If you usually leave deciding what to eat for your evening meal until you leave work, then Slow Cooking will open up a whole new vista of possibilities. Rarely does it require more of your time, just advanced thought and some planning. In return you are rewarded with more flavour – flavour that comes from a type of alchemy that can only work its magic over time.
Chef Mark Hix recently wrote about his grandmother’s cooking and how it had shaped and inspired his own. He described it as classic slow cooking, which was essential for the cheaper cuts of meat. She never “sealed” her meat first, rarely added herbs and never touched stock or sauces. Yet hours in the pot gave everything incredible natural flavour. It was comfort food that when recreated transports him straight back to his childhood.
Casseroles are a comforting winter staple, and it always pays to make double quantities as they taste even better reheated. Restaurants often include the cooking time in their description of meat dishes, e.g. 8-hour braised pork, so we are quite familiar with the concept of slow cooking with regard to meat. What may be less immediately obvious is that a similar alchemy occurs when you slow cook fruits, vegetables and even cakes. This is an absolute boon when entertaining as at least one element can be fully cooked in advance.
The dish that prompted me to write this blog was Ribollita, a thick Tuscan bean soup which is entirely plant based, uses only water rather than stock, but delivers its flavour not only through slow cooking but also a critical overnight resting period. This gives the flavours from the various ingredients time to mingle before it is reheated – the very meaning of the word Ribollita. I previously gave the recipe here
This resting period is just as important as the slow cooking. I recently made a cassoulet which filled the house with the most wonderful smell as it cooked all day. I had some beans and a sausage leftover which I reheated for lunch the next day. These slow cooked baked beans and sausage served on toast tasted even better than the previous night’s full Cassoulet if such a thing is possible to imagine!
Slow cooking is a seasonal act. In the peak of Summer when fresh vegetables are in their prime and the weather is hot, we may well prefer to eat food raw, but in Winter slow cooking rules. I was thrilled to have this backed up by Countdown’s Susie Dent recently when she was asked about the meaning of the word “seasoning”. Apparently, it originally meant “to make a dish suitable for the season” and she gave the examples of long slow cooking in the winter and the use of lighter herbs in the summer. Eventually the word evolved to relate solely to the adjustment of taste via salt and pepper.
The biggest barrier to slow cooking today is not the time as the cook is actually involved with very little of it, but the cost of fuel. Yet this is exactly how and why it came into being in the first place. Fuel was always a precious resource, if not in terms of money but then the time spent gathering the wood to build a fire. People soon learnt to utilize not only the fiercer heat but also the dying embers or even the smoke. Once the fire could be contained in an oven, the earliest constructed from earth, it was possible to keep the heat for even longer. A bakers oven would be used first to bake bread but then a succession of other dishes that required less heat. At one time we had a local baker who would cook a whole pig in his oven once the days baking was over.
Fewer people now have a permanently heated range cooker in their homes although its ability to provide heating and hot water as well as dry clothes makes them less of an environmental extravagance than they might seem at first glance. However, there are other ways to recreate their slow-cooking credentials provided by their slower ovens and plate warming drawers. At least as far back as the First World War, and quite probably even earlier, something called a Haybox was recommended to continue cooking over a long period. Ambrose Heath’s Haybox Cookery was published in 1961. There are even instructions for constructing the haybox. The basic premise is that it must be well-insulated. Obviously, hay was one potential insulator, but I find the wool packaging that keeps meats cold in transit is also very handy for heat insulation. I have tried cooking a whole celeriac in a haybox, and although it worked, I was insufficiently convinced that the flavour was worth the effort to repeat the exercise. We can all reduce the cost of cooking along the same principles as the Haybox just by switching the oven off halfway through the cooking and leaving it, undisturbed, in the cooling oven for around double the remaining time. The efficiency of the insulation of your oven will determine how long it retains heat. Alternatively, electric slow cookers are cheap to buy and run nowadays. Just make sure the ingredients are adequately cooked at full temperature before moving to the slow phase.
I often keep something warm on top of our woodburning stove. Mulled cider is a Christmas must, and it would also be suitable for overnight-cooking of porridge for breakfast. The warm airing cupboard is another go-to for proving bread. With bread, time is essential not only for flavour but also for making the gluten more digestible. Dough can also be risen overnight at a cool room temperature.
Some dishes require time for chemical changes to occur, such as the breaking down of cartilage in bones so that the full nutrients can be released into the stock. After an initial couple of hours simmering on the stove top, I move stock, uncovered, to the top of the wood burner or a turned-out oven to complete the process overnight.
With other foods time is required for allowing flavours to develop and mellow. Preserves are a good example of this. Some, such as Pickled Walnuts or Elderberry Rob, take years to mellow fully and most people who make preserves will have a view of when it is best eaten. For example, a chutney needs at least 2 months for the vinegar to mellow, but wait another year and it probably tastes even better.
Christmas food includes all manner of preserves that have been laid down over the year, but most of the baked goods also need time to mature – the Christmas Pudding the longest, an absolute minimum of 2 months but still good after two years. The Christmas cake and Mincemeat should be made at least a month in advance, with an occasional topping up of spirits.
Teabreads are a wonderful example of a baked good that improves, in flavour and moistness, with time. There are a number of flavour variations, the fruity Halloween Barm Brack or a Bonfire Night Gingerbread are just two examples of classic winter treats.
The list of recipes that benefit from time is huge, but the recipe I have chosen is Braised Red Cabbage, which could well feature in your Christmas dinner, especially if you are having a goose.
BRAISED RED CABBAGE
The quantities below are for a smallish red cabbage weighing about 600g, but it is worth making a double quantity as it can be frozen. Braised red cabbage always tastes better reheated.
1 red cabbage (approx. 600g in weight)
1 cooking apple
30 g butter
1 onion, finely chopped
3 tbsps brown sugar
1 tbsp quince jelly (or substitute crab apple or redcurrant)
4 tbsps red wine vinegar
4 tbsps red wine
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
large pinch of ground cloves
½ star anise
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Shred the red cabbage quite finely. Peel, core and chop the apple. Melt the butter in a large casserole dish, add the cabbage, apple and onion and stir to coat in butter. Cover and cook until the cabbage begins to wilt and soften.
Add the spices and stir well, then the red wine and vinegar (which helps retain the red colour) and finally the sugar and jelly to balance the sweet/sour elements.
Transfer the casserole to an oven preheated to 160C/Gas Mark 3. Cook for about 2 hours, stirring and tasting occasionally.
Peeled chestnuts are a good addition when reheating.
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