January Is for Slow-Cooking

January Is for Slow-Cooking
While this meaty stew requires time and patience, it can be started a day early and chilled overnight to enhance its deep flavor. hlphoto/Shutterstock
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It’s a slow-cooking time of year, which calls for a meal like this: an aromatic pot of braised short ribs, blanketed in a richly fortified sauce, exuding warmth and comfort. This stew will satisfy any cravings for cozy, wintry food and focus your attention solely on the task of digging into this fragrant pot, one spoonful at a time.

I make variations of this recipe under the guise of other comfort-food standards, such as beef bourguignon and Irish stew. The ingredients shift slightly, but the principle is the same. Chunks of meat are seared brown on the stovetop, then submerged in a heady stock of wine, broth, and spices. The pot is then banished to the oven for several hours to bubble and simmer until the meat is falling-apart tender and infused with the flavorful stock.

Lynda Balslev
Lynda Balslev
Author
Lynda Balslev is a cookbook author, food and travel writer, and recipe developer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lives with her Danish husband, two children, a cat, and a dog. Balslev studied cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris and worked as a personal chef, culinary instructor, and food writer in Switzerland and Denmark. Copyright 2025 Lynda Balslev. Distributed by Andrews McMeel Syndication.
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