Pork Shank Osso Buco
I have a pretty significant back log of recipes to post. It has been a busy few months with wedding planning and then the marriage to my beautiful wife. I am excited to get back to some recipe posts as I use many of these recipes myself as a log of my favorite recipes to use. I hope it inspires some of the readers to try them as well. This sure beats card stock or a hand written recipe book. I used to have a three ring binder of all of my favorites but its been misplaced over the years so I am trying to gradually get them onto the blog so that I can reference them once again. Maybe some day the kiddo will be sitting at home with his own family and want to make something he remembers having as a kid too. Since he is the biggest critic of these recipes anyways.
I think the traditional way to make this dish is with veal shank. I do love veal, and I grew up eating a bunch of it, but its not always easy to find and its significantly more expensive. I will also mention that its not nearly as accepted as a pork shank in popular taste. Some people are put off by the thought of eating veal. Don’t let that hinder you; veal is amazing.
I’ll provide a recipe that I loosely followed and note the differences as I can in my experience below. Chef John is one of my favorites. I have used many of this recipes as guidelines for my home cooking. I would highly recommend checking him out.
The dish that I prepared has 3 main parts; as follows
- The Pork Shank
- The “Stew”
- The Polenta
Preparation
Dice up about 2 cups a piece of carrots, celery and yellow onion. This is really depending on how many people you are feeding. This will be the base for your “Stew” I was serving six people.
Have the following at your reach as well
- Olive Oil
- Butter
- Salt
- Pepper
- Tomato Paste (in a tube is nice)
- Flour
- Chicken Broth (I used home made)
- White Wine (dry)
- Fresh Rosemary and Thyme
- A lemon
- A few bay leaves
- Ground Clove
- Fresh Parsley
- Cornmeal (Medium or Fine ground)
- Parmesan Cheese
- Heavy Cream
The Shank
I started by visiting a local butcher store. They had frozen, very large, pork shanks in their freezer section. I pulled about 8 shanks out of the freezer, took them to the counter, and asked the butcher if he could cut them down to about 3 inch long pieces. He happily obliged and repackaged them for me in butcher paper. The nice thing here is that I purchased what seemed like an inordinate amount of meat for about 18 bucks. Veal would have been ten times as expensive.
Start by liberally seasoning your thawed pork with salt and pepper on both sides. I use kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. Sear them off in a stock pot using olive oil and butter over high heat. You will want to try and brown them on as much of their surface as you can.
Remove the shanks from the pot and place on a plate for later. Reduce the heat to medium and proceed to next step.
The Stew
Dump your mirepoix of celery, carrot and onion into the pot and stir them into the oil and brown bits in the pan. Add about 1/4 or more of the tomato paste into the mixture and continue to stir. This is going to start to smell pretty epic so enjoy the free smells. Cook this mix for 3-4 minutes.
Depending on how much collagen your broth has will ultimately determine how much flour you want to add. If your using some store bought stock just add a few tablespoons of flour to this mixture. Its going to help thicken the sauce in the end and if you feel like its too tight, just add some water to loosen it up. Continue to stir this for a few minutes until the flour is cooked.
Add the white wine, about a cup. I think I used a pinot grigio. Cook this for a few minutes while you stir and then add all of your herbs and spices with the exception of the parsley witch will be used to garnish. Add a few cups or more of chicken stock. I adjusted this again by how much mirepoix I had.
Bring this back to a simmer and then add back in the pork shanks and make sure that there is enough liquid to almost reach the top of the shanks. Lower the temp on the pot to low. The pork will now simmer on a very low temp for 3-4 hours. Check it on occasion and give it a bit of a check to determine if your pork is getting tender. It should be fork tender and nearly fall off the bone.
Taste for seasoning, you may want to add more salt or pepper if needed.
The Polenta
I started by heating up about 8 cups of home made chicken stock. You can use water here but I welcome the added flavor of the stock. Heat the liquid over medium high heat and once its hot slowly add in about 2 cups of the cornmeal. You need to be sure to continually whisk the mixture as you slowly pour in the cornmeal. If its happens to fast it will lump up on you and will not be good to eat.
Once you get all of this mixed well, reduce heat to low and cover the pot. Cook for about 30 minutes on low or until the polenta is nice and soft and creamy.
Finish with a few tablespoons of butter and a cup of grated Parmesan, or more to taste, mix well and add a splash of heavy if the mix feels too tight. The cream will make the polenta a bit more rich, feel free to use water too.
Plating
Place your polenta into a bowl on a plate and place 1 section of the pork shank in the center. Spoon a generous amount of the mirpoix stew over the entire dish and then top with some chopped parsley and some lemon zest.
Conclusion
If I had the time and resources I would eat this once a week. It sort of reminds me of the best pot roast that I have ever had. The ingredients are not complicated but it does take some time; and you WILL be able to taste the effort in this one. An absolutely amazing dish to impress company. One of my all time favorites without question. I paired with a salad and the rest of the pinot.
