Famous Osso Buco

I am a big Buddy Valastro fan. He is a real baking artist and a business man with a vision. He has such a big heart and is truly devoted to his family. How can you not love this guy? I’ve probably seen all the episodes of Cake Boss and was really happy to see him share his favorite recipes in Kitchen Boss shows.

On one occasion, it was Valentine's day, he prepared classic Italian dish Osso Buco for his lovely wife Lisa and they were enjoying it so much I just had to prepare it for my family. With some modifications. They were necessary, because I was cooking for 4 and not every eater in our family likes celery and wine.

With gratitude to Buddy here is the modified version of delicious Italian Osso Buco.
Ingredients:

2 veal shanks
salt
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, chopped
1 leek, chopped
2 tbsp tomato paste, preferably homemade
2 cups chicken stock
400 g canned tomatoes, crushed
2 pieces lemon peel
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
2 sprigs fresh thyme

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 175 C.
2. Salt veal shanks. You can do that a day before and refrigerate overnight as Buddy did. Chop onion, carrots and leek. You can use this amazing de Buyer Asian Chef knife.
3. Brown veal shanks on olive oil and butter for about 5 minutes each side. Remove from the pan and add chopped onions, carrots and leek.
4. Put veal shanks and vegetables in an oven-proof dish, add tomato paste, chicken stock, canned tomatoes, lemon peel, sprigs rosemary and thyme.
5. Cover and cook for 2 hours and a half, than remove meat and vegetables from the dish and reduce the sauce.

Serve with chopped parsley or gremolata (mix of lemon zest, chopped parsley and garlic, salt and olive oil). Enjoy!

NOTES: Next time i might use garlic instead of leek, because it came out quite overcooked for my taste. And garlic is of course one of essential ingredients of Italian cuisine.