Currently cooking from All About Braising by Molly Stevens

My last dish out of All About Braising was a bit disappointing. The first night we ate this chicken and pork dish, it was really good. The sauce was tangy and full of flavor. Unfortunately, there was only enough sauce for that first meal. Leftovers were dry and tasteless. and I ended up tossing the rest.

Stevens calls this a Philippine-style braised dish. You start out by marinating a mix of chicken thighs and pork ribs in garlic, vinegar, lime zest and soy sauce, then braising the meat in the marinade. Once the thighs and ribs are tender, you panfry them until crispy brown on the outside. The braising liquid gets boiled down into a syrupy sauce which gets served over the meats.

It sounds like a lot of steps, but it really isn’t. As promised panfrying the braised meats crisped the chicken skin into a shiny brown lacquer and gave the ribs a nice color. We served this over white rice, and for me, the star of the meal was the sauce. It was rich and tangy and vinegary, but not overpoweringly so. In fact, I could have just drizzled the sauce over the rice and been happy.

I’m sad to be leaving this book behind. The meals I’ve made from it were deeply satisfying, especially when the weather outside was frightful. None of the recipes were overly complicated, and the results went (mostly) beyond my expectations. I expect to return to this book over and over.

I haven’t picked out the next cookbook, but it will likely be a baking one. I expect I’ll start up again in January, but for now I’m elbow deep in making candies and cookies for the holidays.