For a special day, or when we are having guess for dinner, I tend to cook something more special and more often  time consuming dishes. I never  had a chance to take a  photographs, as I don't really want to make my guess waiting. 

During the week, our meal is pretty simple and I don't normally cook beef, or lamb. Earlier this week was a little bit special. I made ossobuco and served it with risotto. I didn't have a change to take a photographs for risotto. As you all know that risotto should be made when you are ready to eat. By the time my risotto done, my families were already in the kitchen waiting ...

I had some leftover risotto, and a little bit of the ossobuco that I turned in to Arancini. To make this arancini is fairly easy. You just need to fill the rice with the left over ragu, add mozzarella, form into a ball, coat lightly with beaten egg, roll in the  breadcrumb, then fry until golden. That is  it. I don't think I should post the risotto recipe, since everybody must know how to make a simple basic risotto. Right?

Recipe adapted from: Essentials Of Classic Italian Cooking
by: Marcella Hazan
Serve 6 to 8 people

1 cup finely chopped onion
⅔ cup finely chopped carrots
⅔ cup finely chopped celery
½ stick butter (I used olive oil)
1 tsp finely chopped garlic
2 strips lemon peel (I used orange peel)
⅓ cup vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
8  1½-inch-thick of veal hind shank, each tied tightly around the middle (I used lamb shank)

flour, spread on a plate (I skipped the flour)
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup basic homemade meat broth (I used canned, it's okay)
1½ cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped, with their juice
½ tsp fresh thyme (I used rosemary instead)
2 fresh bay leaves
2 or 3 sprigs of parsley
Freshly ground black pepper
salt
* I've added about 10 juniper berries too!

• Preheat oven to 350⁰F.


• In a heavy large pot, saute the onion, carrot and celery with butter until translucent about 7 minutes or so. Add chopped garlic and lemon peel, cook for another 2 minutes. Remove from the heat.


• Add the vegetable oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat. Coat the veal with flour, shake of the excess. Fry them until browned on all side. Transfer them  to the vegetable pot. 


• Discard all of the oil, but leave about 1 tablespoon. Return the skillet to the stove,  add the wine to the skillet. Let the wine simmer over medium heat, scrapping the browned residue that stuck on the bottom of the skillet. let the wine reduce a little bit, then transfer this wine to the vegetable-veal pot.


• Put back the skillet to the stove, add the broth and bring to a simmer. Add tomatoes with their juice, the thyme, the bay leaves, parsley, salt and pepper. Pour this broth to the vegetable-veal pot. The broth should cover ⅔ all the way up to the top of the shanks. If it doesn't add more broth.


• Simmer, cover the pot tightly, and place in the lower third of the oven. Cook for 2 hours, or until the meat is fork tender. 

Serve with sprinkle gremolada and  saffron risotto. To make gremolada, finely chopped together parsley, lemon peel, and garlic.

It does look like arancine (little orange) no?

Nothing to do with the ososbuco or arancine!
I thought I just share this photo with you. I had a few cymbidiums in my back yard. This particular one is in the Japanese wooden pot, near my pool just right outside my kitchen, and right under the giant Phylodendrone. So, it is really easy to miss it. My husband who was the one to inform me that it started to bloom. So, I took my camera (actually, my son's camera) then took photographs. Then, I went out to my vegetable garden, and saw that all of them are blooming, unfortunately some are almost done. I'll probably able to take some more photos and post them in my garden blog. We'll see.

Update: Monday, March 23rd, 2009 @ 8:40 AM

When I saw Peter M commented that he wants to see the inside of this Arancini, I felt bad. I should have done that before anybody would ask. So I went to my trash bin, and VOILA PETER, I found photo that show the inside of the arancine. It is not to make you in an AWE to see it, just to show you that I've tried it, and was not satisfied with the photo, that is why I didn't put it in the blog.