Red-Wine Braised Short Ribs

You may have noticed I’ve been on a little bit of a braising streak lately, putting out recipes for chicken cacciatore, coq au vin, feijoada, and beef bourguignon. That continues today with a dish perfect for the late fall and early winter. The days continue shortening and cooling, and this dish is the perfect comfort food for this weather.

Unlike most of the other braises I’ve posted, this recipe has no latitude whatsoever in what its main ingredient is. These are braised short ribs after all, so braising anything else would necessarily mean you aren’t braising short ribs. If I’m not mistaken, the inspiration behind this recipe (Wolfgang Puck’s short ribs, which, if I remember correctly, he aid he serves annually at the Oscars) was the way I learned how to properly braise meat. I’ve since applied the techniques I learned from studying Puck’s recipe to my other braises.

There are two different “Western” (as opposed to “Asian” styles—we won’t get into those here; I still need to eat and study a lot more kalbi before I feel confident enough in my understanding to post a recipe) styles of short ribs: English- or flanken-cut. Each Western style is cut perpendicularly to the other. For this recipe, I recommend bone-in English-cut. If you can’t get the English kind, get flanken-cut. You might also decide to use boneless short ribs, but they have two shortcomings. First, the bone imparts flavor, and not having the bone loses out on the flavor. Second, the goal is for these ribs to be fork-tender but not completely falling apart; using bone-in ribs helps preserve this structure, and plating with the bone makes for a particularly nice presentation.

Ribs vary quite considerably in how much of their weight is flesh and how much is bone. Boneless ribs are then most cost-effective since you’re not paying for any bone. But if you buy bone-in, the way the ribs were cut and where they were cut from (the front or back of the animal) makes a considerable difference as to how much meat each rib has. Plan on buying at least one meatier rib (or at least two bonier ribs) per person per portion.

Braised short ribs have four components: the ribs themselves, the braising liquid, the vegetables cooked in the braising liquid, and a starch base. Each of those requires a considerable amount of prep work, but the good news is that 3 of the four components also have (collectively) dozens of hours of idle time where you can be doing other things.

Let us begin with the ribs. I recommend dry brining them. That is, salt them quite heavily and place them, salted and uncovered, on a wire rack in the fridge for 24 hours. The salt on the surface will draw out unsalted moisture from within, then the salt will dissolve into the moisture it extracted by osmosis, and then, again by osmosis, the salty moisture will go back into the ribs, leaving them poised to be perfectly seasoned and remarkably tender at the end of this process. Salt them, put them away, and forget about them for a day. I recommend you do this a day in advance of the day you cook them, which itself should be a day in advance of when you serve them. Thus, do this 2 days before you intend to serve the ribs.

On “cooking day” (in between “brining day” and “eating day”), preheat your oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. While your oven is preheating, coat a Dutch oven (mine is 8 quarts; you don’t technically need a Dutch oven—a casserole dish would work—but I find that most vessels that are big enough are classified as “Dutch ovens”) in a thin film of extra virgin olive oil over medium-high heat. Just before it smokes, place as many ribs as can fit in the pan in one layer into the pan. Do not crowd the pan. Your objective is to sear the ribs, not steam the ribs. Moisture needs space through which to escape, and if the pan is too crowded, this space will not exist and the ribs will steam and go gray, instead of searing and going brown. Give the ribs a few minutes on each side. You will know that the Maillard reaction is complete on a given side when a particular rib releases from the pan without any resistance at all. If you feel resistance, the reaction hasn’t finished. Stop trying to move the rib and come back to it later. Brown the ribs in batches if you need to. Turn the heat up or down as needed. Color should come fairly quickly, but it is possible that it might come too quickly. If the latter case occurs, the meat will be irreparably scorched and the fond (the sticky caramelized bits on the bottom of your pan we’ll deal with later) will be irreparably burned. If either the ribs or the fond scorch, throw everything away and start over.

After the ribs are browned, reserve them somewhere. Dice 4 yellow onions, 1 pound of carrots, and 1 pound of celery by hand—even the coarsest setting on a food processor is too fine for what we need. This is the basic flavor base called “mirepoix”—and, if your knife skills are good enough, your cut might also be the “mirepoix” cut. Sweat off these vegetables in the same pan where the ribs were browned until the vegetables soften and the onions turn translucent. Stir frequently. Once the onions become translucent, add 4 cloves of minced garlic (this can be done by hand, in a press, or in a food processor), and sauté with the other aromatics until fragrant, for about 45 seconds.

Then, deglaze the pan with what will, in time, become the braising liquid. At this stage, that means a whole bottle (about 3 cups, so ¾ of a quart) of good red wine—something you would drink. Never cook with something you would not drink on its own. Replace the ribs, and supplement with enough homemade beef stock (follow this recipe, but use beef bones, and keep the stock simmering for a minimum of 16 hours and up to 48) to just come to the top of the ribs, but no more. It is crucial that you use your own beef stock here. Whether you dry-brined or salted your ribs immediately before searing them, using an industrially made stock will make the ribs and the braising liquid inedibly salty, even if the product you bought claimed to be “low-sodium.” Further, homemade stock (especially beef) contains much more gelatin than industrial stock. Together with the collagen in the ribs that will cook out into gelatin, these two sources of gelatin will lend a rich, unctuous, umami character to the sauce that simply cannot be replicated if an industrial stock that contains +less gelatin is used.

Partially cover and allow to braise for anywhere from 2½ to 4 hours—until the ribs are fork-tender but not falling apart. Once the ribs are cooked through, place them in another container; place the vegetables in that same container, and run the sauce through a fat separator. Discard the fat and place the remaining sauce in a separate container. Refrigerate the two containers (de-fatted sauce; ribs/vegetables).

On the third day of this process, prepare the base. Typically, buttered noodles, polenta, or mashed potatoes work well as a base for beef braises like this one. For this recipe, I will recommend my mashed potatoes.

While the potatoes are boiling, be sure that no more fat has separated from the sauce, and if that is the case, reduce the de-fatted sauce by a third. Then, return the ribs, vegetables, and reduced sauce (which now glazes the ribs and the vegetables) to the oven at 300 Fahrenheit for another 20 minutes or so, just to warm them through.

Once all the components of the dish are heated through, serve.

Feijoada

This coming Monday, Brazil will celebrate Republic Day, the 132nd anniversary of the end of the rule of the Bragança dynasty (1822-89 in Brazil), and the establishment of the republic by Marshall Deodoro da Fonseca, who at that time became the first president (and as of this post in 2021, president #38 is in office).

Today’s dish, then, will be the Brazilian national dish: feijoada. It will become the first in a line of national dishes. To that end, if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of this post where you can see that I wrote it and what time I released it, you’ll also be able to click on a number of labeling tags, one of which will be “national dishes.” Click there to view all the recipes of several countries’ national dishes quickly and conveniently (or, if not technically their national dishes, then at least a dish very closely tied to them and their gastronomical culture) as they are published. As of the time this recipe was originally published, it is so far the only one in the category, but more will surely be added.

Feijoada can be an intimidating dish to an American home cook because it takes so long to prepare and has so many distinct ingredients and layers of flavor, but it need not be intimidating. (This is certainly not a weeknight meal.) Feijoada preparation has four main components: searing meat, sweating off aromatics, cooking beans, and braising meat. The name of the dish, “feijoada,” is derived from the star ingredient, beans (“feijão” in the singular, “feijões” in the plural). In the part of the country my family comes from (and thus where I learned the dish), the vast majority of feijoadas use black beans (as will be the case in this recipe), but pinto beans are an occasional and acceptable substitute. But in other parts of the country further inland or to the north, the situation is exactly reversed: a pinto feijoada is the norm, and a black feijoada would be exceptional. A “feijoada” can also refer to a party at which the most important food being served is this dish.

Begin with the first step, searing meat. I have talked about creating “fond” (in the English sense where this word means “sticky caramelized bits of flavorful stuff stuck to a pan”) several times in previous recipes. This step is first precisely because we want fond which we will deglaze later, enhancing the flavor of the dish. Pretty much anything good in a braise, soup, or stew works well here—German wursts (Weiss or brat), smoked ham hock, and bone-in short ribs, just to name a few. Whatever you choose, sear it off to get some good color and to build some fond in a large pot (I use my Dutch oven, which is 8 quarts, and I recommend something about the same size), but don’t expect to cook anything all the way through. Allow these meats—the bigger the assortment the better—to get some color, and then reserve them.

Then, sweat off at least one, if not two, diced onions. Follow with 3 large cloves of garlic that have been minced. “Onion first, garlic later” is critical: putting both aromatics in simultaneously, or worse, putting the garlic in before the onions will burn the garlic. And if you burn the garlic, you might burn your fond. If you burn your fond, clean your pan and start over. Preparing these aromatics before the meat is seared is a fantastic way to establish and preserve mise en place throughout this dish. Once the onions and the garlic have given up some of their moisture, but before they take on color because they have started caramelizing, deglaze with a dash of good vinegar. Typically, I use apple cider or red wine. (I also always have a good balsamic available, but it gets too fruity and too sweet over time in dishes like this. There’s a time and a place for an amazing balsamic, and, in general, that’s not in a feijoada.)

Reintroduce the meat. Add enough water to cover everything by at least an inch, bearing in mind that this should never dry out and will simmer on low to medium-low for 2-3 hours. Drop in a bay leaf. Bring everything to a boil, then back it down to a simmer, leaving it there for several hours, until the meat nearly falls apart and the beans are tender. Wait to season until the end of the cooking process. Some of the seasonings in whatever meats you put into the feijoada, if there was any cooking or processing done by anyone else before you, may be salted. If you salt too early, the liquids will concentrate and, given the amount of salt already in the food from the beginning, the end result will be excessively salty.

Feijoada is served with rice (steamed in a covered saucepan, 2:1, water:rice), oranges, and a salad. Often, a rodizio de churrasco (an enormous range of different skewered meats barbequed over a fire, cut by a waiter tableside, and served from the spit they were cooked on) provides even more protein than what is in the feijoada per se. Especially if the churrasco is served with it, farofa (toasted cassava flour with a whole array of mix-ins, including eggs, raisins, and onions) is non-negotiable as a side dish. Fresh-squeezed orange juice or a soft drink made from the fruits of the Guaraná tree are common drinks with feijoadas, especially at parties. Be careful drinking guarana if you don’t sleep well when you drink coffee—it has about twice as much caffeine as caffeinated coffee per volume. If you choose to drink the guaraná (no, this isn’t sponsored) my preference, and that of most Brazilians, is the "Antarctica" brand.

Enjoying a feijoada is meant to be an experience that lasts several hours; this is not an ideal weeknight meal. If you need a quick weeknight meal, then simpler rice and beans would be a good option. But if you’re willing to put in the work and wait long enough, it will be well worth it for the full feijoada experience. And lastly, remember that a feijoada is never a private occasion: it is meant to be enjoyed in the company of many family and friends, coming together as a community to celebrate something and enjoy Latin America's most populous nation's signature dish.

(Credit to Spark Recipes - SparkPeople)

Boeuf Bourguignon

Boeuf Bourguignon is a classic French beef stew (made famous here in America by French-trained American chef Julia Child) made with stock (this recipe can be modified to use beef bones instead of chicken, but the process is exactly the same), red wine, and onions. It's a great way to learn to be comfortable with braising, and an all-around great winter comfort food everyone should have in their arsenal of soups, stews, and braises. I have designed this recipe using chuck-- specifically a chuck roast. Chuck isn't really used for steaks per se (like the ribeye, filet, strip, etc.) because it's not really suited for that kind of cooking. Steaks are meant to be cooked relatively quickly over blisteringly high heat in a pan with oil or over a fire-- but without very many liquids. Chuck, on the other hand, is far too tough for this. You can either grind chuck (and combine it with brisket and short rib) for an excellent burger patty, or you can buy a whole roast like I recommend for this. If you buy the whole roast, follow the lines of fat and sinew present in the meat (a typical chuck roast weighs anywhere from 3 to 7 pounds; 4 pounds is ideal here) and cut along them. Then, progressively break down the meat into slightly larger than bite-sized cubes.

The reason chuck doesn't work well as a steak is twofold: first, because of the length and orientation of the muscle fibers, and second, because the muscle used to work literally 24/7 to support its entire weight when the animal was still living. The best steaks are from the muscles that barely do any work at all. Because the animal's shoulder supported so much weight for so long, chuck gets chewy if not tenderized mechanically (by grinding, as I mentioned RE: burgers) or by allowing it to cook at a low temperature for several hours, as I'll prescribe here in this recipe.

Peel and chop 1 pound of carrots, and peel and slice 4 large yellow onions into rings. Wash and slice 1 pound of white, crimini, portobello, or baby bella mushrooms. (A quick note to bouef bourguignon traditionalists: yes, I know I’m supposed to use pearl onions. But I don’t have the time or the patience—and you probably don’t either—to peel the requisite number of pearl onions. I would much rather do less work for the same results (peeling fewer regular onions for the same amount of usable onion) than more unnecessary work (peeling all the baby pearl onions when the big yellow ones work just as well). If you insist on using the smaller onions, go right ahead, but for your sake, I would make sure you buy pre-peeled (usually frozen) baby onions.)

Begin by seasoning the cut chuck with salt and freshly ground pepper and lightly dredge it in flour. Coat the bottom of a large pot or dutch oven with oil. Just before the oil begins to smoke, place the chuck in the pot and sear on all sides. Your objective is not to cook the chuck all the way through-- this wouldn't do that, anyways. You just want to get some color on it and to develop a "fond" (in the American sense, referring to the caramelized bits of flavorful goodness stuck to the pan that most home cooks throw away at their peril; the French use "fond" to mean "stock").

Cut several strips of bacon parallel to the short side of the bacon to create lardons. Lower the heat in the pan to medium-low to not burn the fond, add a touch more oil, and slowly render out the bacon. Reserve.

Saute the carrots and allow the onions to caramelize in the fat already in the pan from the beef and the bacon. This will create a little bit more fond in the bottom of the pan. Use bourbon, cognac, or another liquor (or more wine, if you don't have any liquor) to deglaze the pan. Once the fond has been picked up off the bottom of the pan, add 1 quart (4 cups) of chicken or beef stock, 2 cups of water, 1 bottle of red wine, and 1 can of tomato paste to the Dutch oven and reintroduce the seared beef.

Allow to braise, partially covered, for three hours at 275 Fahrenheit. Then serve alone, with egg noodles, with potatoes, or with your accompaniment of choice.

Coq au Vin

Coq au Vin is one of the great classic French braises. True to form as the “poor man’s food” of peasantry-era France, this was not a dish made with a young chicken found everywhere in modern American grocery stores—that dish would be called “poulet au vin,” but this is “coq au vin”—but with an old rooster. To accommodate changing modern tastes, techniques, and ingredient availability, this recipe will cater to the American consumer, but will still maintain all of the core elements of what makes the classic coq au vin the classic coq au vin.

Coq au vin is a braise, which means there are three indispensable classes of ingredients. 1) The thing being braised. 2) The liquid in which that thing is being cooked and 3) The stuff being cooked with the main ingredient in the braising liquid. For coq au vin, those three elements are as follows: 1) chicken (thighs); 2) water, red wine, and brown chicken stock; 3) mushrooms, bacon, and onions.

 Before we get into how to prepare this dish, let’s first talk about where to prepare it. A number of the recipes I’ve already posted on here use an 8-quart stove-save and oven-safe Dutch oven. That’s perfect for this recipe.

 Another thing I’ve been very adamant about in the recipes posted here is the importance of the classical French practice of “mise en place”—“[putting] everything in its proper place [before you start cooking]:” washing, chopping, peeling, etc. Coq au vin will be no exception.

The mise en place for coq au vin itself is rather straightforward and not too demanding. First, separate out a quart of chicken stock (ideally fresh, for which you can find a recipe by clicking here)—if you live in the metric world, go with a liter—and about a cup and a half (350 mL, give or take) of good red wine. Then, clean 1 pound (1/2 kg) of baby bella mushrooms. The “white button,” “baby bello,” and “portobello” mushrooms, the three most commonly consumed mushrooms in the United States, are exactly the same organism, but at different levels of maturity/development, so if you cannot find the baby bella, either of the others I suggested will be fine. Wash and then quarter the mushrooms. Slice 4 ounces of bacon into lardons by cutting them across the length of the bacon strips. Peel 3 onions and remove both the stem and root ends. Then, with your knife parallel to your cutting surface, cut each onion into thirds or quarters and separate out the rings from within each cut. There may be some membrane between the layers/rings of the onions. As you separate the rings, if you find any membrane, remove it.

              This recipe makes use of both the English-language culinary definition of “fond” and the French-language culinary definition of “fond.” We need to develop the first before we can engage the latter. The English word refers to “tasty, caramelized bits stuck to the bottom of the pan that most chefs accidentally waste,” while the French word is the word for “stock.”  Creating a good chicken stock is a very long process, so it will get its own post.  

              Building a good fond (in the English sense) takes time and planning. Begin with the flame off and place the bacon lardons into the cold pan in a single layer. Fat melts at a much lower temperature than bacon becomes crispy, so once the lardons are in the pan, bring the flame up to medium-low, or even low, without any additional fat at first. This low flame will heat the bacon gently and allow the fat a head-start when rendering, so that the bacon can, in a few minutes’ time, fry in its own fat. Once the bacon is crispy enough, remove it with tongs or a slotted spoon, leaving behind the rendered fat. Depending on how fatty your bacon was, you may want to add a few more tablespoons of fat—olive oil is ideal. Now, raise the heat to medium or medium-high  Then, place the onion rings into the Dutch oven, and let them caramelize. This process will not begin immediately. Onions have a significant amount of moisture in them, and that moisture needs to evaporate before the onions can start caramelizing. The onions will need to let go of their moisture before they start frying in the bacon fat and olive oil, and there will be an audible difference between the two processes. Do not allow the onions to burn. This will burn the fond, and you’ll need to start over. Once the onions are in the caramelizing phase, they will have lost a significant amount of volume. When this happens, add 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar to the Dutch oven and add the mushrooms. The mushrooms will go through the same process the onions did: losing moisture first, then frying. Once the onions and the mushrooms are sufficiently browned, remove them from the Dutch oven and set them aside with the bacon.

              Lightly coat the chicken thighs in flour, passing the chicken thighs from one hand to the other to shake off any excess flour. Brown the chicken thighs in the bacon fat/olive oil. This will leave behind the third layer of fond. The goal is not to cook the chicken through, just to give it some color and set a crust so that it doesn’t fall apart in the braising process. Reserve the chicken.

              Build a roux in the pan with the fond over low heat by melting 3 tablespoons of butter and an equal amount of flour. This will create a paste, called a roux. Raw flour is incredibly unpleasant, but cooked flour coated in butterfat turns quite nutty and pleasant. Whisk constantly while the roux is being prepared, and while the stock and wine are being incorporated. If the roux burns, so does the fond, which would require starting over from scratch. Once the raw flour smell in the roux has cooked out, whisk in the chicken stock and wine. This does two things: it emulsifies and thickens the sauce, and it deglazes the pan, dissolving the fond into the sauce. Raise the heat to high for 5 minutes to allow the chemical reactions to take place by which the sauce will begin to be thickened.

              Replace the chicken, mushrooms, onions, and bacon. Allow the chicken to braise uncovered in a 250-degree oven for 3 hours. Depending on the size and strength of your oven, and the depth and surface area of your Dutch oven, you may need to add more water or stock to the sauce throughout the cooking process, or you may need to reduce the sauce on the stovetop over high heat after the three hours.

              Serve with over a starch: mashed potatoes, pasta, roasted potatoes, or spaetzle, for example.

Chef-Essential Homemade Chicken Stock

Chicken stock is, perhaps, the most universal of the classic stocks, and so it is the most versatile in its applications. Stocks, in general, can be deceptively simple: take a bunch of bones, roast them (or omit this step for a different kind of chicken stock), throw a bunch of chopped vegetables into a stockpot, submerge all of that in water, and let it simmer for several hours. Easy, right? Actually, stocks can be quite complex—much more complex than that deliberately dramatic way I just presented them. It is often said that you can rank a lineup of chefs in order from best to worst based purely on a blind test of a sampling of their stocks. For that reason, and because stocks are such basic building blocks of so many dishes in the kitchen, it is vital that every home cook know the best techniques.

The largest pot we have here at home, by capacity, is an 8-quart Dutch Oven, which I have featured in a few recipes before. That is not nearly large enough, nor is it the right shape for making stock. I have regularly used my Dutch oven to make ragù Bolognese, especially if and when the grocery store substituted our order for more meat than we ordered during the quarantine. That Dutch oven made enough ragù for 8 meals if the pasta was particularly saucy, and for 12 meals if the sauce was rationed. Followed exactly, this recipe would double the capacity if the Dutch oven. Capacity aside, there is another problem with my Dutch oven: it is quite short, and it is rather wide. This geometry creates a problem. Wider surface areas lend to quicker evaporation, and, again, this is a basic stock, not a demiglace reduction, so we want to minimize evaporation. Some evaporation is bound to happen, and water can and should be added to counteract that throughout the simmering process. The ideal pot has a very large volume but is very tall and very narrow, especially in proportion to its height.  

The pot that is needed for these stocks as the recipe is written is at least twice as voluminous as the biggest one I have (so I can only ever make half a batch at a time at home). The requisite stock-making vessel is whatever the largest available stockpot which is suitable for your kitchen and which you can easily find is; they’re widely available at hardware or big-box stores (i.e., Ace, Walmart, Target, Costco, etc.), and they usually run about $20 to $40. The absolute minimum size for this recipe (if not proportionally reduced) is 18 quarts—4.5 gallons (almost exactly 17L). Bigger is better, but for a non-industrial kitchen, the biggest I recommend is 32 quarts—8 gallons (30.3L). Be sure you have found a good stockpot in the recommended volume range before proceeding, especially if you have decided to use a smaller pot for smaller batches.

This recipe can be adjusted, so if you are making much more or much less stock—I only made 6 quarts at a time—use a larger or smaller but correctly proportional pan (i.e., one that is taller than it is wide and has more than enough volume for the amount of stock you want to make) and it will work just as well. Whatever style or capacity is used, even if it has a lid, do not use it.

The first question about actual food we need to address, naturally, is what cut of chicken to use in chicken stock. My recommendation is to use wings. At least here in the US, it is relatively easy to find wings in trays that weigh 4 to 7 pounds (1.8 to 3.2 kg), and they are typically sold either cut up into two parts when only the meatier drumette is sold, or they’re sold whole. For this stock, the best option would be to buy 2 of those trays of whole wings. Whole wings contain lots of collagen, which will be most beneficial in the preparation of the best stock. If you have leftover carcasses (as we did a few days before this was written, since we'd just bought a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store a few days before), they work just as well.

The French call the combination of onions, celery, and carrots (to which I recommend the technically non-traditional addition of garlic) “mirepoix.”  Other recipes for more exacting dishes might call for precise cuts in the mirepoix, but I’ll only recommend that the onions, carrots, and celery be about the same size within each vegetable, and that they are cut in the following way: 2 pounds of onions (4-6 onions), roughly cut into quarters; 1 stalk of celery (that includes multiple ribs connected at one point), cut into thirds after the root has been cut off; and 1 pound of carrots, peeled, and with the very top and very bottom of each carrot cut off. This 2:1:1 ratio is standard in any restaurant kitchen that prepares anything requiring mirepoix, and, even if you do not cook professionally, is a great flavor base to add to almost any savory Western dish. You can either not peel the onions and just quarter them, or peel them, quarter them, and put the skins back in the stock. (Italians call this combination of vegetables "soffrito" and Spaniards call it "refogado.") Further, slice 2 heads of garlic across their equators. This opens up all of the cloves at once and allows them to release their flavorful oils into the stock. Roasted garlic becomes very umami-sweet and much less bitter and pungent than fresh raw garlic. You can add other hearty vegetables like leeks and parsnips, to your stock, if you like them and/or they are in season. Don't worry about being too pretty with any of the cuts here-- all the solids will be eventually strained out.  

I have mentioned another French term, “mise en place,” before, and a number of my previous recipes, like this one, are just fancy exercises in mise en place. Each stock will require a substantial amount of mise en place. The tasks will not be particularly complex, but they will be time-consuming and repetitive, namely, in chopping the vegetables and organizing the vegetables and the wings on roasting trays.

Some stocks are brown, and others are white. Brown stocks are stocks for which the protein is roasted. In general, for these applications, 400 Fahrenheit for an hour and a half should work quite well. A chicken stock that uses wings needs about an hour to develop the deep flavor and caramelization typical of brown stock, and for evenness in this effect, I recommend flipping the wings every 20 minutes.

White stocks, on the other hand, are stocks where the protein is first blanched and shocked in cold water before being introduced to the stockpot. To blanch, cover the protein in cold water in a pan large enough to contain it, and, as quickly as possible, bring that liquid to a boil. Once the water boils, keep the protein there no less than 10, but no more than 30 seconds. Immediately kill the heat, drain the water, and move the protein to an ice bath. The ice stops the cooking process as quickly as possible. This will remove any mineral impurities from the surface of the bones. This is the defining difference between brown stock and white stock. Brown is roasted, white is blanched. Whatever protein is used, brown will be significantly richer, the flavor of the meat that was used will be more pronounced, and the color will be much lighter in the white stock as compared to the brown. Knowing now the difference between brown and white, the rest of this recipe will proceed along the brown path. 

Chicken is the easiest to burn among the proteins typically used to make stock, so adjust these times according to the power of your oven and err on the side of slightly under-roasting. Arrange the chicken wings, celery, garlic, onions, carrots, and other vegetables on roasting pans and place them in a preheated (400 F) oven. Every 15 minutes rotate the roasting trays a half-turn. Once 45 minutes have passed, squeeze 1 tube of tomato paste onto the chicken and vegetables, and toss to coat. Even coating prevents burning and promotes equal browning at the same rate. As before, every 15 minutes rotate the trays a half-turn, but now, in addition, also flip the contents of those trays. This will ensure deep, even caramelization and will prevent burning. If anything burns, throw everything away and start over. (You can skip the rotation if you drop the temperature to 350 and activate convection mode on your oven if it exists.)

After the 75-minute roast, the chicken will have released some fat, and both it and the vegetables will have released some water. Some of what was released will still be liquid, while some of what was released will have gotten stuck to the tray, solidified, and caramelized. Transfer all the solids and what you can of the liquids into the stockpot. Then, using some water and a spatula, scrape the surface of the pans to dissolve what is stuck to them into the water. How much flavor is contained in these solid bits, and what proportional yield of these solid bits a chef can get from their pans, more than anything else, will be the key to differentiating “okay” stock from “great” stock.  This process is known as “deglazing,” and doing this (as opposed to writing off those solids) maximizes flavor. The chicken stock itself is a popular deglazing liquid in making sauces, stews, soups, gravies, and the like, but for now, since we are just now building the stock, use water, or if you are feeling adventurous and want to add fruity notes to your stock, some white wine.

Take all the liquid you have deglazed into the stockpot, together with the easily accessible liquid you poured out and the solids from the roasting pan. Start filling the 18-quart stockpot with 12 quarts (3 gallons, 11.3 liters) of water. (This can, of course, be adjusted proportionally if you need more or less stock, so long as the amounts of chicken and vegetables are adjusted as well.) Flavor the stock with a bay leaf, fresh dill, parsley, oregano, and thyme bound in a bouquet garni with butcher's twine for easy removal in a few hours. After all the water and solids are in the stockpot, make sure you have at least 2 inches of clearance from the lip. 

Turn on the burner to its lowest setting possible while still maintaining a flame. Especially in the beginning, monitor the stock and skim it as foam rises to the top. While the foam is not dangerous per se, it makes the stock look cloudy at the end, so you are doing this purely for aesthetics. If the water line ever crosses below the solids in the pot, add more water until the solids are submerged by an inch and a half of water, but maintain proper clearance so the liquid never boils over.  

If you are in a hurry, leave the stock on the stove for no less than 2 hours before cooling, portioning, and storing (in the fridge for up to a week, in the freezer for up to 6 months). Ideally, though, a chicken stock should be left on the stove for 4 to 24 hours on as low heat as possible. Skim early and often; the later you wait to skim, the more flavor you will remove in addition to the scum.

At the end of the cooking time, discard the solids in the stock, strain it, and transfer it into a container large enough to hold all of it which has been placed in a plugged-up sink filled with ice water. Strain the stock carefully: the more clear the stock, generally, the better the quality. The ice water surrounding the stock’s new container will cool it quickly and safely.

Place some (clean) ice into the stock in its cooling container. Leave the ice-stock out to cool until it is cold enough to go into the refrigerator. The ice in the stock will melt into the stock, diluting it slightly, but, more importantly, will cause all the fat in the stock to rise to the top of that container in a giant disk of fat when left in the fridge for a long time, and it will chill it safely. Discard the fat. Collagen in the bones will have leached out and dissolved into the water; when heat is applied, collagen chemically changes into gelatin. If your stock looks like “meaty Jell-O” at this point in the process, until now, you have done everything well. Portion out your stock however you need to (in gallon/half-gallon/quart/pint/cup containers), and freeze what you do not need in resealable, airtight containers. Put what you will use immediately in the fridge, and use it within 3 days. Kept in a freezer in an airtight container, this stock will keep for up to 6 months.

Whenever you need your homemade stock, pull out a container and thaw and reheat its contents, most ideally in an appropriately sized saucepan. Once reheated, the gelatin in the stock will dissolve and the familiar liquid consistency will return. Only when you need the stock, add salt to the quantity of stock you are using immediately.

If you make this, be sure to leave a comment down below letting me know!

Chicken Marsala

Chicken Marsala is an Italian classic with relatively few ingredients, but that can instantly be elevated by using good ingredients and superior care and technique.

First, let us answer the question of what wines to use, given the importance of wine in the dish as evidenced by its name. There are two general categories of Marsala wine: dry and sweet. Both have sweet and fruity flavor profiles, but the "sweet" variation is much sweeter. Drink that with dessert. For this recipe, use the other kind-- dry marsala. It'll still be sweet, but not so aggressively as its counterpart. Like a lot of things in Italian cuisine named after locations, it's only the real deal if you can verify that it comes from wherever it's named after-- in this case, from a region of Sicily. Imported Marsalas can be significantly more expensive, but if at all possible, find them. In any case, whether you use a domestic wine or an imported one, look for the oldest, darkest Marsala available. They don't sponsor me, so I won't say explicitly who, but for as long as I've been cooking with Marsala, I've been using a high-quality domestic wine from upstate New York; I already have had great success with this recipe as it is, and I'm sure it would be even better after the pandemic ends if I could prepare this with imported wine.

As I've said in nearly every other recipe I've published so far, mise en place (that is "[setting] everything in its proper place" in French-- doing the washing, peeling, cutting, measuring, etc. ahead of time) is of paramount importance for the success of this recipe. You need several things set up for this recipe. Separately, measure out a cup each of Marsala (a third of the bottle-- a "cup" is 8 ounces, which is significantly more than the "glass" one would pour to drink the wine; a cup is 8oz/235mL, while a “glass” is about 5oz/150mL) and some sort of animal stock. Chicken, beef, veal, or any combination of the three are acceptable. However, I do recommend that if you're preparing steak marsala, you use primarily beef stock; veal marsala uses primarily veal stock, and chicken marsala uses primarily chicken stock. I find that cooking animal protein in its own fat or using the same stock to form a sauce to accompany the protein being prepared lends the best flavor, but Marsala wine pairs well with all three, so you can use whatever stock you have.

In a perfect world, the stock would match the protein and be homemade, but store-bought stock that doesn't necessarily match is fine. My only cautions are to avoid fish stock and vegetable stock. The former is far less intense than the wine, so the flavor of the wine would immediately and completely overpower it; especially if it's low-quality, it may also be far too salty. The latter is not only less intense and thus immediately overpowered like the former, but more often than not, its most predominant flavor (especially if it's store-bought) is salt, not the flavor of any of its components.

Additionally, wash and slice half a pound of portobello, baby bella, or button mushrooms. Ideally, introduce as little moisture to the mushrooms as possible, so dampen a paper towel and individually clean the mushrooms with it, rather than under running water. Using the latter method, the mushrooms will saturate; if they do, they'll burn before they release all their moisture, or they won't develop any color and will instead become soggy. Clean the mushrooms well but introduce as little water as possible to them in doing so. Once washed, slice the mushrooms along their length.

Preparation is also required for the chicken itself and the flour that will eventually coat it. Place several heaping tablespoons of flour on a plate, and season the flour with salt, pepper, dry thyme, dry oregano, dry basil, paprika, and garlic powder. Mix by hand until homogenous. On a clean cutting board with a long, clean, sharp knife, butterfly your chicken breasts. That is, make a long cut parallel to the cutting surface along the long edge of the piece of chicken, cutting all the way through to produce two pieces of identical shape but half the thickness of the original. I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again because no amount of repetition of food safety information will ever be enough. DO NOT WASH YOUR CHICKEN BEFORE PREPARING IT. DOING SO WILL ONLY CREATE MORE CROSS CONTAMINATION. Once the chicken has been properly cut and butterflied, dredge the chicken in the seasoned flour. Coat the chicken in the flour completely but shake off any excess by tossing each piece of chicken. Any excess flour beyond exactly what is needed to coat and season the chicken will become gummy. Keep the chicken cutlets on a single layer with lateral space between them so they do not stick to any neighbors.

Preheat a thin film of oil (I prefer extra virgin olive or extra virgin avocado)—enough to entirely coat the bottom of the pan, but not any more than is absolutely necessary to do that. The oil will be hot enough when ¼ teaspoon of water dropped into it sizzles and evaporates in 3 seconds. If the evaporation takes longer, your pan is not hot enough; if it happens sooner, back off the heat because your chicken will burn on the outside long before it is cooked on the inside. When the oil is at the right temperature, place the cutlets in the pan in such a way to not overcrowd it. Overcrowding will steam the chicken rather than shallowly frying it; steaming the chicken rather than frying will give the flour-based dredge a very unpleasantly gummy texture; the same effect will occur if the frying oil is too cold`. After 2 minutes, turn the chicken over and brown the other side another 90 seconds. These chicken breast cutlets are thin and cook quickly, but they’re not quite done yet—by design. Reserve the chicken on a separate plate off the heat. You’ll need to come back to it later.

You now need to take advantage of some fond built up in your pan—that is, some of the brown stuff full of flavor that shallow-frying the chicken left behind in the pan. This fond will burn if not covered with stuff, so be sure to do all the chopping you need to do for this next step well before it’s time to execute it—this demonstrates the importance of mise en place, even in home cooking. Add a finely chopped onion, the sliced mushrooms, and 2 minced garlic cloves to the pan, in that order. Stir; minced garlic burns quickly if left unattended. Allow the onions and the mushrooms to caramelize, helping them gain more color and flavor by deglazing the pan with some balsamic vinegar—just a few dashes. The better the balsamic vinegar, the stronger the flavor, so since the balsamic vinegar isn’t the star of the show, I’d say no more than a teaspoon. “Deglazing” simply means “using a cooking-grade acid [citrus juices, vinegar, wine, etc.] to chemically loosen flavorful stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan.” Once the onions are caramelized, pour in the stock first. Then, MOVE THE PAN OFF THE HEAT before adding the Marsala wine to be as safe as possible. Two things make Marsala Marsala. The first is the kind of grape used to make the wine, only found in one area of Sicily. The second is the fact that Marsala wine is not pure wine, but wine “spiked” with brandy. Whereas 10% alcohol might be normal for a white wine (although I’ve cooked with as low as 7%) and 13% might be about right for a red wine (I’ve seen anywhere between 10 and 15), Marsala wines, because of the Brandy, average anywhere between 17% and 22%. (Pure brandy is anywhere from 35 to 65% alcohol, and the presence of the brandy fortifying this wine raises its alcohol content above almost any other wine, like averaging an outlier will do to any statistical set). Cooking with it thus requires the same amount of care as cooking with the pure liquor.

Cooking with any kind of liquor or liquor-fortified wine will produce a colored flame, in a showy cooking technique called “flambé” in which liquor is added to food in a previously-heated pan that has been moved away from a heat source and then returned to then momentarily set the alcohol on fire to burn off the alcohol but leave the desirable flavor compounds that flavor the liquor. White wines, and even normal red wines with “high” alcohol content (by red standards, so around 14%) don’t flambé because even being 1/7 alcohol, that’s not enough to make the alcohol combust. But Marsala does have enough alcohol by volume (20% plus-or-minus a few percentage points depending on who made it) because it contains brandy. The brandy’s alcohol content is so much higher than the content of the wine without it that it brings up the overall average alcohol content by volume of the wine enough that Marsala, but not other wines, will almost certainly flambé. Of course, if you were to cook directly with the liquor, you would need to be extremely careful: pure liquors will certainly flambé because they have enough alcohol in them—in many cases, more alcohol than other things.

Flambé cooking can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Just remember to wear safe clothing (nothing too baggy or dangling) and add the flambé liquid off the heat. If you do, when you put it back on the heat, your pan will catch fire, and you’ll get to enjoy the show (people pay top-dollar to flambé cheese and other foods just to have the fun visual experience of watching the flames, because they look nice and the colors change depending on which spirit was used) for a few seconds. The fire will die down naturally once the alcohol burns off. If you have family around, I strongly suggest that you warn them before you prepare a Chicken Marsala or any other dish that involves flambé so as not to startle them. Once the alcohol has burned off, gently simmer the sauce for a few minutes to intensify color and flavor.

Emulsify 1 tablespoon of cold butter per person into the sauce by cutting pieces of butter straight from the fridge into the sauce and whisking constantly until it melts and is indistinguishable from the rest of the sauce. Return the chicken to the pan. Maintain at a quiet simmer. The chicken is almost cooked through, having gone most of the way in the pan when it was fried and another part in carryover cooking from its own residual heat on the separate plate. Now, lay the cutlets into the finished sauce and spoon it over the cutlets. Let the cutlets meld with the sauce. Leave the chicken in the sauce for another 10 minutes over low heat; after 10 minutes, the chicken will be cooked completely. Some of the coating will—deliberately—come off the chicken. The small bits of the seasoned flour coating that do come off of the cutlet will finish most of what the emulsion of the butter and the burning off of the alcohol has already done: thickening the sauce.

Prepare 1 pound of pasta per 3 people being served (about 5 ounces per person, or about 140 grams per person) according to the manufacturer’s instructions to al dente. For final presentation, once again separate the chicken from the sauce, combine the pasta and the sauce, and present the chicken served on top of the pasta. Garnish as desired with Parmesan and/or Romano cheese.  

If you make this, be sure to leave a comment down below letting me know!

(Chicken) Cacciatore

        “Cacciatore” is not, unlike most of the other Italian dishes I have posted or will post in the future, a dish specific to one city or region in Italy, but rather, a style of cooking found throughout the whole country. “Cacciatore” simply means “hunter.” The typical way to prepare a “cacciatore” dish in the Italian American sense is to braise chicken in a spicy tomato sauce. But the Italian way is more varied and is usually much less spicy. Any meats that can be braised (certain cuts of beef, pork, chicken, and, especially traditionally, rabbit) works well. This particular recipe will use chicken thighs. 

If you only take away one thing from these recipes, let it be this: The practice chefs refer to as “mise en place,” that is “[setting] everything in its [proper] place” is a very valuable skill for any cook with any amount of experience. This dish, like all braises, is not a particularly fast-paced dish (unlike, say, a stir-fry, when there are mere seconds between the addition of ingredients, and for which mise en place is absolutely essential), but practicing mise en place is nevertheless still a good idea. While making the necessary preparations, don’t worry about making anything too small or being too exact with relative sizes. As long as the pieces are roughly the same size (so they’ll cook evenly), they don’t need to be really precise or look pretty. This dish, after all, is prepared the way a hunter would make it—that is, in a very rustic way. There are times when precise cuts are essential, and this absolutely is not one of them.

As with almost any braised dish, there is one thing that makes or breaks the success of the execution of the recipe: time. Four things need to be considered.

1.    It takes time to brown off the meat of choice so that it does not simply boil in the liquid.

2.    It takes time to develop the flavor of the braising liquid before the meat being braised can be returned to it to actually cook in earnest

3.    Braising meat means cooking it for a long time over low heat in a flavorful liquid, so expect to spend at least an hour with the poultry in the braising liquid (other braises, like short ribs in wine can take anywhere up to 4 hours).

4.    The flavor of any braised dish will always be better and more intense 24 hours after it was prepared; cooling the meat once fully cooked and let it sit in its braising liquid for a day before reheating and finally serving for the first time will provide the best flavor. 

 

I like to start by seasoning flour simply with salt, pepper, and some dried herbs, mixing well to incorporate the seasonings evenly, and then dredge the chicken in the flour. Preheat a thin film of olive oil in your pan of choice—for me, that’s a 9-quart Dutch oven.   Once the chicken has been dredged, split it into batches to be browned. Browning the chicken in batches prevents overcrowding. If the pan is overcrowded, the chicken will steam rather than brown. Leave the chicken on that side for about 2 minutes or until it releases easily from the surface of the pan. At that point, it has browned on one side. Flip the chicken, and let it cook on the other side until that side releases from the pan. This chicken is not cooked all the way through—not by a long shot—but that’s by design. Reserve the chicken onto a separate plate off the heat. This process will have created fond, the technical name for the brown, flavorful bits at the bottom of the pan. Drop a whole sliced onion, three minced garlic cloves, and two julienned red bell peppers (julienning is cutting into long, thin vertical strips) into the pan over medium heat. Drizzle in 1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar and 2 teaspoons of red wine vinegar. This will deglaze the pan—that is, lift the fond off the surface of the pan and onto the onions and peppers by the chemical action of the acid in the vinegars. Once the vinegars have been added, stir, and lower the heat if necessary. Sauté the onions, pepper, and garlic until the onions have caramelized, the peppers have softened. Then, add 48 ounces of homemade tomato sauce or passata to the pan, and season as needed with salt, pepper, garlic powder, basil, and oregano. Let this sauce—which will become the braising liquid—come to a boil, then immediately reduce it to a simmer. Hold it there for 5 to 7 minutes, then reintroduce the chicken. Simmer uncovered for an hour on medium-low heat. Stir every 8-10 minutes. Serve as desired. 

Several options exist.

1.    Eating this on its own as a stew—as was originally intended

2.    Serving over rice

3.    Turning the braising liquid into a sauce for pasta prepared to the manufacturer’s instructions until al dente, mixing pasta into the sauce, them topping emulsified pasta and sauce with pieces of chicken  

If you make this, be sure to leave a comment down below letting me know!