Braised Osso Buco with Lovage and Carrots in a Bone Broth Tomato Sauce
A delicious regionally adapted spin on the traditional osso buco dish, slowly braised with the highest quality beef for the most epic, tender, fall-off-the-bone vibes.
2tbspWild Meadows Farm grass fed and finished beef tallow chunks
1medium organic onion, sliced into half rings
2medium organic carrots, finely diced
2stalks organic lovage, finely diced (I used a mixture of lovage and celery stalks)
5sprigs organic thyme
4cloves organic garlic, minced
2wild birch or organic bay leaves
sea salt and organic black pepper, to taste
1/2cup(about a splash) biodynamic red wineor 1 tbsp organic balsamic vinegar
1glass jar crushed organic tomato (passata) sauce (about 540 mL) or whole peeled and deseeded organic tomatoes
1/2cuphomemade grass fed and finished regeneratively pasture raised beef bone broth (or an equal amount of frozen broth cubes) a properly gelatinous bone broth will help improve the thickening and flavour of the sauce
1tbspgrass fed raw butter
minced organic garden parsley, lemon rind or gremolata, to garnish
Instructions
Season the thawed beef shanks on both sides with a bit of sea salt and black pepper, and set aside. Heat a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Drop in 1 tbsp of the beef tallow and stir it around until it melts in the pot and covers the bottom with a slick of fat. Sear each beef shank for 5 minutes on each side or until browned, working in batches as to not overcrowd the pot. Remove and set all shanks aside on a plate. It’s fine if they’re not totally cooked through, as they will be added back in later to be completely braised.
Lower the heat to medium-low. Sauté the onion, carrots and celery until onion is translucent and vegetables start to become tender and browned, about 5-6 minutes. Add the garlic, thyme and birch leaves, and continue stirring for about 30 seconds until fragrant. Season with sea salt and pepper.
Pour in a splash of wine to deglaze the pot, then reduce for about 3 minutes. Scrape up any brown bits (fond) at the bottom with your wooden spoon.
Pour in the tomato sauce and bone broth, stir to combine then add the shanks back in, covering them with the sauce. Bring the mixture to a boil, then immediately down to a simmer. Cover the pot fully, and braise for 2-2 1/2 hours. Go for a walk.
Add in the butter and stir until it melts nicely with the sauce. That's it! Easy peasy. Serve with chopped garden parsley, lemon juice or zest, or gremolata (a mixture of garlic, parsley and lemon). Consider olives, raw cheese, pickled onion, and/or a spoonful of sauerkraut as well.
Notes
As usual, it’s very important to go with grass fed and finished, ethically and regeneratively sun and pasture raised meat, especially when it comes to bones, since bones store any heavy metal contamination and energy over the animal’s lifetime. If your animal was exposed to GMO grains, unnatural feed, and an unnatural sad lifestyle indoors, raised in a typical factory farm, you can bet that you’ll be extracting those stored neurotoxins and sadness in your osso buco and simmered broth. Like supports like. Healthy, happy animals produce nutrient dense food, especially for fertility. Your food is only as healthy for you as the health of the soil. Ancestral foods are sustainable to your body and the land.
I also recommend using local moose or even caribou shanks if you can find them.
This dish goes really well with some kind of cooked organic ancient grain, organic sourdough, zucchini noodles, mashed potatoes, or even grass fed raw cheese.
Don’t forget to eat the bone marrow! This was a highly valued staple in traditional human diets that has experienced a resurgence in current post-industrial, pro-metabolic nutrition and wild living movements. Muscle meat was actually often fed to the dogs, but in today’s depleted context I recommend splitting it between the both of you.
It may no longer be considered an osso buco, but feel free to play around with other cuts of stewing meats and seasonal veggies. For veggies, here I actually used a mix of both local permaculturally grown lovage and celery; you could use one or the other, or anything else that’ll play a similar role to basic celery.
I used a small splash of local biodynamic red wine from Prince Edward County in this recipe to deglaze and scrape the fond, but you could use a tiny splash (1 tbsp) of balsamic vinegar, or none at all. I have actually come to prefer the flavour dimension that organic balsamic vinegar brings to tomato sauces. Use whatever you have on hand.
Ancient wisdom and experience tells us that breaking cycles of suffering includes nourishing with locally sun grown and raised foods, but what’s even more important is your light environment from day to day. Enjoy this recipe outdoors under full spectrum sunlight in minimal clothing with a calm and relaxed body to max out the digestive and assimilative process, as well as flavour.
A lot of recipes call for tying twine around the outer edges of the shanks to hold them together, but I find that it’s not worth the effort and they stay intact throughout the cooking process anyway, ready to be effortlessly pulled apart once cooked.