So you’re running around picking your dirty underwear and garbage off the floor, shoving it into a trashbag and shoving that into your closet, all the while wondering if that odd stale smell will go away if you open a window and lay on the Fabreeze.
It’s Valentine’s Day or some other equally important day for you and that person you really want to impress.
Every once in a while a recipe comes along that is so amazing, it will knock your socks off.
This is that recipe.
It’s not the healthiest recipe in the whole world, or the cheapest. But it will blow your mind.
In terms of meat, what you’re looking for is a tougher cut of meat. What you want to use is lamb chops, veal shanks, lamb shank. If you were being really cheap you could use pork shoulder, I guess, if you want to go to Italian hell. Really, it’s the meat that makes this meal.
If you can’t get a whole veal/lamb shank because you went to some authentic Indian food market with a butcher shop in the back where the guy behind the counter is covered in blood and doesn’t speak very good English, and you said you wanted Lamb shank and he handed you a tray of cubed meat and told you it would be $6, and when you tried to ask him if it’s supposed to be cubed but he didn’t understand you, that’s fine. It’s alright if the meat is cubed.
Bones are a crucial part of this dish, however. The name itself translates to “Bone with a hole”, from when the marrow cooks out and into the sauce. A huge amount of the flavor comes from the bone, and there should be bones in the pot when it’s cooking. If your meat is cubed with a lot of bones that you can swallow, be wary when you eat it.
Serves 2-4, depending on portion size.
I prefer lamb myself, so so that’s why this recipe is written with lamb in mind.
You will need:
2 lbs of lamb shank
1/4th cup of flour
A metric shitton of butter
A bottle of a very dry white wine (Pinot Grigio is great of this, but any dry white will do)
One 14oz can of diced tomato, drained
1/2 cup chicken stock
Two gloves of garlic, minced
One smallish onion
One medium sized carrot
One rib of celery
A small bundle of thyme
SALT
Optional: Gremolata garnish
1 lemon, zested
1/4th cup of chopped Italian parsley
1 clove of garlic, minced
0. Gather all the ingredients. Trim the fat.
1. Small dice the onion, the carrot and celery. Pat the lamb dry, put it in a plastic bag with some flour and shake it like a Polaroid picture.
2. Get your pan up to a medium-high heat and melt the butter in it.
3. Brown the lamb. It’s important to note that you aren’t trying to cook them, you’re just trying to get some color and fond (hickies and bits on the bottom of the pan). If your fond starts to or gets close to burning, immediately turn off the heat and pour a splash of the wine in, scrape the fond off the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Wait for the pan to get up to heat, add more butter and keep trying to brown the lamb.
4. After your lamb has some beautiful color on it, pull all of the lamb out of the pan, and deglaze by pouring more wine in the pan, scraping the fond off the bottom and reducing it until the pan is almost dry (au sec).
5. Put another pat of butter in the pan, start sauteing your onions, carrot and celery, and garlic.
6. After five or so minutes, go ahead and add in the drained can of tomato, about a cup of wine, and your chicken stock.
7. Let that simmer for another ten or so minutes, and then go ahead and put in your lamb, turn the heat down to medium low, put a lid of it, check on it every twenty minutes to make sure it’s not sticking to the bottom of the pan.
8. If it is sticking to the bottom, use some water to deglaze with.
9. If you find it keeps getting too thick, add water as needed.
10. After about two and a half hours of cooking, go ahead and add in your small bundle of thyme. Keep it bunched together, that’ll make it easier to remove later.
11. Season with salt! This is the most important part.
12. Pull out the thyme, and serve with the rest of the bottle of white wine, some white rice, maybe some vegetables, a basket of bread and some dim lighting. Garnish with the gremolata.
13. Fall in love with food, fall in love with the person you’re sharing it with.
14. Don’t choke on a bone and die.
15. Have sexy-times after impressing someone with what has to be literally the most delicious meal ever designed
OnePot||OnePan 