The first frost and osso buco

We woke to a big frost this morning, which burnt off into the most perfect Autumn day, now it's one degree outside as I write and the home fires are burning bright. It feels like winter is here already, the beanies and gloves are out (see above) and the dog beds have migrated from the back deck to the laundry.

This evening we had an early dinner for fellow volunteers at the recent F.O.O.D Week Forage event and had osso buco (recipes below) tossed through pasta with garlic bread and salad. For pudding it was a plain sponge, with no icing and nothing tricky just a thick layer of raspberry jam and cream in the middle. Yum. 

Venison osso buco with gremolata

Serves 6

Prep time 20 minutes

Cooking time 5 ½ hours

Delicious with mashed potato, this osso buco can also be flaked from the bone and used as a pie filling or tossed through pasta. Of course if you can't find venison osso buco (though it really isn't hard; just come and see us at the markets!), beef or veal osso buco would be great too.

1kg venison osso buco (about 8-10 pieces)

½ cup plain flour

¼ cup olive oil

100g pancetta

1 brown onion, diced

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 carrots, diced

2 sticks celery, diced

5 sprigs thyme

2 sprigs rosemary

2 sprigs oregano

100g tomato paste

1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes

1 cup red wine

3 cups chicken or vegetable stock

Gremolata
1 bunch parsley, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Zest of one lemon, finely chopped

Pre-heat oven to 180C (160C fan forced). Dust osso buco in seasoned flour and heat olive oil in a heavy-based casserole pan on high. Brown the osso buco on all sides and set aside. Reduce heat to medium and add a little more olive oil if necessary. Add pancetta, onion, garlic, carrots, celery and herbs to the pan and cook for 10 minutes, or until the vegetables have softened. Stir through the tomato paste, tomatoes, wine and stock bring to the boil. Return osso buco to the pan, making sure that all pieces are covered in liquid. If making large quantities of this recipe, place the osso buco in one layer on a baking tray, pour over the sauce, cover tightly with foil before cooking as below.  Cover with a lid and place in the oven. Reduce heat to 120C (100C fan forced) and cook for 5 hours. Turn off the heat and leave to cool in the oven. Keep in the fridge or freezer until needed. Reheat on a gentle simmer.

 To make gremolata, mix ingredients well and scatter over osso buco before serving. 

Plain sponge cake

Serves 6

Prep time 10 mins

Cooking time 15 mins

6 eggs

3/4 cup caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla paste

2 cups self-raising flour

1/2 cup thickened cream

1/4 cup jam

Preheat oven to 180C and grease two 20cm cake tins. Beat the eggs, vanilla and caster sugar together for about 10 minutes or until pale and at least doubled in volume. Sift in the flour and gently fold the mixture until smooth. Divide between the two cake tins and cook for about 15 minutes or until the surface is lightly golden and the cake is starting to pull away from the sides of the tin.

Let cool on a wire rack. When ready to serve, spread one of the cakes with jam, then cream, then place the other cake on top. Done!