Happy January Friends!

I hope you had a great holiday, whatever that means for you. Busy and full, quiet and slow, or a little bit of everything. I recently picked up the book, Slow Seasons and found this quote hit the nail on the head of what January is for me:

Every year I seem to sink deeper into flowing more with the seasons over any societal norms which right now normally is about starting with a bang, setting goals and some often unrealistic resolutions that are encouraging there’s something that needs to be fixed. Instead I’m moving slowly and with intention into this new year and really allowing space for reflection, listening to what I really want/need and how I can bring more of me into this new year.

It’s the same with how I’m cooking. My body doesn’t want a new years reset - we’re in the heart of winter where it’s still all about warming foods.

Comfort food.

Slow food.

To celebrate that, I wanted to share some thoughts on one of my favourite slow cooking techniques, something I’ve been doing alot of which is braising.

It’s more forgiving than just a long and slow roast because you add it the element of moisture which helps keep all the juicy goodness and is an opportunity for packing in some extra flavour.

What makes a good braise? Time and Temperature.

You want to give the ingredients time to meld together and create something totally different than where they started.

And if you’re braising tougher cuts of meat it needs a chance to turn into that melt in your mouth goodness. Patience is the name of the game here. Too many times we want to rush, so we’ll try to take the short cut and that’s never the way to go here. The key is to relax. Keep testing and you’ll notice how flavours change and meat goes from firm to beautifully, fork tender. There’s never an exact number which is where you also get to practice using your own instincts and intuition.

It’s all about watching, waiting and taste testing - my favourite part.

Let’s dive some specific components of braising:

Liquid ratios - I like to have the meat at least halfway covered in liquid so you want to think about this when you’re choosing what you’re going to cook it in. You want the goldilocks effect here. To big and you won’t get the liquid coverage. Too small and it might over flow. You can always adjust with more or less liquid but set up yourself up for success by choosing wisely at the start.

Liquids - wine or other alcohol like cider, beer (this makes the best stew), stock, soy sauce (always remember anything salty thought will need to be diluted as your meat will soak up the flavours of whatever you surround it with), coconut milk, tomato sauce, or even water spiced up with some aromatics.

Flavours - sky’s the limit things I like to add: tomato paste if I want a thicker sauce, miso paste for anything with an Asian flavour, dried chilies, bay leaves, whole sprigs of rosemary or thyme that I can just pull out at the end, all the aromatics.

What to braise - tougher cuts of meat like brisket, short ribs, pork shoulder or lamb neck are of course go tos - any meat needs the time to break down and become tender lends perfectly but the inspiration doesn’t stop there! Really you can braise anything the important piece is to think about time, depending on the ingredient. For example, braised cabbage is delicious but it won’t need hours of cooking for it to be tender and flavourful. If you cut cabbage wedges they’ll take longer than if you sliced then thin for example. Potatoes work great - I love them braising in chicken stock and lots of lemon juice then tossing the lemon halves right in with some garlic, olive oil oregano and bay leaf. You can do braised shellfish but because they only take minutes to open up in whatever flavourful base you’ve created taking the time to get the braising liquid on point before you toss in your star ingredient at the end is the key.

Seasoning - this depends on your ingredient and let’s be real, your time. For tougher cuts of meat, or most meat in general they love to be seasoned for hours - to really give salt the opportunity to do it’s job so if you can do it, please do. Now if you don’t get the time or simply just forget, just season the meat as soon as you can. I try for at least an hour before I start cooking which is what I would also do for veggies and other things where the salt doesn’t need to penetrate as much. You can also do rubs of marinades for that extra flavour hit. I usually am thinking about my braising liquid if I use a marinade and make sure I’ll be able to toss it in with the braising liquid.

Temperature - this depends on your ingredients. The tougher cuts of meat need low and slow so I usually go with *250-325* if I’m cooking for a couple hours. Something like chicken or vegetables would be fine with *350* as you’re only going to need an hour max. You just don’t want the braising liquid to be boiling so again use your instincts and notice what’s happening - if your oven runs hot then you might need it lower. This again is the practice. Noticing what’s happening and adjusting.

Chef’s Kiss final notes:

If you do have lots of time, make it a day ahead then remove the meat from the liquid and chill overnight. This give the meat extra time to soak up that delicious sauce and makes it easy to slice the meat and keep it together for a pretty presentation. I would do this if I’m serving the brisket on it’s own. Just reheat the sauce, let it reduce and then add the sliced meat right at the end just to reheat.

Cook once, eat in different ways. Whenever I do a braise I like to make a large amount so I can mix up the left overs in different creative ways - brisket for example would be great on it’s own but can also be shredded and used for enchiladas or tacos, or in a pasta sauce or if you’re up for it, make some stuffed pasta (tortellini is on of my favourites).

I hope you have some fun with this. Experiment and try braising something you normally wouldn’t. See what happens. Try new flavours and please let me know what you create! Because you don’t need another recipe. You’ve got all you need. If you have questions, fire away in the comments.

ox

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