What's Pressoir Cooking?

December 16, 2020
by Justine Puaud

Italian feast!

Last weekend, we had a Christmas dinner with my wine loving friends. We love to pick a theme and this time we decided to head to Italy! We cooked for about 4 hours in my friend’s tiny kitchen and prepared wonderful dishes.

The menu:

Aperitif : Focaccia with burrata and French porcini mushrooms

Appetizer: Homemade ravioli filled with ricotta and parmesan, grated black truffle

Main course: Osso Buco with Milanese Risotto and Gremolata

Cheese (you know I’m French…)

Dessert: Traditional Tiramisu

For those who don’t know, gremolata is a green sauce made of chopped parsley, lemon zest, and garlic. It is the standard accompaniment to the Milanese braised veal shank dish ossobuco alla milanese. We changed the recipe a little bit and added some olive oil. It was my first time with gremolata and I have to say it really balanced the dish and brought a lot of freshness without adding too much acidity.

For the Osso Buco, we used Chef Ludo Lefebvre’s recipe. If you get big veal shanks like we did, I recommend that you cook the dish for 3 hours and not 2 hours.

We paired this traditional Milanese dish with a Ronchi di Cialla 1996 wine made with 100% Schioppettino, an indigenous grape variety located in the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. It was superb! There was an elegant bouquet of spicy notes mixed with soft fruit aromas. The 1996 vintage was a good year in the Cialla area, perhaps slightly warmer and drier than usual.