Any good braising recipes?

Pork butt btaised in beer is stunning

I've done this for beef shanks and for pork roast and the were both great:
-Brown meat (then remove)
-Add onions, Garlic, and shallots
-tomato paste
-Beef Stock
-Season to taste
-Place meat back in pan, cover, and place in oven
-Add parsley and/or mushrooms at the end if you want. Serve with rice.
(May need to skim oil off the top if that's unappealing to you.)

Thanks for your post. I will be braising more. I kind of gotten away from this.

This is my braising liquid for beef short ribs

6 cloves garlic, smashed
2 carrots, peeled and diced small
2 stalks celery, diced small
1 Vidalia onion, diced small
1 cup red wine
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups veal stock or beef stock
2 cups water
One 14.5-ounce can peeled plum tomatoes
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

As I referenced above, love shoulder (butt) braised in beer.

1 butt, deboned, chunked (3” or so). Season with your choice. Dredge in a little seasoned AP flour. Brown in a little evoo or other oil. Remove.

2 med onions sliced . Brown in pot. Return meat

Beer of choice to come up on meat about half way. Add Bay leaf if you want.. Scrape well to release gremmee’. Cover. Cook at 325 for 5-6 hours depending on your oven. Check fluid level occasionally.Remove cover and lt brown a bit on top.

ETA: add bone back in before covering!

Here’s a link from when theantiquetiger did pork butt/shoulder. I’ve used this recipe loosely ever since, and it’s very good. Tastes a lot like the braised pork cheeks at Ruffinos. I serve over mashed sweet potatoes.

Sorry about that!

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
5 pounds bone-in short ribs, at least 1 1/2 inches thick
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
2 large heads garlic, halved crosswise
1 medium onion (about 10 ounces), chopped
4 ribs celery (about 8 ounces, chopped
2 medium carrots (about 6 ounces), chopped
3 tablespoons tomato paste
2 cups dry red wine (about half a bottle)
2 cups beef stock or bone broth (use beef bouillon dissolved in water if unavailable; chicken stock will work in a pinch), plus more as needed
4 sprigs thyme
1 cup parsley, coarsely chopped
½ cup finely chopped chives
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest

Heat oven to 275 degrees. Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Season short ribs on all sides with salt and pepper. Working in batches, sear short ribs on all sides until deeply and evenly browned, 6 to 8 minutes per batch. Transfer browned short ribs to a large plate and continue with remaining ribs.

Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of remaining fat, leaving the good browned bits behind. Reduce heat to medium, and add garlic, cut side down and cook, undisturbed, until golden brown, about 1 to 2 minutes. Add onion, celery and carrots and season with salt and pepper. Toss to coat and continue to cook until vegetables are softened but not yet browned, about 5 to 10 minutes. Add tomato paste and stir to coat. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until tomato paste has started to caramelize a bit on the bottom and up the edges of the pot, about 2 to 3 minutes.
Add red wine and, using a wooden spoon, scrape up any browned or caramelized bits. Let this simmer 2 to 3 minutes, just to take the edge off and reduce a bit. Stir in beef stock along with thyme. Using tongs, return short ribs to the pot, along with any juices that have accumulated, nestling them in there so that they are submerged (if they are just barely covered, nestle them bone side up so that all the meat is submerged, adding more beef stock or water as necessary to cover). Bring to a simmer, then cover and transfer to oven.

Cook, undisturbed, until short ribs are meltingly tender and falling off the bone (you should be able to shred the meat with a fork), 3½ to 4 hours.

Using tongs, remove the ribs from the pot, taking care (for presentation purposes, really) not to let the bone slip out and transfer them to a large plate. (While you could serve the short ribs right out of this pot, the vegetables have all given up their flavor and texture and aren’t worth much now, so feel free to strain the sauce for easier eating.) Scatter parsley, chives and lemon zest over the top of the short ribs. Separate the fat from the sauce, season with salt and pepper and serve alongside.

Braised short ribs with Cheese Grits:

Ingredients
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 beef short ribs
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
6 thin slices bacon, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 carrots, diced
2 shallots, finely minced
1 medium onion, diced
Splash of red wine
4 cups beef broth (enough to almost cover the ribs)
2 sprigs fresh thyme
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
Cheese Grits or regular grits, for serving

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Salt and pepper the ribs, then dredge them in the flour. Set aside.

In a large Dutch oven, cook the bacon over medium heat until completely crispy and all the fat is rendered. Remove the bacon and set aside. Drain off any excess fat.

Add the olive oil to the pan with the bacon fat and raise the heat to high. Brown the ribs on all sides, about 45 seconds per side. Remove the ribs and set aside.

Lower the heat to medium. Add the carrots, shallots and onions to the pan and cook for 2 minutes. Splash in the wine and scrape the bottom of the pan to release all the flavorful bits of glory. Add the broth, 1 teaspoon kosher salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper and bring to a boil. Taste and add more salt if needed. Add the ribs to the liquid; they should be almost completely submerged. Add the thyme and rosemary sprigs (whole) to the liquid. Finally, add the cooked bacon.

Put on a lid and transfer to the oven. Cook until the ribs are fork-tender and falling off the bone, 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Remove the pan from the oven and allow to sit for at least 20 minutes with the lid on before serving. At the last minute, skim the fat off the top of the liquid. (You can also refrigerate the mixture, then remove the solid fat from the top.)

For each serving, arrange 2 ribs on a bed of the grits, spooning a little juice over the top.

Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon. It's the gold standard recipe for that dish and is easily found all over the interwebs.

If that Beef Bourguignon is a little too intimidating for your skill level any version of Swiss steak, pepper steak, Salisbury steak, and the like is a great place to start. Just kind of look through a few of the recipes out there and pick one that has ingredients going into the braising liquid that look tasty to you. Regardless of what you pick, the technique is basically "brown meat in pot and remove, deglaze with aromatic vegetables, add liquids herbs and spices, return meat to pot, put in 325 degree oven until cooked". Even that Beef Bourguignon recipe is the same basic method, just with a few additional flourishes. Once you get the method down, you can make it your own. It's just low slow cooking of tough meat in a relatively small amount of a highly flavorful water based liquid. It's a small amount of liquid so that the collagen that gets broken down by the water in the cooking liquid to tenderize the meat concentrates in the liquid as gelatin to make a silky smooth lip smacking good sauce. It's not really rocket surgery, it's just boiling's uptown cousin.

The Beef Bourguignon, though, you want to use Julia Child's recipe and not try to make it your own. Trust me, it's worth it.

EDIT: Oh, osso buco is another classic and stupidly simple braise that gets amazing results. Finding the cross-cut shanks is the hardest part, but that marrow leaching into the braising liquid... [homerdrool.gif]