Osso Buco for $31.50
We recently made Osso Buco. It is a favorite around here. Osso buco is basically stew cooked in wine (no water or nasty "broths".) Dry white wine. Or in our case, $30/bottle Mead! Mmm, mmm, good. It has been my experience that osso buco made with inferior wines (ie, NOT $30/bottle Mead) is quite terrible. It must be good wine. It must also be mead. Failure to meet the two criteria will cheapen the experience.
Osso buco also calls for a number of other highly expensive ingredients: veal shank ($$$), 3.5 oz of dried Porcini mushrooms (at $7/oz, you do the math), sun-dried tomatoes, parsley, onion, carrots, celery. Yada yada yada. We leave out the parsley. It is unpleasant, as it is parsley. Leprasy. Parsley. Yes? Yes. Don't eat it.
As for the other pricey ingredients (namely the veal and mushrooms), we've found that cheap stew beef and cheap white mushrooms (not dried) work just dandy. I could go either way on sun-dried tomatoes. They're a bit much on the flavor side and they REALLY absorb the wine. Almost to the point of pungency. Onion, carrots, and celery are pretty cheap. You should be able to pick them up for super mega cheap at a farmer's market.
It is by my calculation that you *should* be able to make osso buco for $31.50. $30 of really good mead. $1.50 of as much as you can score of everything else. Maybe it's just celery. Really, we're all in it for hot mead soup. 21.5% alcohol per volume of hot mead soup.
K.Thx.Bye.
Osso buco also calls for a number of other highly expensive ingredients: veal shank ($$$), 3.5 oz of dried Porcini mushrooms (at $7/oz, you do the math), sun-dried tomatoes, parsley, onion, carrots, celery. Yada yada yada. We leave out the parsley. It is unpleasant, as it is parsley. Leprasy. Parsley. Yes? Yes. Don't eat it.
As for the other pricey ingredients (namely the veal and mushrooms), we've found that cheap stew beef and cheap white mushrooms (not dried) work just dandy. I could go either way on sun-dried tomatoes. They're a bit much on the flavor side and they REALLY absorb the wine. Almost to the point of pungency. Onion, carrots, and celery are pretty cheap. You should be able to pick them up for super mega cheap at a farmer's market.
It is by my calculation that you *should* be able to make osso buco for $31.50. $30 of really good mead. $1.50 of as much as you can score of everything else. Maybe it's just celery. Really, we're all in it for hot mead soup. 21.5% alcohol per volume of hot mead soup.
K.Thx.Bye.