The Famous Italian OSSO BUCO – for Family or Holiday Dinner. Recipe by Always Yummy!
Ossobuco is a famous Italian dish. Visiting Italy tourists from different countries make sure to order ossobuco besides pizza and pasta. It is cooked from veal or beef shank with marrow bone or hollow bone with bone marrow. From Italian ossobuco means literally a bone with a hole. It is the perfect dish for your family or holiday dinner.
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✅ Ossobuco ingredients:
• beef shank (ossobuco) – 4 lb | 2 kg
• carrot – 10 oz | 300 g
• celery – 3 stalks
• chopped tomatoes – 2 cup | 500 ml
• onion – 14 oz | 400 g
• beef broth – 3 cup | 800 ml
• white dry wine – ¾ cup | 200 ml
• olive oil – 3 tbsp
• butter – 1 oz | 30 g
• wheat flour – 2 tbsp
• 2 bay leaves
• garlic – 5 cloves
• rosemary – 2 sprigs
• ground nutmeg – ¼ tsp
• 5 allspice berries
• 10 black peppercorns
• ground black pepper – 1,5 tsp
• salt – 3 tsp
✔︎ You will need:
• pan
• saucepan or heavy walled stockpot
• carving board
• cooking string
• bowl
???? Ossobuco recipe:
1. To cook ossobuco it is preferable to take veal or beef shanks 0,9 - 1,3 lb | 400 - 600 g of weight each.
2. Tie round each piece of beef with cooking string and season with 1 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of ground black pepper and flour.
3. Heat the pan, add 3 tbsp of olive oil and fry the meat from both sides until golden brown, 3 minutes from each side over high heat.
4. Take the meat out of the pan into the bowl.
5. Put 30 g of butter and finely chopped onion into the pan and fry for 5 minutes over medium heat stirring occasionally.
6. Add the chopped carrot, garlic and celery and fry for 3 minutes over medium heat stirring occasionally.
7. Add the white dry wine to the vegetables, stir and simmer for 3 minutes over medium heat.
8. Add the beef broth and chopped tomatoes, stir.
9. Add then 2 tsp of salt, ½ tsp of black pepper, rosemary sprigs and bay leaves, stir and bring to a boil.
10. Lay out the fried meat in the saucepan and pour with the prepared vegetable sauce, add allspice berries and black peppercorns and cover the lid.
11. Put the saucepan into the oven preheated to 350° F / 180˚C and cook for 2 hours with this temperature.
12. Serve ossobuco hot with polenta, risotto, mashed potatoes or as a solo dish.
Chef Graziella Battista prepares osso bucco
Chef Graziella Battista prepares her osso bucco at her Old Montreal restaurant, Graziella, on Wednesday December 21 2016 (Allen McInnis / MONTREAL GAZETTE)
Smoked Beef Shank ????????????????????????????❤️
This Smoked Beef Shank is a delicious way to cook up an underrated and tough piece of meat. I use a flavorful braise combined with a nice, slow smoke to produce tender and tasty shredded beef. This beef shank is ready to feed a [hungry] crowd!
What is Beef Shank?
The beef shank comes from the lower leg portion of a steer. With this cut of meat being in the leg of the animal, it gets used constantly, making it pretty lean and, when cooked incorrectly, tough and dry. As such, the beef shank is not a super popular cut, but with the right ingredients and technique, it can be just as tender as any other beef roast, with a rich flavor that is hard to match.
You might also hear the shank called the cross-cut shank or beef foreshank. It is most often cut into smaller portions and used for osso buco. I had to ask my butcher for a beef shank and he had plenty in the back, even though there weren’t any on the shelves. This is a cut that is worth asking your butcher about.
Due to its dry nature, the shank is typically cooked low and slow with liquid. Unfortunately, the braising method robs us of any smoky flavor we could impart into our beef shank. Simply smoking the shank the whole time would give us a smoky flavor and a great bark, it would take forever and likely be super dry. Smoking and then braising in liquid gives us the benefit of both cooking styles and then finishing with the added butter really helps keep things juicy.
Braised Beef Shank
The flavor secret to my beef shank is in the braise. Sliced yellow onions, Madeira wine, beef stock, Worcestershire sauce, and a sprig of fresh rosemary come together to add the right amount of moisture with the most incredible flavor.
Add these ingredients to a slow smoke with oak and cherry wood and you’ll end up with a gorgeous shank that will surely become your new favorite bit of beef.
How to Smoke Beef Shank
Let’s get to it, friends! Make sure to scroll below to the printable recipe card for full ingredient amounts and more detailed instructions.
TURN ON THE SMOKER.
Preheat your to 250 degrees F. I recommend oak and cherry for this recipe.
PREP THE SHANK.
Trim the shank by removing silver skin and all the fat from the meat. Keep in mind that each fat layer has tough silver skin underneath that also needs to be removed. I found a 6 inch filet knife made quick work of the trimming process. Once trimmed, season with my Signature Beef Seasoning or equal parts salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
BEGIN SMOKING.
Place the beef shank directly on the grill grates of the smoker and smoke for 3 hours. Just look at the picture above to see the nice red color starting to develop from the cherry wood smoke!
BRAISE.
Grab a disposable metal pan (I like to keep a good amount of these on hand for all my BBQ), and layer sliced onions, the beef shank, and all ingredients for the braise into the pan. Seal tightly with aluminum foil.
FINISH SMOKING.
Increase the temp on your smoker to 300 degrees F and continue smoking until the meat reaches an internal temperature of 200-210 degrees. Test for temp as well as tenderness. The thermometer should slide into the meat with little resistance.
REST AND DIG IN!
Remove the pan from the smoker, transfer the meat to a cutting board, and rest for 45 minutes. If you want to make some delicious gravy (trust me, you do), follow the instructions in the recipe card while the shank rests. Next up, simply shred and serve. You’re gonna love this one.
Osso Buco by Chef Ludo Lefebvre
Chef Ludo Lefebvre is showing us how to make osso buco (braised veal shanks) in this episode of Ludo à la Maison, his show with Food & Wine Magazine!
Get the recipe:
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