Osso Bucco Ragu

There’s much to love about osso bucco. For starters, it’s really fun to say. Secondly, it’s a cut of meat that’s high in collagen, which, when broken down by slow-cooking, becomes rich and gelatinous between the meat fibres so that the meat melts in your mouth. You can buy two pieces of osso bucco from a good quality butcher for less than $10 and this recipe makes 6 servings (that leaves you more money to spend at, say, Country Road). What you end up with is a rich tomato sauce that’s been infused with delicate and meaty veal and bone marrow.

For this recipe, I used a pre-made pasta sauce by Latina, which cuts down the prep time to about 10 minutes. The sauce isn’t the greatest on its own, but when it’s cooked down with meat and veges, it’s brilliant.

You’ll need:
2 portions of osso bucco
3 tablespoons canola oil (or any oil with a high burning point)
2 Spanish onions
6 carrots
¼ green cabbage
5 cloves garlic
500ml beef stock
1L pre-made pasta sauce
Thyme leaves from 2 sprigs
Basil to garnish
Pasta

Roughly chop onions, carrots, cabbage and garlic.

Wash meat and pat dry with paper towels. Season both sides with salt and pepper.

Heat a large pot on high heat. Add oil.

When hot, brown the meat (approx. 1 minute each side). Remove from heat and set aside.

Cook the veges in the same pot for about 10 minutes to release all the lovely juices.

Deglaze the pot with beef stock.

Add pasta sauce and thyme and bring to the boil.

Place the meat back in and turn the heat down to low. (I have a fidgety electric stove so I used a thermometer to keep track of the temperature. According to Heston, shin cuts are best cooked at at least 70°C in liquid, so I kept it at 75°C).

Leave for 4 hours.

Cook pasta according to packet instructions. Drain but keep some pasta water.

Remove meat and shred with a fork while hot.

Scoop out veges from the sauce. To thicken the sauce, stir in pasta water or flour.

Add the shredded meat back and basil leaves to the sauce.

Serve with hot pasta.

Enjoy!

Shitto

Shitto (a Gharaian chilli and fish paste) with rice, chopped basil, orange zest, ground cardamom and raisins.

I bought this shitto pre-made from an African food store last week. I was very lucky to get my hands on a small jar, packed personally by the woman at Mokola African Market. It smells of fishy, oily and richly spicy goodness and the taste is beautifully intense. I would liken it to belachan (a South-East Asian shrimp paste) or tom yum without the sour. Making shitto involves a long process of drying and grounding fish and cooking slowly in oil with ingredients such as cayenne pepper, tomato and garlic. Make it incorrectly and the fish rots, but make it with care and it keeps for months in an airtight container in the fridge. For this, I admire that Ghanaians eat this every day as a household condiment.

I wanted to learn about African food and what a fascinating way to experience it.