Slow Cooking

The standard fine-dining approach to dealing with cheap, tough cuts of meat has always been slow cooking. Modern haute cuisine takes it even further, vacuum-sealing the meat in a bag and cooking it in a water bath at a controlled temperature for hours or even days—this method has come to be called “sous vide” (which is surprising, given that “vacuum hot-tub relaxation” is a much better term). Really fancy places even have ovens with variable humidity and “reverse-delta technology,” which consists of a temperature probe in the meat (a.k.a. “the ol’ probe-in-the-sauna gag”), linked to a computer that gradually raises the oven temperature ten degrees above the meat’s temperature until the meat reaches the target final temperature, resulting in meat cooked as gently as possible. If, like me, you don’t have access to an immersion circulator and vacuum sealer or a fancy oven, you can still achieve good results by braising meat slowly in a regular oven, or better yet, a cheap crock pot. Once properly cooked and cooled, a braised protein is ready for the quick reheating required for restaurant service or a simple but luxurious home meal.