set to a hard jelly this morning.
I put the whole lot back in the pot with a couple of pints of water and put in on our lowest gas while we headed out for a brief ten minute trip to the dechetterie.

Well one thing led to another and it was about two hours later when we finally got home.

There was my stock pot simmering busily and smelling absolutely delicious.
I suddenly knew what we were having for lunch.
I took out the shin bones from the pot and threw them out, along with the thyme stalks.
I fished out most of the meat and tossed it on a board and chopped it into shreds – it was by this time falling to pieces.
I threw this back in along with the couple of tablespoons left of the risotto , a plass of Port (Marsala would have been better ) heated the mixture up together, checked the seasoning, grated a large chunk of parmesan, cut some bread and we both sat down to one of the best soups I have ever eaten.

Now I feel that I have gotten into Charles Lambs area with this.
In his Dissertation on Roast Pig he describes how the early Chinese burned down their houses just to taste the pigs delicious crackling.

I am advocating a sort of two day marathon just to achieve a bowl of soup.
I don’t expect all of my readers to do this, instead my suggestion would be that the next time you want to make an Osso Bucco add a little extra water and make some soup with the left overs the next day.
You won’t regret it.

Oops,- Forgot to mention the Gremolata (mixture of chopped parsley, garlic and lemon zest) got tossed into the soup at the last moment too.