• Capital: Vienna
• Population: about 60.5 millions
• Area: 301 338 km²
• Currency: Euro

For my Italian recipe I made Osso-Buco with risotto. Osso-Buco is a veal shank braised in a wine and tomato sauce. I served it with Risotto which is a special rice cooked in chicken stock. Delicious!

Osso-Buco

Ingredients:

• 4 veal shanks
• 1 carrot
• 2 celery stalks
• 1 onion
• 7 cloves garlic
• 2 sprigs rosemary
• 2 sprigs thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1 20 ounces can peeled whole tomatoes
• 1/2 cup flour
• zests of 1 lemon
• 1/4 bunch parsley
• 1 tablespoon butter

Directions:

First, as usual, prepare all your ingredients. Peel and dice the onion and 3 cloves of garlic. Slice the celery root and the carrot. measure the wine and the chicken broth. Set 4 garlic cloves, the lemon zests and 4 garlic cloves aside.

Preheat the oven at 325F.

Season the veal shanks with salt and pepper and then coat them with flour. Heat a large dutch oven with olive oil on high heat until the oil is very hot. Brown the veal shanks on every side in the oil. Once the shanks are browned, remove them, add the butter to the dutch oven. When the butter is melted add the onion, the carrots, the 3 chopped garlic  cloves and the celery. Cook for 5 minutes on medium high heat.

Add wine stock to the dutch oven and cook down wine by about half.

Add the tomatoes crushing them with your hands and the chicken stock. Add the shanks back to the pot and arrange them in a single layer. Make sure they are almost fully covered with liquid. If not, add some chicken broth until they are. Add thyme rosemary and bay leaf and bring to a simmer.

Cover, place in the oven and cook for 1h30 minutes.

After one hour and a half. Remove from the oven, gently stir and place back in the oven for 1 more hour.

While this is cooking, finely chop the reminder garlic cloves, and the parsley. Mix garlic, parsley and lemon zests.

After 1 hour, remove the lamb shanks from the pot (be very gentle they might be falling apart). Add a tablespoon of the garlic, lemon, parsley mix, remove the rosemary, thyme and bay leaf and stir. The sauce should be a thick liquid. If it’s too dry add some chicken broth and bring to a simmer on the stove. If too liquid, reduce on the stove. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.

Serve with Risotto and the lemon, parsley, garlic mix on the table for people to add some if they want.

Risotto

Ingredients:

• 300g arborio rice
• Chicken stock (measure later)
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 shallot
• Olive oil
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Directions:

Measure out all the ingredients in advance and peel and chop the shallot.

Heat a pot on medium heat with some olive oil in it. Add the shallot and cook until translucent. Add the rice and cook on high heat stirring for 1 minute. Add the white wine and cook for 1 minute. Add the chicken broth until there rice is covered plus 1 inch of liquid above it and bring to a simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cover and cook for 15 minutes on low heat.

After 15 minutes, leaving the pot on the stove on medium low, start stirring the rice and do not stop stirring for 5 minutes. If the rice gets too dry, add some chicken broth. After 5 minutes, add the parmesan cheese and stir until it is melted. Adjust consistency to get a creamy risotto by adding some liquid if too dry or cooking stirring for another 30 seconds of too liquid.

Buon appetito!