Wine

A dark, fairly intensely flavored stew that is best made with rabbit (or, traditionally, hare), but is quite good with chicken.You can make the entire dish in advance and let it rest at room temperature for a few hours before reheating (or cover and refrigerate overnight). This is lovely just with crusty bread, or with any potato dish.

Slightly more complicated than the French version on page 303, resulting in more tender meat but less crisp skin. I’d make this with leg and thigh pieces rather than including breasts—which almost invariably dry out during braising—but the choice is yours. The sauce will keep things relatively moist in any case. This is great with risotto (page 521) and a vegetable dressed with good olive oil.

Often the most effective marinating happens not before but after cooking. This technique, usually called escabeche, was once used to preserve food. It’s really a form of pickling: hot food was put into hot liquid containing a good deal of vinegar. Treated thus, it would keep for some time (if canned, for a long time). Since we don’t need escabeche for preserving, the postgrilling marinating time can be as little as a few minutes, but it can also be as long as overnight—it doesn’t make much difference; in either case, it produces a highly flavored, prepared-in-advance, room-temperature dish that is good as part of a buffet with a variety of other dishes (none of which should be noticeably acidic). Other cuts of meat you can use here: any cut of chicken, bone in or out (be careful not to overcook), or mackerel or other fish (typically floured and sautéed or fried before marinating).

Zarzuela—the word means “medley” in Spanish—unites a variety of fish and is, like bouillabaisse, a dish whose ingredients can be varied according to what you can find. The traditional sauce accompaniment for Zarzuela is Romesco (page 606), but the variation makes that superfluous. I love this with crusty bread.

Good, tender calf liver is one of our most underrated meats, in part, I suspect, because nearly everyone overcooks it. It is best rare, and this recipe takes advantage of that.

Bitter melon is a cucurbit; so is cucumber, and they resemble one another. (But so is a cantaloupe, so the melon reference isn’t far off.) Its flavor, though, is akin to that of green peppers, which are much easier to find. Serve this over white rice. If you have access to bitter melons, by all means use them; cut them in half the long way, then scoop out the seeds and fluffy insides, which are like those found in overripe zucchini, before chopping and proceeding as directed. Fermented black beans are available at most Asian markets and many supermarkets (see page 207). The lamb will be easier to slice if you freeze it for 30 minutes or so.

Ginger may not be a spice you associate with Sweden, but it’s there (as is cardamom), and it makes its mark in this winter dish.When I was first served this, it was done in traditional, fancy style: a large roast of pork with a hole poked right through its center, stuffed with the dried fruit. It’s a glorious presentation and my first choice. But I have since been served it, and made it, in the simpler, stewed fashion of the variation, which is equally legit. I like this with Potato and Horseradish Gratin (page 482), but it’s good with most any potato dish.

A delicate and subtle preparation that can also be made with monkfish, striped bass, sea bass, or other firm-fleshed fish. Serve with Braised Leeks (page 465).

Spring through fall, you may be able to find wild Alaska king or sockeye salmon (if you live in the Northwest or even on the West Coast, this won’t be a problem), and that is ideal for this dish. Farm-raised salmon, available year-round everywhere, is certainly an acceptable substitute, but it is fattier and has less flavor, so it’ll make a bit more of a mess when you brown it, and it will not stand up quite as well to the sauce. Serve this with short-grain rice (page 507).

This is a more complicated use of miso, useful not only for fish but for meat (just substitute tenderloin for the tuna). I learned it from Japanese-born chef Tadashi Ono, who now lives in New York. His dual lives encouraged Ono to take a few liberties of the type that few would take in Japan, with a classic sauce like this one; but if this is fusion cooking, it’s the good kind. The Japanese chili paste called tohbanjan is strictly traditional here, but you can use Vietnamese or Korean chili paste or simply cayenne. I love this with Basmati Rice with Shiso (page 510).

Like coq au vin, this is a slow recipe that takes careful attention to a couple of ingredients: the bacon must be good slab bacon, nice and smoky and not too lean, and the wine should be fruity and worthy of drinking (there are Burgundies and American Pinot Noirs that meet this requirement and cost around ten bucks a bottle). By all means make this a day or two in advance if you like, then refrigerate and skim the fat if that’s your preference. Reheating will take only about 15 minutes. New potatoes, roasted in olive oil or butter, are terrific alongside this stew, but so is crusty bread. Round things out with a steamed vegetable or salad.

The Provençal version of boeuf bourguignonne, with different vegetables and seasonings. I think the variation, Beef Daube with Olives, is the superior recipe, but you may prefer this simpler version. Serve this with crisp-roasted potatoes or crusty bread. Other cuts of meat you can use here: boneless lamb shoulder, cut into chunks.

A specialty of southwestern France, where some of the world’s best sweet wines are made. Since you need only about a cup (you could get away with less, if you like), it won’t do that much harm to use a good Sauternes or Barzac, the best of the lot. But I have made this very successfully with Montbazillac, which costs about $10 a bottle and is certainly good enough to drink. The resulting sauce is nicely but not cloyingly sweet and wonderful over buttered noodles. You can make this a day in advance (it might even be better that way) and easily double it to serve a crowd. Other cuts of meat you can use here: Pork or lamb chops or chunks of boneless pork, lamb, or veal shoulder, all of which will cook much more quickly.

The New World version of the preceding recipe, this includes Spain’s capers (which, ironically, the Spanish version usually does not) and a bit more seasoning. Once again, you can use other meat in place of oxtails and can make this in advance, then refrigerate and skim the fat. This would be great with Coconut Rice (page 516) or any rice and bean dish, and Platanos Maduros (page 472). Other cuts of meat you can use here: short ribs, lamb shanks, chunks of boneless lamb or pork shoulder (which will be much faster) or beef chuck or brisket (which will be somewhat faster), bone-in chicken thighs (much quicker).

A Roman classic and, like so many of those dishes, smacking of garlic, chile, and bay. You can serve this with just bread, of course, or precede it with a pasta dish or soup.

This dish nicely combines the Mediterranean trio of garlic, red wine, and coriander. I first had it in southern Spain, where the culinary influence of North Africa remains strong. Like most braises, it takes time but, once the initial browning is done, very little work. There are a couple of ways to deal with the coriander: You can leave the seeds whole and wrap them in cheesecloth or just leave them in the sauce and eat them. Or you can crack them first, either with a mortar and pestle or by putting them in a plastic bag and crushing them with a rolling pin or the bottom of a pot. I like crusty bread here, plus a salad or steamed vegetable; the dish is complex and attention-grabbing enough not to bother with much more. Other cuts of meat you can use here: lamb shoulder is a great substitute; chunks of beef chuck or brisket are also good.

A typical dish from the southern French countryside. Lentils are combined with lamb shanks, red wine, and not much else, and they cook for a couple of hours. While becoming beyond tender, the lentils also absorb the flavors of the lamb, the wine, and the aromatics sprinkled among them. The result is a one-pot meal—a salad or a little bread, or both, would round things out nicely—that takes some time but little work or attention. Other cuts of meat you can use here: short ribs.

A fairly quick stew—some would call it fricassee, but that term is so widely used as to be meaningless—that gives you loads of uncommon flavor for very little work. Great with polenta (page 529), which you must call mamaliga in this instance. Other cuts of meat you can use here: pork shoulder.

Think of this as osso buco, Russian style; the technique is almost identical to that in the following, better-known classic, but the result is sweeter and more fragrant. Serve with pilaf or buttered noodles. If you are lucky enough to find fresh sour cherries, by all means use them; pit about a pound and add them to the pan as you would bottled sour cherries, along with about 1/4 cup sugar and a bit more stock. Other cuts of meat you can use here: as in classic osso buco, you will lose something by substituting chunks of boneless veal for the shank, but you will gain time, and the results will still be quite good.

One of the greatest Italian dishes and, when done properly (it takes time; do not rush), one of the best meat dishes you can make. The marrow-filled veal shanks (the name means “bone with hole”) practically cook themselves after the initial browning and seasoning. (And the dish holds well enough overnight so you can cook almost the whole thing in advance.) Buy center-cut shank, about 1 1/2 inches thick. (The slices from the narrow end have very little meat; those from the thick end contain little or no marrow.) The mixture of garlic, lemon zest, and parsley stirred in at the last minute, known as gremolata, is a lovely little fillip, but consider it optional. Serve, classically, with Risotto alla Milanese (page 521) or a simpler, leaner rice dish. Other cuts of meat you can use here: it will not be osso buco, but a veal stew made with chunks of veal shoulder in the same style, with the same ingredients, is quite good and considerably faster.