Alcohol

There is no promise of speed here: osso buco takes time. But this classic Italian dish of glorious, marrow-filled veal shanks (the name means “bone with hole”), braised until they are fork-tender, is dead easy to make and requires a total of no more than fifteen or twenty minutes of attention during its two hours or so of cooking. And it holds well enough overnight so that 90 percent of the process can be accomplished while you’re watching television the night before you serve the dish. Though I’ll concede that starting with good-quality stock will yield the richest sauce, I’ll volunteer that two hours of cooking veal shanks—which are, after all, veal bones—creates a very nice stock with no work, so I never hesitate to make osso buco with white wine or even water. Try to buy slices of shank taken from the center, about one and a half inches thick. The slices from the narrow end have very little meat on them; those from the thick end contain little or no marrow. Center cuts give you the best of both worlds, though you shouldn’t let it stop you if they are unavailable.

Few slow-cooked foods are as rewarding as beef brisket, which at its best is tender, juicy, and flavorful. Doing it right takes so long—my favorite recipe is a twelve-hour job—that, at least in my house, a brisket is made only annually, or even less often than that. That’s why I regret that I didn’t make my “discovery” of veal brisket sooner. It had just never occurred to me until recently that you could get a delicious, tender, relatively quick-cooking form of brisket by removing the bones from a breast of veal. Unfortunately, boneless breast of veal—which can also be called veal brisket and, like brisket of beef, is the flap that covers the front part of a cow’s chest—is rarely sold that way. But any butcher (and, yes, this includes virtually every supermarket butcher) can quickly remove the bones from a veal breast and present you with a flat, boneless, relatively compact cut that contains little fat and becomes tender in less than two hours of unattended cooking. Ask the butcher to start with a piece of breast that weighs four to six pounds. The yield is about half that, a piece of boneless meat of two or three pounds that will easily fit in a large skillet. (Consider asking the butcher for the bones, too—you’re paying for them, and they are among the best for stock making.)

Another great, simple sauce based on anchovies (there are two in the pasta chapter; see pages 263 and 271). You get acidity, astringency, and fruitiness from the wine, piquancy from the garlic and anchovy, complexity from the thyme, and a smooth finish from the butter—all in about the time it takes to preheat a grill for the steaks. You don’t need great red wine for this sauce, but it should be one with a fair amount of fruit and at least a little structure.

There is no more celebratory food than goose, but when it is roasted it is difficult to carve and can be disappointing. Braising it, especially with fruit, is a different approach that works brilliantly. Any dried fruit can be used in this preparation, but dried pears hold their shape better and are a little less sweet than prunes and apricots; there’s no reason you can’t substitute, however, or combine.

The chicken must be well browned before the rest of the dish is cooked, and in this instance there is no hurrying the process. Take your time and brown each piece of chicken well; especially if you’re cooking for eight or more, this will take a while, as you’ll have to brown in batches.

Chicken with dried apricots is hardly a new idea, but it’s almost always too sweet, and the routine addition of cinnamon and cloves makes the whole thing taste more like dessert than dinner. Take them away, add a little vinegar to counter the fruit’s sweetness, improve and simplify the cooking technique, and you have a beautiful dish for a winter meal.

The wine plays such a major role here that it’s worth buying the right one. Finding a good off-dry white is not difficult: Almost any German wine made with Riesling (the grape name will be on the label) will do, except for those labeled trocken, which means dry. Although the cooking time for Chicken with Riesling is not short, it is largely unattended, and the dish can be made well in advance. In fact, as with many meat-and-liquid preparations, this may be more delicious on the second day. And this is a preparation that you can take in many directions, as you’ll see in the variations.

Chicken breast are so bland that they demand something—a spice rub, a salsa, or a strong reduction sauce. If you start with strong-tasting solids and add a variety of bold liquids, reducing each one to a syrupy consistency, you end up with an intense and complex reduction sauce. The process can involve esoteric ingredients and procedures, or it can be quite straightforward, like this one, which is direct, quick, and easy, especially considering that the result is a dark, complex sauce that can be used in many ways (see the variations).

This mysterious, dark extraordinarily delicious sauce is a kind of gastrique, a relatively simple sauce based on caramelized sugar. Note that if the sugar turns black and begins to smoke, you have burned rather than caramelized it. Throw it out and start again, with lower heat and more patience this time. And if the caramel sticks to your pan and utensils when you’re done, boil some water in the pan, with the utensils in there if necessary. The caramel will loosen right away.

This is among my favorite dishes using this plentiful but still under-appreciated cephalopod. (The term, which is also used for octopus and cuttlefish, describes sea creatures whose “feet” grow from their heads.) Like many people, I’m a fan of fried “calamari,” but that dish is best suited to restaurants because of squid’s tendency to spatter when deep-fried. Although sautéing and stir-frying are good, fast techniques for squid, they, too, tend to be messy. A gentle braise in flavorful liquid and seasonings is the perfect alternative, and this one, with its Provençal spirit, is delicious and warming.

Traditionally served at Christmas parties in Sweden and elsewhere, this is powerful stuff, as you can see by its ingredients. Nevertheless, it goes down easily, so be careful. The wine and port should be decent but obviously need not be fantastic; most of their flavors will be overwhelmed.

You might call this pickled fruit, but more people will discard the fruit and drink the vodka than the other way around. You could, of course, eat the one and drink the other.

Contrary to what you might believe, Absolut and Stolichnaya did not invent flavored vodka; it’s been around forever, and you can make your own.

The real thing, not the frozen kind, an elegant and delicious drink, especially when made with good aged dark rum.

The classic rum drink of the fifties. To make a Dark and Stormy, use dark rum and ginger ale.

The influx of great-quality tequilas into this country over the last decade has gently nudged my concept of what a margarita should be ever further away from the sweet blender drinks that bars and American Mexican restaurants pass off as “margaritas.” These days a long pour of good tequila, a dash of orange liqueur, and a quarter of a lime over ice is how I make them. The following recipe has a little more padding, but is still a vehicle for the flavor of tequila, so I advise buying the best you can (it should be 100 percent agave). If the salt-rimmed glass doesn’t appeal to you (or a guest), omit the first step.

I have had more bad mojitos in the last couple of years—since they became popular—than I had had in my entire life previously. This is the real thing and a fantastic cocktail. There should be enough mint to chew on.

The original sangria is this: good red wine, spiced with lemon juice, served with a piece of lemon over ice, with a splash of soda. That sangria has become more complicated, and a cliché of America’s Spanish restaurants, does not detract from its basic appeal; it’s as good a way as exists to spice up insipid red wine. Of course, the better the wine you start with, the better the sangria; decent but inexpensive (red) Zinfandel, wine from the south of France, and Rioja are all good.

A great alternative to red wine sangria and perfect for the summertime. This is a good place to use canned peaches.

My version of an old-fashioned French recipe, with a little corner cutting. If you ever come across an old, tough chicken, this is the place to use it; increase the cooking time as necessary until the bird becomes tender. If you use one of our typical chickens, it’s actually a pretty quick recipe to prepare. Use a decent but not too expensive red wine. Pearl onions are quite nice here, even frozen ones. If you start with fresh ones, however, which are best, drop them into boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds to make peeling (much) easier. The French would serve crusty bread with this, and you couldn’t do any better.