Cookaholics Bulletin Board

The four best words we could hear.

Amy

I've often read advice to not try out new dishes on company - give them a trial run first. But I've never paid any attention to it. I usually just go for it. SO I set out to make my first osso bucco, and have company.

I took everyone's advice here and used the CI recipe. And as you suggested, I served it with Risotto Milanese and gremolata.

The veal just melted in your mouth! It was sublime.

The only thing I'd do differently was the CI recommendation to stir half of the gremolata into the stew as soon as you take it from the oven, then sprinkle the rest over the top at serving. Someone really didn't like the bite of the raw garlic and lemon. It spoiled the dish for her. I think in the future I would just serve it on the side for people to add.

The risotto worked very well, thanks to Amy's last minute help. I stopped at al dente, spread it out, and finished with hot stock, butter & cheese between courses. I used plenty of wine, lots of stock, and bloomed the saffron in a bit of the wine before adding it. Everyone raved about it, so I think it worked.

We never got to the panna cotta. I made a coffee panna cotta with a chocolate/kahlua sauce. We were all so full that we didn't even try. I guess we'll have them tonight.

The mussels are a whole 'nother story! They were good, as always, but what a fiasco!!!!!

Thanks everyone, for your help.

If you don't mind sacrilege I made it last weekend as well and served it with the bones, see below, it's still a challenge for people to eat the marrow.

But the thing that worked was the risotto in the rice cooker. I did the sauteeing with the butter and onion, browned the rice, and then poured it into the rice cooker with the stock and wine. Just let it cook and hold until I was ready to serve -- then added the cheese and more stock for the consistency I wanted. I don't think you could have told the difference.

Congrats Silversage. No panna cotta?? It sounded delicious.

Lindsay, what a beautiful picture. The risotto idea sounds really attractive too. Trinket is visiting here soon, maybe we can trial that together!!

Ok folks, it's time for a Pedantic Moment(TM).
Risotto refers to method of cooking the grain. There are other "osottos" using other grains.
To cook your rice in the rice cooker may make a most flavorful and delicious dish, but it will never be a risotto. It the stirring, see, that makes the starch in the rice create the creamy sauce without breaking the grains.
Rice cooked with all of the liquid and other stuff added at once is a pilaf.
At least, this is what I was taught at one temple of culinary learning, ie, the CIA.
(I'm sure there are dissenting opinions, having listened to the stories of getting the editors of The New Professional Chef to agree on what stock you use in onion soup-white or brown, and how dry you cook a duxelles.)

Since my personal irritation is people who say "shrimp scampi" (when scampi means shrimp) I can understand the problem with calling this risotto. Can I call it "mock risotto"?

I like Mockisotto, or maybe risomocki.

This reminds me of the irritation to me when people refer to granite countertops. A smallish percentage of stone countertops are actually granite, by definition. Many are other kinds of rocks, not granite.

Oh c'mon! It's not as bad as "with au jus".

Manos: Hands of Fate!

Lindsay - between repairing my dripping ceiling, brining the tongue, and soveling snow from my roof I'm too damn lazy to research 'mocking my risotto' but DAMN would I love to have some instructions - PLEASE

(Time is just a little bit precious at the moment.)