braising

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all-day braised lamb

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

After the usual holiday diet of chocolate, too much coffee and a lot of salami and cheese, it’s always a good idea to have something solid in mind for dinner. I can hardly imagine a more perfect dish for Christmas day than long-braised leg of lamb. Get it going after breakfast, peek at it occasionally throughout the day, pull it out in time for dinner. The only downside is that it takes up oven space that you might want for, say, baking pie, but the braise can easily be moved to the stovetop (which is what we ended up doing).

The lamb braises in a wine-tomato-stock mixture, but then you get to fill in the space around it with whatever veg you like. The original recipe recommends turnips, onions and carrots; we left out the onions and threw in parsnip and fennel. The long, slow braising makes the vegetables incredibly tender while still retaining their shape, so they can be scooped out of the broth and served alongside the meat.

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Tags: braising, Christmas, holidays, lamb

spicy red sauce

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Here’s a lovely sauce to make you feel like it’s summer again, even though it may be more than a little snowy outside. Oven-roasted tomatoes and peppers, pureed with chipotles and spices, then simmered with onion until thick, make for a spicy rich sauce redolent of the flavors of late summer. Using the sauce to braise country-style pork ribs makes for some fabulous winter tacos.

We’ve just started to get into the half pig we bought recently. The chops we started with were fantastic, pan-seared and coated with a cider reduction. More recently I tried braising some blade steaks in a sauce of vinegar, mustard and beer, which was eye-rollingly good but one of the ugliest plates I’ve ever produced (the braised green cabbage on the side didn’t help matters). These ribs came somewhere in between, and while I didn’t get any pictures of the shredded pork tacos, trust me that they were extremely successful as well. However, don’t feel that you need to use this sauce with pork – it would be great used for enchiladas, or on eggs, or stirred into a pot of beans, or anywhere that could use a shot of spicy tomato goodness.

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Tags: bell peppers, braising, chile peppers, pork, tomatoes

the well-braised lamb shank

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

When you have a really high-quality ingredient, there’s always the risk of not using it to its full potential, or ruining it. Like accidentally burning a panful of hand-gathered wild mushrooms, or insufficiently brining, then overcooking, that free-range organic turkey you ordered specially for Thanksgiving. Or even just making something really boring with a fabulous piece of filet mignon. It’s depressing. So when I got the two shanks out from the half lamb we bought last spring, I felt some pressure to do them up right. After all, there are only two – I couldn’t start over if I messed them up!

Thank God for Molly Stevens. I (loosely) followed her recipe for Braised Lamb Shanks Provençal, and as usual with her recipes, it came out delicious. The meat fell off the bone into the unctuous, lemony sauce, and we muddled it all up on our plates with soft buttery polenta and sauteed spinach. These lamb shanks could not have asked for a better fate. …Continue reading the well-braised lamb shank

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Tags: braising, lamb

braised rhubarb with herbs and saffron

Monday, June 8th, 2009

At this point in the season, the rhubarb plants have peaked, attempted to bloom their heads off (and been thwarted by my Felcos), and are beginning to settle back into merely being a large green presence in the yard without actually attempting to overrun or squash anything. We’ve had rhubarb crisp, clafoutis, pie, compote, and muffins, and stowed away a large freezer bag of chopped stalks for later.

Despite all that, I’m nowhere near rhubarb burnout, and there are several recipes left that I want to try – for instance, I’ve still never roasted rhubarb. Or poached it in red wine. I have, however, braised it with green herbs, onion, tomato and saffron. Sound weird? It’s actually really, really good.

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Tags: beans, braising, herbs, homegrown food, Kurdish food, rhubarb, split peas

the three day daube

Monday, January 26th, 2009

We’ve made good progress through our freezer full of cow, but there were a few packages of stew beef crying out (figuratively speaking) to be used. Jon decided to pull out an old recipe that we hadn’t done in ages, a slow-cooked beef daube with black pepper, orange peel and shiitake mushrooms. He did all the work, and all I did was buy the bread to go with. Oh, and I made sheets of pasta to wrap around the leftovers to make cannelloni.

The daube is not one of those spur of the moment meals. Jon got the meat marinating three days ahead of time, with wine and vegetables. He braised it the second day, and we ate it on the third. …Continue reading the three day daube

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Tags: Beef, braising, leftovers

Vietnamese caramel-braised spare ribs

Monday, January 5th, 2009

Emboldened by our recent experience of making caramel candy at home, we decided to take the next step: Vietnamese caramel sauce. Some time ago, I got a copy of Andrea Nguyen’s Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. It’s a great book, and just reading the recipe titles will make you salivate, but so far the only thing I had done out of it was follow general guidelines for fresh spring rolls. Jon had discovered a recipe for a kho of pork ribs cooked in caramel sauce, though, and since he was on winter break he decided to go for it. Vietnamese caramel sauce is very different from caramel candy: it’s very dark, with a deep, almost burnt, bittersweet flavor. I had never tasted it before, and I was amazed at the savory scent of the ribs as they braised.

This is not a quick weeknight recipe, let me warn you. Jon made the caramel sauce in the morning, got the ribs marinating early, then broiled them in the late afternoon. We braised them after I got home from work and had a late dinner. But leftovers were fabulous – even better than the first night – so you could definitely do this recipe ahead and set it all aside for later. We thought the sauce was best when it was reduced down to a syrup, which is easiest to do if you take the ribs out and just boil the heck out of the liquid in the pan. …Continue reading Vietnamese caramel-braised spare ribs

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Tags: braising, broiling, pork, sugar, Vietnamese food

pork and carrots and cabbage, oh my!

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

Last Saturday we cooked up quite a storm. We were kind of stuck at home, since Jon managed to throw his back out a few days before and was still on a fun variety of medications and spending most of his time on the couch. So why not cook?

To start, I made up a batch of carrot dip. I made this for friends a week ago, and it was so good it vanished instantly, so I wanted to do it again just for the two of us. It’s just roasted carrots pureed with olive oil, salt, fresh mint and a pinch of caraway or cumin seed, served with a sprinkling of feta cheese, and it is great. Plus it did a fantastic job of using up the six-pound bag of carrots we bought at the last farmer’s market.

Then I threw together another recipe from good old Art of Braising, which is rapidly becoming one of those cookbooks that I want to make every single recipe out of. I had tried the “Best Braised Cabbage in the World” already, but I saw a rave about the “Savoy Cabbage Gratin with Saint Marcellin” on Orangette that made me head straight out to the co-op to look for French triple-cream cheeses. I ended up with Delice de Bourgogne, which I thought worked splendidly [huh. I just realized that's what Molly ended up using, too. Weird]. The final dish was smooth and sweet, with a delightful funkiness about it from the cheese. Leftovers have been singularly tasty.

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Tags: braising, cabbage, carrots, cheesy goodness, dips, lemon, pork

world's best braised cabbage

Friday, October 24th, 2008

The braised red cabbage salad we had at Gretchens the other day reminded us that we do actually like cabbage. It can, of course, be awful – and a good way to stink up your house – but it doesn’t have to be. I discovered the appeal of plain green cabbage when I lived by myself in college – I had a miniscule food budget which I spent primarily on cabbage, potatoes and a single bottle of cheap white wine that lasted me the whole term (Sutter Home, I think it was). I would saute the potatoes and cabbage, then add wine and let the whole thing simmer until tender. Not bad, and as cheap as it comes.

Once my budget got a little healthier, though, I stopped buying cabbage as often. I would occasionally toss some in a Russian soup or make a coleslaw, but that was about it. Recently, though, I’ve become more aware of the possibilities of cabbage – especially braised.

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Tags: African food, braising, cabbage, Ethiopian food

glazed gingery ribs

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

I have no idea where this recipe came from. I think it was a library book, maybe something general like “Asian Cooking” by somebody-or-other. I don’t think the original recipe called for star anise or chile pepper – I think J thought that up himself. But, you know, we just have no record of it. The recipe is written in our little home recipe binder and has been there for years, and every time we make it we’re impressed anew with how easy and delicious it is.

It’s a great dish to make for company because it’s so hands-off: you combine the ingredients with water and let it simmer, then boil off the liquid. Stir occasionally and cook some rice and veg to go with it. That’s it! The only downside is being able to start it early enough, since it takes a long time to boil down – not really a weeknight meal unless someone in your house gets off work well before 5.

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Tags: braising, Chinese food, pork, ribs

maple-rosemary-horseradish glaze for short ribs

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

I’ve already talked about Molly Stevens’ recipe for braised short ribs with porter, but I did leave one thing out when I made it before: the glaze. I really think I like short ribs best as a kind of stew, with everything mushed up in the pot together and served over noodles, but we thought it was worth a try to do the recipe in its entirety at least once.

The idea is, after you’ve done your braise, you arrange your short ribs in a single layer in a heavy pan, tuck the vegetables around the sides, then paint them with a glaze made of rosemary-infused maple syrup mixed with prepared horseradish (the recipe uses 3 Tbsp syrup to 1 Tbsp horseradish). The pan goes under the broiler until the glaze is glossy and caramelized. Then, finally, you can eat them. …Continue reading maple-rosemary-horseradish glaze for short ribs

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Tags: Beef, braising, herbs, maple syrup, short ribs

Food on the Brain

Is it wrong when all your conversations end up about food?