Ossobuco

A few years back, I was watching an episode of The Office where Michael Scott and his crazy girlfriend Jan hosted a dinner party for some of the employees of Dunder Mifflin. Well into the party, the topic of dinner finally came about. Jan said to everyone that she is cooking ossobuco and here is in my opinion one of the best parts of the episode:

Pam Beesly: Oh, I- I can help, starting dinner if you need it.
Jan: Oh no, no, no, it's just the Osso Bucco needs to braise for about three hours. Everything else is done! Pam Beesly: Three hours from now or three hours from earlier, like 4 o'clock?
Jan: You know, Pam, in Spain, they often don't even start eating until midnight.

That scene makes me laugh all the time. This just proves that Jan is pretty crazy. But the scene also inspired me to make ossobuco, which I've never cooked before. It wasn't too difficult to make but it had some challenges.

 
 I cut up some carrots, celery, garlic, and onions. These are the standard vegetables used for ossobuco.

 
Here are the veal shanks, which I browned slightly before I start braising them. They were actually relatively hard to find in the Strip District. I could not find it initially at Salem's or Anderson's Meat and Poultry. I was finally able to get them at Strip District Meats. I got 2 lbs that came out to around 20 bucks. Definitely not cheap meat.

 
Took a picture while the shanks are still being braised. For the sauce, I ended up using pizza sauce instead of tomato sauce from the can because I still had some left over pizza sauce and wanted to finish using it. I did add some sriracha sauce to give it a slight kick to it.

 
A plate of the ossobuco. The best part of eating this is when the meat just falls off the bone, and when you eat it it's so tender. The sauce gives it a nice sweet kick to it, but does not overpower the flavor of the meat. I left the fat intentionally because it gives that meat full flavor. All in all, it was very enjoyable. Below is the link of the recipe.

Ossobuco