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.

Currently cooking from All About Braising by Molly Stevens

Thanksgiving left me with a surplus of celery, so I took a suggestion from a commentor and tried Stevens’ braised celery recipe.

You start off by trimming and cleaning a bunch of celery stalks and making a celery stock with the trimmings. The stock is poured over the celery stalks and then braised for just over an hour. Once the celery stalks are tender, you top them with bread crumbs and gruyere cheese and bake the dish until the cheese is melted and the top is crunchy and brown.

Honestly, this was a little too much celery-ish for me. I ate a couple of the stalks, then just picked the topping off the rest. The dish felt very one dimensional (celery!) to me, even with the flavorful topping. In a book full of really good dishes, this one was disappointing.

Currently cooking from All About Braising by Molly Stevens

Here’s another homerun from Stevens’ book. I’ve made lots of pot roasts (and eaten even more), but I think this might be one of my favorites due to its simplicity and ease of preparation.

You start out by browning a roast (I used a 3 1/2 pound boneless beef chuck roast). Stevens uses the broiler, but I just browned my roast on the stovetop and deglazed the pot with some hard cider and chicken stock. An onion, thyme and bay leaves are added to the liquid and the meat is braised for 90 minutes. At that point, turnips, carrots and potatoes are added, and the roast cooks for another 90 minutes, or until all the veggies are done.

One of the best things I like about all these braised dishes are the amount of leftovers. I love that one dish feeds us for two or three days, and usually, the leftovers are even better than the original meal. This pot roast just got more tender and flavorful as the days went by. The only thing I might change next time is to use parsnips instead of turnips. The turnips are pretty aggressively flavored and tended to overwhelm the other vegetables.

Currently cooking from All About Braising by Molly Stevens

I’m on the fence about this vegetable dish. I didn’t love it or hate it. It made a nice side to hamburgers, but I don’t think I’d go out of my way to make it again. To me, cauliflower tastes best when simply roasted with salt and pepper.

In Stevens’ recipe, you start out by frying traditional Indian spices such as cumin, coriander, ginger and tumeric in vegetable oil. Then cauliflower, potatoes and water are added to the spices and braised until the veggies are tender. At the end of the braise, peas are added to the dish.

Currently cooking from All About Braising by Molly Stevens

Here’s another dish that makes this book worth buying. I’ve heard of dishes that use milk as the cooking liquid, but I’ve never tried them. Now I’m a convert.

You start off by inserting slivers of garlic seasoned with sage and fennel seeds into slits made in a pork loin roast. The meat is then browned on all sides. More garlic is added to the pot before it is deglazed with whole milk, then the whole thing is put into a 275 degree oven for just over an hour. Once the meat is cooked, you set it aside to rest while you finish the sauce. At this point, the milk is a caramel color and looks curdled. You boil the liquid down until all you are left with are the milk curds. At this point, the sauce is tasted for seasoning and finished with a bit of lemon juice.

The sauce tasted fine, but I had a problem with the texture and appearance. It just didn’t look very good, so I followed one of Stevens’ variations and whizzed the sauce in a blender until it was smooth and creamy. I served the pork, sliced and drizzled with the sauce, with some brown rice and homemade rolls. Both Bryan and I couldn’t stop talking about how good this was. The pork was perfectly cooked and juicy. The sauce was creamy and salty (in the very best way). I’m already planning on trying this with pork chops or maybe a pork tenderloin cut into chunks.

Currently cooking from All About Braising by Molly Stevens

Here’s another cabbage dish from Stevens’ book. This time, the cabbage is seasoned with caraway and mustard seeds, shallots and dry white wine and braised with pork chops. The dish is then finished with heavy cream, salt and pepper.

I liked this dish, mostly. The pork was tender and the cabbage was silky and full of flavor, but I thought the caraway was a little overpowering. Next time, I’ll reduce the amount used.

Currently cooking from All About Braising by Molly Stevens

You can’t get much simpler than this side dish. It packs a flavor punch without much work.

Leeks and potatoes are braised in chicken stock until tender. Then, cream is poured over the veggies and baked until the whole thing is bubbly brown. At the end, you’re rewarded with nicely browned potatoes that are soft and creamy inside. The leeks seem to meld with the cream, contributing a sweet, faint oniony taste.

What do you get when you cook this

down to this

and then add a whole mess of these

to these and cook the whole thing together for almost an hour and a half?

You get this

Beefy, oniony, mushroomy goodness that melts in your mouth. I would buy this book for this recipe alone. You take four top blade or flat iron steaks and sear them. Then you cook down a pound and a half of mushrooms (I used button and cremini mushrooms) and two sliced onions. The pot gets deglazed with dry sherry and seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme and paprika. The meat is tucked into the mushrooms and onions and braised, on the stovetop, until tender, about 90 minutes. Finally, cream and some more dry sherry is added to the pot and cooked down to create a smooth, velvety sauce.

Did I mention how much I liked this dish? I served it over brown rice to mop up all that glorious sauce. I might have even licked the plate clean. I’m pretty sure Bryan did.

Currently cooking from All About Braising by Molly Stevens

I may have not been in the best position to appreciate this dish. The week that I made it, I was sick, and I had just tried to slice off my finger with a broken drinking glass. Trying to chop vegetables and season chicken breasts with one hand, while coughing up a lung, is hard work.

This dish starts off by browning bacon and chicken on the stovetop. Once the meat is browned, a shallot is added to the pot, along with a couple of cups of hard cider. The cider is reduced, then parsnips and the meat are added back to the pot and the whole thing braises in the oven until the chicken is cooked, about 50 minutes.

Braising the chicken in the hard cider kept the meat moist. The braising liquid made a nice, albeit thin, sauce to spoon over the chicken, and the parsnips became soft and sweet. My only real quibble with the dish was that the chicken skin turned into a soft, unappetizing mess, and I had to spoon off quite a bit of grease before serving the dish.

Currently cooking from All About Braising by Molly Stevens

During a visit to our local food warehouse store, I stumbled across some Brussels sprouts. Recalling that there was a recipe for Brussels sprouts in Stevens’ book, I threw a bag into our cart.

On a side note, I’ve always called them brussel sprouts, but my dictionary primly informs me that the correct spelling is Brussels sprouts. Throwing that extra “s” in there twists my tongue up.

These braised Brussels sprouts are easy to make and easy to eat. You trim the stem and any ragged outer leaves off the little guys and cut them into quarters. The sprouts are browned in some butter before being braised into sweet meltingness in heavy cream. Once the sprouts are tender, you season them with salt and pepper and lemon juice. Then you eat as many as you can before your husband gets home and wants to share them.

On a side note, taking pictures of braised food is much more challenging then I thought. Although the picture of the cooked sprouts looks like something the cat might have coughed up, it really did taste good.