Valentine's Day 2010

This past Valentine's Day we decided yet again to eschew the overpriced-yet-prix-fixe, often hurriedly cooked (the horrors of overbooked restaurants trying to speed up turnover), and sometimes uninspired and not-very-romantic-when-fifty-other-couples-are-trying-to-do-the-same-thing Valentines dinners around town, and figured that we should make it our own annual home cooking tradition.

Given that last year we had, on the last minute, grabbed some lamb shanks from the farmer's market, we turned to shanks again. Our butcher had some lovely veal shanks on display in the counter and the braising angels sang out loud - Ossobuco! We picked up some fixings to go along with it and quickly found we had a two/three course meal all set to go. Then we wandered down to our town's love-child, Zingerman's Deli, to browse around (OK, really I wanted to eat some free bread and sample olive oils to help fuel me for the walk home). A quick stop at the gelato counter and we VERY quickly fell in love with their Chocolate Balsamic Strawberry gelato, fresh from the creamery.

The menu: California dried figs wrapped in bacon; baked brie with honeyed walnuts; ossobuco with balsamic white beans and salad; gelato.
1. California figs wrapped in bacon. We had done this before for a Thanksgiving feast, but with Medjool dates, which are syrupy sweet and squishy. Figs, delicious and often overlooked, provided a similar flavor but less sweet and more bite. Mark wrapped about 1/2 to 3/4 a slice of applewood bacon around each date, and put it in the oven at 350 for about 10 minutes.

2. Baked brie with honeyed walnuts. Seriously, the easiest, "fancy" thing you could do in a hurry. We just picked up a small wheel of brie, plunked the whole thing in an oven-proof dish, threw some walnuts on top, drizzled honey over it, and put it in the oven with the figs. You can imagine all the other things you could put on top of it - more figs, currants, different kinds of nuts... the options are endless. You know it's done when you can press it (gently!) with a spoon and it looks soft and squishy. We ate this with the bacon figs, some crackers, and grapes... then took a break to relax our bellies before the next course.
3. Ossobuco (veal shanks). Ossobuco has to be one of the heartiest, melt-in-your-mouth stew-type foods out there. The way these shanks are cut, the marrow in the bone begins to melt and mix into the sauce as it braises, making the whole thing velvety and gelatinous.
There are many variations of ossobuco - traditionally, it is braised in white whine with herbs and broth, with whatever flavors (mushrooms, balsamic, marsala) that you like. Other varieties include a tomato-based sauce, which is what we used. The process was to us, at this point, almost intuitive - the same as any other braising dish you might cook: browning, veggies, flavor, liquids, braise.

So, first, we tied the shanks (we bought two, which was more than enough) up with twine. Eventually the meat will fall off the bone, but it helps to have them fairly uniform to start. We seasoned them with salt and pepper, then covered them with a light dusting of flour and browned them in a dutch oven. When those were nice and brown, we took those out.

Then, veggies: the go-to celery, carrots, and onions. Stirred up with tomato paste, then with the shanks added back in to get all the flavors going in the pot. Then add your liquid - whatever broth, wine, or sauce you like. I believe we added some white wine (maybe a cup), reduced it to half, then put in our tomatoes (a large can of stewed whole tomatoes would work too) and cut it with broth. Either way, you want to make sure there is enough liquid to reach almost all the way up (about 3/4) up the meat you are cooking. We also added a mix of sage, cloves, and rosemary into the liquid and let it go for about 2 hours.
When the shanks were done we sprinkled it all with a simple, rough gremolata - a mix of fresh chopped parsley, minced garlic and lemon zest. This might seem to some like adding more work to tedious cooking, but the lemon really made the flavors SING - plus the parsley helps add even more fresh taste to a very meaty dish. On top of adding flavors, the yellow and green really make the dish a lot prettier.

3. Balsamic white beans and salad. This was probably the most time consuming dish to make given that we bought dried cannellini beans and had to soak them for most of the day. One cup of beans will yield enough soaked beans to feed about three people, so measure accordingly. Of course, we made too much and ended up eating beans with everything for a couple days... But anyway, we soaked the beans then boiled them a little while with olive oil and seasonings in the water. Then we drained them, and sauteed them up with some shallots, diced yellow bell pepper, and lots of garlic. Then, we deglazed the pan with balsamic and added more and more until we liked the taste. We served this on top of a simple greens salad.
4. Gelato! Zingerman's describes their balsamic strawberry gelato as "fresh strawberries macerated for two days in syrup made from reduced balsamic vinegar, then blended with dark chocolate gelato." Perhaps we shall find a way to make this at home... because it will be easy for us to burn a hole in our pocket buying this gelato gold from Zingerman's.

So there we have it - another Valentine's Day 3 course meal (or 4, depending on how you look at it!)!