We started off the celebrations on Saturday night with an amazing bottle of 1998 Krug. What a champagne! This was certainly liquid gold! Beautifully yeasty, but still with amazing acidity and stone fruit flavours, it was delicious! My husband is not much of a champagne drinker, but definitely approved of this one. Shame it won't be a regular on the menu. If only we could win Powerball!
The Krug was too beautiful to serve with food. It was drunk with family, as a celebration of life and love, and just to savour the flavours on it's own. The perfect aperitif with loved ones.
Caught up in the wonderful champagne, and maybe a little bit tipsy, I completely forgot to take any pictures of the delicious dinner I'd made. Oops! It was a slow cooked osso bucco and red wine ragu served atop fresh tagliatelle. I didn't make the pasta myself, but the ragu slowly simmered away for 4 hours, making my kitchen smell divine! Fresh pasta definitely turns a simple dish into something sublime.
A slow cooked ragu might not look the most exciting, but what they lack in looks, they certainly make up for in flavour. If you didn't want to serve this with pasta, you could have mashed potato, polenta or couscous. Even just some fresh, crusty bread to mop up all those delicious juices would be fantastic!
Osso Bucco Ragu With Fresh Tagliatelle
1 Tbs butter
A good drizzle of olive oil
1kg osso bucco
2 rashers of short cut bacon, finely chopped2 carrots, diced
1 onion, peeled and diced
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
4 sprigs of thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
500ml red wine (I used a cabernet)
2x 400g tins of diced tomatoes
1 cup beef stock
250g fresh tagliatelle or other long pasta
Grated parmesan cheese to serve
Preheat oven to 160 degrees.
Heat the butter and oil in an ovenproof casserole dish over medium heat.
Sear the osso bucco pieces, in batches, until browned on both sides. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Add the bacon, carrot, onion and garlic to the pan and cook for 10 minutes or until softened.
Add the red wine and reduce by half the volume. This should take about 5 minutes.
Stir through the tomatoes, stock, thyme and salt and pepper to taste and bring to a simmer.
Return the meat to the pan and make sure it is covered in the juices.
Place a lid on the casserole and bake in the oven for 3 hours, or until the meat has fallen off the bone.
You may need to add a little extra water if it starts to dry out.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
When the meat is cool enough to handle, remove all bones, fat and gristle and coarsely shred the meat back into the sauce.
Season further to taste.
Return the pot to the stove top to simmer gently for another 30-45 minutes, until the meat is tender and the sauce reduced.
Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted water until al dente.
Fresh pasta should only take about 5 minutes to cook.
Drain well.
To serve, place a twirl of pasta on to your plates and top with a generous spoon of sauce and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese.
Enjoy!
And To Drink....
I used a lovely Barassa Valley Cabernet to cook with when making the ragu, as I wanted something nice and rich and full bodied. As there wasn't much of that bottle left after using 500ml in the sauce, I unfortunately had to open something else!
Turkey Flat are another great Barossa Valley winery who create a wonderful selection of red, white and rose wines. The reds are their flagship wines and they produce some pretty amazing drops!
This 2007 Shiraz was a beautiful match to the ragu. Produced from vines planted in 1847, these shiraz vines are some of the oldest in the world. Even though I'd used a cabernet to cook with, the shiraz still matched perfectly. Having seven years of bottle age under it's belt, it was lovely and smooth with a beautiful rounded mouthfeel. The tannins were low and it was very easy to drink! There was some residual sweetness lingering and big plum and blackberry flavours, which complemented the slow cooked sweetness in the beef.
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