Well, we’re back into phase one of “recovery” as of yesterday. We got back our one hour a day exercise privileges… sort of. Alternate days, depending on our national ID number, though extended hours – now from 6pm until 10am. And a lot more businesses have been allowed to re-open. Food service still limited to takeout and delivery only. There’s a whole published six phase plan of which we’re only one phase one, scheduled out through August 3rd. Whether we then move into phase two remains to be seen, I imagine that will be based on numbers, as well as public pressure, to some extent. But, it’s a glimmer of hope.

Let’s go to today’s recipe from one of last week’s dishes.

 

We start with bone-in slices of lamb neck. Each about an inch thick, and weighing in at about five to six ounces, with bone.

Season them with salt and pepper and dredge them in flour, then saute them in olive oil.

Make sure they’re nice and browned, on both sides. Then set them aside in a bowl. Do just a few at a time so they brown nicely without crowding and steaming.

In the same oil, add in chopped onions, carrots, and celery and cook until the vegetables start to soften. I don’t season too much at this point, because that’s coming in a bit later – a pinch of salt just to assist the vegetables in softening.

Add a generous amount of chopped garlic, plus dried bay leaf, thyme, and rosemary, and the grated zest of an orange. Cook for a couple of minutes more.

Deglaze with a good amount of red wine and cook it down until the wine absorbs and/or evaporates.

Add the meat back in, nestling it down into the vegetables, and then top with a good amount of chopped tomato.

Cover with good chicken stock. This is one of the reasons I don’t season much at the beginning. If the stock is already well seasoned, and this is going to cook down and concentrate, if you add a lot of salt early on the dish will end up very salty.

Put in a hot oven for two hours. I turned the pot around roughly ever half hour, and stirred it up a little so that it both cooked evenly, and also so that the top didn’t form a crust and burn.

By the time two hours passes, most of the liquid will be gone, leaving a rich, concentrated vegetable and meat compote, and the lamb will be completely tender.

Given that these started out at 5-6 ounces with the bone, we decided to serve two ossobucos per portion, because cooked down, they probably only had 2-3 ounces of meat on each. Accompanied with our creamy mashed potatoes. I regularly get asked how they’re so smooth and rich.

Well, let’s see, I used about a kilo, or a bit over two pounds of potatoes, peeled, thickly sliced, and cooked in salted water. When just soft, I put them through a potato “ricer”, which gives that texture. And for that quantity of potato, I put in 200 grams (7 ounces) of melted butter, 200 ml each (7 fluid oz each) of cream and whole milk, plus seasoned with salt and white pepper. But that’s basically 21 ounces of fat to about 35 ounces of potato. That’s why they’re so rich! Sometimes I put more!