Osso Bucco & Risotto alla Milanese : A mini weekend in Milan

Day time tourist
Italian police patrolling in possibly the cutest and most non-threatening uniform in the world (top-left);
the majestic Duomo di Milano (top-right); Galleria Vittoria Emmanuele arcade (bottom left); the iron-and-glass dome covering the shopping arcade (bottom right)

Milan. The capital of high fashion, birthplace of the biggest fashion houses (Prada, Gucci, D&G, Valentino, Versace, Missoni), where people are so immaculately dressed with not one hair out of place, and Ferraris/Lamborghinis/Masserattis roam the streets like there is no tomorrow. I've always wanted to go there but being on a student budget, I have always cast off Milan as one of those places I said I'll only visit when we are at least back on a payroll. But fortunately, last weekend, we had the opportunity to hang out in Milan with some family and definitely made the best out of it! 


Last Tuesday, I woke up to a text message from my lovely aunt and uncle from Jakarta who love travelling as much as I do: "Join us for a weekend in Milan?". Never one to pass on a trip offer, within 15 minutes I already booked train tickets for M and I to leave for Friday after work.


Ever since moving to Europe, I've developed a penchant for train travel. It's stress-free, gets you from city-centre to city-centre, the BYO wine/food option (my rule is 1 bottle of wine between the two of us per 3 hour train travel..). And the best thing is there are no crazy check-in counter ladies yelling at us for that extra 0.1kg in our luggage and forcing us to re-pack undies into our cabin bags in front of a line of strangers. Plus, now that I'm on my way to being a greenie engineer I always feel guilty whenever I take short haul flights (they produce huge emissions per km even when compared to long haul flights). I figure that these train trips should erase the sins of the numerous Sydney - Melbourne weekly work flights I used to take in my previous life. PS: Check out the man on seat 61 for amazingly detailed train trips information! 


So after a couple of hours delay, we finally made it into Milan close to midnight on Friday.[Note: when taking a train trip to Italy always always allow for at least 2 hour delays and don't try to fit in a tight train connection! This time our delay was due to transport workers strike in milan. Love it :) ]. Anyway, after trudging our bags through the city centre, we finally arrived at the amazing Four Seasons Milan, our home for the weekend (courtesy of the generous uncle and aunt!). And within seconds of hitting the high thread-count sheets we fell asleep and forgot about all the stresses of dealing with the Italian rail system. 

The next day, after a lazy breakfast facing the hotel's immaculate courtyard, we set off to do what the rich and famous do on Milan weekends: (window)-shopping at Quadrilatera D'Oro, fashion's finest shopping block. The shopping quadrant is bounded by Via Monte Napoleone, Della Spiga, Sant'Andrea and Manozoni. Obviously we didn't buy anything, but it was pretty fun going in and out of the boutiques seeing the runway latest in real life, and just general people watching. Here, there was definitely no hint of the GFC as people were shopping up big and stores were full of sales staff fluent in Russian, Chinese, German, French, Arabic as they cater to anyone who came with their gold Amex-es. 


But anyway, seeing the exorbitant high fashion price tags got pretty frustrating in the end. So when I found Zara at Corso Buenos Aires, I caved in and shopped up big(ish - by my student budget standard at least). Just so you understand, this is the MOTHER of all Zaras with four floors of clothes and an entrance complete with a winding staircase. Who can say no to that??

A Ferrari getting booked by a policeman on bike

So after being pried away by M from the stores, we finally did some sightseeing. The arguably main attraction in Milano is the breathtaking Duomo di Milano. The neo-Gothic Cathedral with sky-piercing columns and elaborate architecture seems so majestic, appearing out of nowhere among the cobbled stone streets surrounding it. Actually, it reminds me a bit of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. And like a lot of grand Italian architecture, it endured about 600 years of construction before it was finally completed in the 1960s (after which restoration works continued). Next to Duomo, was the equally amazing Galleria Vittorio Emanuele. With the gigantic iron-and-glass dome and neoclassical facade, this is definitely the most elaborate shopping arcade in the world. It was a bit sad though to see that one of the biggest shops there is McDonalds, sitting proudly across from the Prada and Louis Vuitton stores. 


At night, after we left to the adults in the very capable hands of the Four Seasons' jazz pianist, we met up with my budding-designers twin cousins who are currently studying in Milan. We ventured to the busy Navigli canal district by Porta Ticinese, where the culture of aperitivi was perfected by the cool people of Milan. Basically at all the bars in the area during these happy hours, for €7-€9 aperitivi you get one drink and an all-you-can-eat buffet of amazing Italian finger food. But like tapas and pintxos in Spain, aperitivi is an art of relaxing, catching up and gossiping with your friends over long drinks. So be curteous and save your third/fourth helpings for your next Sizzler visit. 

Milano after dark
A random band performing street side from inside their VW combi at Navigli, before being chased away by cops(top left); A sumptuous salmon dinner (top right); Strutting down Via della Spiga after dark (bottom left); A birreria (beer cafe) in Navigli (bottom right).

Similar to the finger food offered during aperitivi, traditional Milanese food is all about high-quality comfort food, to be enjoyed around the dinner table with your friends over long drinks into the wee hours of the morning. Here is quick and simple recipe for probably the best known Milanese food: Osso Bucco alla Milanese and Gremolada served with Risotto Zafferano.


Osso Bucco alla Milanese with Gremolada and Risotto Zafferano

Osso Bucco is a slow-cooked braised veal shank dish from Northern Italy. When you get the veal shank 'disk' from the butcher you'll see a layer a of connected tissue around it and in between the meat. Make sure you cut a small incision on the tissue otherwise the meat will curl up while cooking (very unattractive). At the end of the cooking process, the gremolada (mix of garlic, parsley and lemon zest) is added to give the zing of freshness. Serve with the creamy and golden saffron risotto. This is actually my first time cooking risotto and it took a LOT of patience to create. You basically have to keep stirring for 40 minutes while the rice absorbs the stock gradually. So grab a good book and have a glass of wine (or five)) to help you pass the time. Definitely worth it in the end! 


Anyway, this is my first multi-tasking recipe, so hopefully it makes sense. The idea is to get the osso bucco going first, then after about 45 minutes you need to get a start on your risotto. In the last 5 minutes of cooking you want to add the gremolada in the osso bucco. 


Ingredients:

For the Osso Bucco
4 Osso Bucco (veal shanks) each 250-300 grams
1 large onion, chopped
a knob of butter (about 50 g) 
1 cup of flour, to coat
1 litre of beef stock
1 glass white wine


For the gremolada
1 clove of garlic, grated or crushed
1 handful of parsley, finely chopped
zest of 1 lemon 


For the risotto
1 2/3 cup of arborio rice
a knob of butter
1 large onion, chopped
1 glass of white wine
1.5 litre of beef stock (you might not need all of this)
1 packet of saffron, soaked in a bit of beef stock
1 cup of Parmesano or Grana Padano cheese (depending on how creamy you prefer the risotto)


Method:
Osso Bucco. Over a low flame, heat a frying pan large enough to cook all the meat (flat down). Toss in the butter and onion. Continue cooking for about 5 minutes over low flame until the onions become translucent. 

Brown onion and butter (L); Make incision around the outer tissue of the steak and coat steaks in flour (M); Brown steaks in the onion-butter mixture (R)

While waiting for the onions to cook, prep up the Osso Bucco steaks. Make about 4-5 small incisions along the connective tissue around the outer circumference of the steak. Pour the flour into a flat-bottomed dish. Coat the Osso Bucco steaks with the flour and pat off any excess flour. 

Add white wine to the pan and burn off the alcohol (L); Add the beef stock and simmer for 1.5 hours (M); Toss in gremolada mix in the last 5 minutes of cooking (R)

When your onions are ready, add in the coated osso bucco steaks into the pan and brown on both sides. Pour in the white wine and increase the heat quickly to burn off the alcohol. Afterwards, turn down the flame and start pouring in about half of the beef broth. Continue cooking over the low heat, covered but leaving a bit of gap to let the steam out. Cook for 1.5 hours until the meat starts to fall off the bone. Check from time to time. Add the beef broth if the mixture starts getting too dry and turn the steaks regularly to make sure they don't stick to the bottom of the pan. 
Sit back and relax for a bit. You probably now have enough time to watch 1.5 episodes of How I Met Your Mother or 1 episode of House. Check the pan during ad breaks to make sure the osso bucco isn't burning!

Fry butter, onion and rice together (top-left); Gradually add beef stock ladle by ladle (top-right);
Keep adding stock and stirring until you get a gooey consistency (bottom-left); Add saffron and cheese at the end (bottom right)

Risotto. After the end of that episode, don't get tempted to watch another one. You need to get the risotto going now. First, over low flame start heating up the broth (apparently keeping the broth hot helps with the cooking process). In another pan, over low heat start frying up your onion and butter until the onions become translucent. 

Toss in the arborio rice into the onion-butter mixture and cook over low heat until the rice turns slightly brown. Pour in the white wine, quickly increase the heat to high to burn off the alcohol, then turn the flame back to low.

Now the fun begins (get your distraction materials - magazines, books, a bottle of wine). You basically want to add a ladle-full of broth into the rice then stir it until the liquid gets absorbed by the rice, before adding more broth and stirring again. Repeat this for about 30-40 minutes until the risotto cooks and reaches that creamy consistency. When you are happy with the consistency, add the safron/stock mixture. Watch the risotto turn a beautiful yellow and continue stirring. Fold in the cheese right at the end, then turn off the flame.

Osso Bucco. About 5 minutes before turning off the flame, stir in the gremolada mixture (grated garlic, lemon zest and chopped parsley). Then when it is all mixed in take the pan off the heat. 

Serving: Serve the Osso Buccon in a large serving plate and sprinkle chopped parsley on top. Serve the Risotto Zafferano in a bowl, add a few strands of saffron for prettiness. Pair up with a good dry white wine. It is a very rich dish, but I reckon the 40 minute standing up / risotto stirring would have cancelled most of the calories anyway :)