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Braised dishes are timed savor

Anticipation of your appetizer as you await the slow-cooked delight of braised dishes

Nothing says comfort on a wintry night – even in sun-soaked San Diego – like a cozy fire, a steaming mug of herbal tea and a pot of short ribs, bathed in red wine, simmering away in the oven.

For beef bourguignon, Savory's Pascal Vignau simmers beef in wine before braising the mixture in the oven.

Truthfully, you don't need cold temperatures as an excuse to break out your favorite braising dish, because slow-cooked meats are sure to please whether it's chilly or balmy outside.

Braised dishes, though, are associated with the winter months because they tend to be heartier, more rustic meals that confer a sense of warmth and instant comfort.

The notion of slow-cooking, which is what braising is all about, may seem out of vogue in this era of 30-minute meals and pre-made convenience food, but the supple, buttery texture and rich, bold flavors of a braised dish make it well worth the few hours needed to execute it.

Think brisket, pot roast, osso buco, coq au vin – all classic braised dishes.

“With braised food, there is something old-fashioned and soul-satisfying, both in the cooking process and when you come into a house and smell the braising meat,” says Los Angeles restaurant owner and chef Suzanne Goin, whose cookbook, “Sunday Suppers at Lucques,” has a number of can't-miss recipes for braised dishes.

“It speaks to something inside, like something from your childhood, like sugar cookies, and it makes you feel cared for and warm.”

In fact, so popular are the braised beef short ribs at Goin's restaurant, Lucques, that she finally bowed to pressure from customers to include them on the menu year-round, even in “90-degree weather.”

Vignau marinates beef cheeks and vegetables in a mixture of red wine, thyme, garlic, onion and other flavorings for at least two days before braising.

“There was a customer rebellion when I tried to take them off,” she admits.

French-born chef Pascal Vignau, owner of Savory restaurant in Encinitas, worries that braises and stews will eventually fall out of favor in American households amid the mad dash to squeeze home-cooked meals into today's fast-paced lifestyles.

“In Chicago and New York, they do a lot more braising because of the weather,” says the burly Vignau, whose favorite braised dish is beef bourguignon. “We're too preoccupied with the waves and the flip-flops.

“These days, they say this is cooking that Grandma used to do, but young people don't want to spend too much time cooking, so that proves they haven't really learned from their mom.”

Watching Vignau prepare his signature beef bourguignon, you can quickly appreciate the intoxicating appeal of a braised dish. Two days of marinating large chunks of trimmed beef cheeks in burgundy wine has tinted the meat a deep shade of purple.

Vignau coarsely chops carrots, celery and onion, cracks open a head of garlic and tosses it all in a bowl with the beef, sprigs of thyme and a couple bottles of wine, demonstrating how to make the marinade.

He quickly sears the marinated beef cheeks, sautes the vegetables and begins cooking the mixture on his six-burner stove top before depositing his copper stew pot in a 375-degree oven. Within minutes, the bubbling brew has released an irresistible aroma of caramelized beef and earthy burgundy.

Savory, Vignau's restaurant in Encinitas, serves the finished beef bourguignon with roasted vegetables.

While the ingredients are simple, the cooking technique transforms them into a dish of multilayered tastes.

Simply put, braising is cooking meat in a relatively small amount of liquid – wine, stock or beer, for example – in a covered pot or pan for a long time, often several hours. The addition of aromatic herbs and root vegetables, such as leeks, onions, carrots and garlic, enhances the flavor and makes for a nearly ready-made sauce.

Once the beef – or chicken – is finished cooking, the sauce is strained and then reduced to concentrate its full-bodied flavor. But long before that, there is a crucial step that will ensure a more flavorful end product.

After you season the meat and, if you like, dredge it in flour, sear it for a few minutes over high heat on the stove top until it is nicely browned. Then saute vegetables in the same pan to produce a caramelization that will eventually be incorporated into the sauce, once wine and broth are added to loosen those crusty browned bits at the bottom of the pan.

No special equipment is necessary other than a heavy-lidded pot or pan, preferably cast iron, or a Dutch oven.

Braising typically relies on tougher, more muscled, sinewy cuts of beef or pork, which must be cooked for a long time to develop that fork-tender texture. They also tend to be the less expensive cuts of meat. Braised dishes were once known as peasant food because the meat was affordable to the poor.

“You definitely want a meat with excellent marbling,” says Katherine Emmenegger, an instructor at Great News! Cooking School in Pacific Beach, where she teaches a class on braising. “The moist-heat environment is required to break down the collagen of the meat, and it becomes more tender.

“You wouldn't do that with tenderloin of beef because it's already tender. It would just get dried out, whereas the other meats get better with the cooking.”

One of the big pluses of braised dishes is that they actually taste better the day after cooking, making them ideal for entertaining. And made in large quantities, they can be versatile leftovers.

“While it takes time in the oven, there's really not that much prep time,” Goin points out. “It seems like such an easy way to cook, and if you're making short ribs, I'd make 12, and the first night it's short ribs, and the next night shred them with pasta, black olives and feta, and the next day you could have short rib sandwiches.

“Once you go thorough the process, you can make a lot of different things.”

Try these wonderful braised dishes and enhancements

• Savory's Beef Bourguignon
  
• Mediterranean-style Braised Pork
  
• Braised Beef Short Ribs With Swiss Chard
  
• Braised Chicken with Saffron Onions, Italian couscous, and Dates
  
• Italian Couscous
  
• Saffron Onions
  
• Date Relish
  

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