Food and Drink: Slow it Down

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Three fancy, fuss-free methods for slow cooking at home, courtesy of three local chefs.

Image credit: Photo by Emily J. Davis

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By: Mecca Bos | October 2011 | From the print edition

My great-aunt used to get a brand new fur every winter. Her rationale? “It only takes a dollar more to go first class.” In that spirit, we’ve tapped three local chefs to remind us that it only takes a minute more (okay, maybe an hour) to fancify your slow cooking this fall. And if you insist on dusting off the old Crock-Pot, La Belle Vie chef Mike DeCamp will have you reconsidering it in eye-opening ways.

Slow cooking style: Sous vide
Expert: Mike DeCamp, La Belle Vie

Chef DeCamp transforms the lowly Crock-Pot into a sous vide machine. “Sous vide, or simply put, slow cooking at a very low temperature, isn’t really a new technique, it’s just new to America,” says DeCamp. “The term means ‘under vacuum’ in French, and when food is cooked this way, it tends to keep a better appearance, doesn’t lose as much fat and juice, and remains exceedingly tender. If you’ve ever had anything poached, you’ve basically been eating sous vide and didn’t even know it—sous vide just takes things one step further by sealing the flavors and juices into a bag so they are not lost in the pan. This beef stew recipe evolved from my idea to take traditional recipes and put modernist twists on them. The long cooking time is perfect if you’re like me and work at least ten hours a day.”

The recipe: Crock-Pot Sous Vide Beef Stew

1 ½ lbs. beef tri-tip or inside chuck cut into 1” cubes
1 sprig thyme
2 cloves garlic
1T cooking oil
salt, pepper

Season beef liberally with salt and pepper. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat oil until almost smoking. Add the beef to the pan and brown on all sides. Transfer to a FoodSaver bag along with thyme and garlic, and seal. You can also use a Ziploc bag—just make sure you press out as much air as possible and be sure that it is sealed.

½ C red wine
1 ¼ C yellow onions, diced
1 ¼ C carrots, diced
1 ¼ C celery, sliced
20 pearl onions
1 ¼ C fingerling potatoes, quartered
juice from two ears of corn
3 oz. beef marrow from 4 bones, bones reserved (available at Clancey’s Meats and Fish)
1.5 L water
½ C all-purpose flour
½ C tomato paste
Salt and pepper
2 sprigs thyme

In the same pan you cooked the beef in, cook the marrow and marrow bones to get some color and release some of the fat from the marrow. Add onions to the pan. Once they start to brown, add the carrots and celery and cook until they just start to brown, about five minutes. After all the vegetables have some color, gently pour the red wine into the pan to deglaze, releasing the flavor that is stuck to the pan. Add the tomato paste and reduce by about half. Once the wine and tomato paste are reduced, add the flour. Place all of this into the Crock-Pot, along with the water and the bag of beef. Cook on low setting for eight to 10 hours. With two hours of cooking time remaining, add the potatoes, pearl onions and corn juice. Season with salt, pepper and a bit of lemon juice.

To serve, remove the bag of beef from the Crock-Pot and divide among four bowls. Pour broth and vegetables over beef, and enjoy.

Slow cooking style: Confit
Expert: Russell Klein, Meritage

French chefs have long used this ancient preservation method to wow diners with meltingly tender meat and poultry. It takes almost no effort, as chef Russell Klein describes below.

“Although today’s chefs use the term ‘confit’ to refer to all sorts of preparations, classically the term refers to a method of preservation. Meat—traditionally waterfowl or pork—was salted to remove excess moisture and to act as a preservative. Then, it was cooked in its own fat, slowly, until it was falling-off-the-bone tender. Left undisturbed under this layer of fat, a crock of confit could be kept in a root cellar for six months or more, a useful tool prior to refrigeration.

Confit is not very difficult—in fact, I think it's one of the easiest techniques for the home cook to master. Duck legs are the most common meat to confit, but other cuts such as pork shoulder, duck gizzards or even chicken thighs all work just fine.

The salt cure is very important—it’s a big part of the preservation and helps season the meat. A proper duck confit should be on the salty side. When it comes to the cooking, there are only two things to remember: cover the meat completely with the fat, and low and slow is the way to go; the oven should be at a very low temp so the meat takes hours to cook and absorbs flavor over time.”

The recipe: Easy Duck Confit

4 duck legs (available at Heartland Market or Clancey’s Meats and Fish)
¼ C kosher salt
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 shallot, peeled and sliced
1 t black peppercorns
1 t coriander seed
8 sprigs thyme
4 C duck fat, rendered (available at Heartland Market or Clancey’s Meats and Fish)

In a small saute pan, toast the spices until you can smell them. Mix the spices with salt, garlic, shallot and thyme. In a plastic or earthenware dish, sprinkle half the salt and spice mixture on the bottom. Place duck legs in a single layer into the dish and sprinkle the remaining mixture over the top of the legs. Lightly cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Remove legs from the salt. Using a dry towel, brush all of the salt and spices from the duck. Place the duck legs, again in a single layer, into an ovenproof dish and cover with the duck fat. The legs should be completely submerged in the fat. Place uncovered, in a preheated 200-degree oven and cook for two to four hours. The meat should be extremely tender and pulling away from the leg bone.

Allow the duck legs to cool completely in the fat. With an undisturbed layer of fat, they can be kept without spoilage in a refrigerator for several weeks or even months.

To serve, add a tablespoon of the leftover confit fat to a hot saute pan, and carefully place the meat, skin side down, into the pan. Use a spatula to gently press the leg down and ensure even contact. Place in a 300-degree oven and cook until the duck is heated through. The skin will be crisp and the meat will be buttery.

Slow cooking style: Smoke
Expert: Eric Austin, Big E’s Café Sol

“Ask any disciple of the grill and he or she will tell you that when it comes to Q’ing, smoking is the only way to achieve that great, deep, woodsy, sweet flavor,” says chef Austin. “Smoking is simply a method of slow cooking using low heat and smoke as the agent to naturally break down connective tissue while simultaneously allowing flavor to sink in, resulting in a very tender finished product. Here is a simple way to get that taste I love right in your home kitchen.”

The recipe: Simple Citrus Smoked Chicken

1 whole chicken
4 C 7 Up
1 T garlic powder
¼ C kosher salt
2 C flavored wood smoking chips such as hickory, alder, mesquite or apple—found in the grilling section of the supermarket or hardware store

Place the chicken in a large Ziploc bag. Sprinkle with garlic powder and salt, then pour in enough soda to cover the bird. Seal the bag and place in the refrigerator overnight. Remove the bird from the brine and pat dry.

Sprinkle wood chips evenly along the bottom of a turkey roaster and set a rack on top of the wood chips so that the chicken can be placed on the rack and elevated above the bottom of the pan. Place the cover on the pan and seal the edges with aluminum foil. Place on stovetop over medium heat for 20 minutes. You should begin to smell the smoke slightly, but not enough to smoke the house out. Remove from heat and let sit for 10 minutes covered so that all of the smoke will be absorbed into the chicken.

Remove wood chips and re-place the chicken into the roaster. Heat at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until the internal temperature of the bird reaches 165 degrees.

+ Inspired? Find more ways to please your palate on our recipes page.

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