The bright finishing rubble of the Milanese kitchen: flat-leaf parsley chopped fine with lemon zest and raw garlic and scattered over osso buco, its fresh, sharp, citrus bite cutting through the richness of the marrow and the long-braised meat
Origin: Milan, Lombardy, Italy
From the journey of Parsley.
Gremolata is one of the smallest and cleverest preparations in Italian cooking: nothing more than flat-leaf parsley, lemon zest, and garlic chopped together fine, yet it transforms the dish it crowns. Its classic home is osso buco alla milanese, the braised veal shank whose rich, unctuous marrow and meltingly soft meat would be cloying without it; the raw, sharp, citrus-and-garlic freshness of the gremolata, strewn over at the very end, cuts straight through the richness and lifts the whole plate. The word comes from the Milanese dialect for 'to reduce to grains', describing the fine rubble it is chopped to. Parsley is its body and the point of it, the green, peppery freshness that carries the lemon and garlic, and the same trick of a raw-parsley-and-zest finish is borrowed now by cooks everywhere to brighten a braise, a roast, or a plate of grilled fish.
Gremolata must be made fresh and used immediately; it does not keep, as the raw garlic turns harsh and the parsley wilts. The classic is parsley, lemon, and garlic alone, but versions exist with orange zest (good with fish or duck), with anchovy, or with a little mint. It is the natural finish for osso buco, but try it on roast lamb, grilled vegetables, a bowl of beans, or anything rich that wants brightening.
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