I used the book with its central concept in mind: to make two meats I can use throughout the rest of this week as part of salads, sandwiches, tacos, fritters, etc.
Saturday’s pulled pork? It worked ok. I think if I were setting out to make a braising liquid, I wouldn’t make some of Hay’s choices. Bourbon is a finisher in a sauce, not a base, I think—the sweetness of bourbon doesn’t survive a multi-hour braise.
More importantly, I was kind of stunned that the “basics” recipe for pulled pork in this case didn’t call for reducing the sauce after you take the pork out for shredding. The pork itself didn’t absorb all that much flavor from the braising liquid, so most of the good taste is going to come from the liquid itself. After the specified time in her recipe, the braising liquid was still very liquid and not nearly as flavorful as the ingredients would suggest it should be. So I reduced it by about 75% and then it was great, and there was still plenty to keep the shredded pork wet in the sandwiches.
So that’s a big strike already: a braising sauce that isn’t really as flavorful as it could be on the components, and minus a “basics” technique that makes a huge difference if your goal is “brilliance” in the delivery. There is nothing complicated or elaborate about telling folks “hey, take the meat out of the liquid and then put the liquid under a high burner for 10-15 minutes while you keep the meat warm.”
I tried the leg of lamb recipe the next day—I actually really like the idea she has under “brilliance” for the resulting lamb as part of a mint-and-pea fritter, so I’ll make that later this week—but if anything her “basics” advice is even worse here. The lamb prep centers on the following: put garlic cloves and herbs in a “bed” under a whole leg of lamb and then salting and peppering the lamb. This part is fine.
What is not fine is that she calls then for mixing malt vinegar and brown sugar together and pouring the resulting mixture over the lamb and afterwards putting chicken broth in the pan as well. First off, salt and pepper it after that, if you’re going to do it. Second, putting the amount of brown sugar she calls for (1/4 cup) into a slow-cooking roast at this stage is kind of a mistake. We’re talking 2 1/2 hours under foil at 350 F and then 30 minutes with the foil off at the same temperature. The vinegar-sugar mixture is too liquid with the sugar dissolved into the vinegar to sit up on top of the lamb, so it’s down in the pan with the fat and juices. That’s still kind of liquid at 2 1/2 hours under foil; at 3 hours with the last 30 minutes uncovered, it’s a bubbling mess of mostly burnt sugar. If you’re going to put sugar on a roast—it’s a classic move with pork, not as common with lamb—you want it to be late and you want it to sit up on top of the roast, in contact with the fat, not down in the pan juices from the very beginning.
Sure, yes, it’s a long slow-cooked lamb leg, what’s not to like? But nothing in her “basics” prep adds much to what you’d get with garlic, herbs, salt and pepper and enough broth to keep it liquid. The malt vinegar-brown sugar mix here needs a rethink either in timing or composition.
So much as I like the food photography in the book, I can’t see using it—it just doesn’t feel thought through in terms of the cookery it calls for. I don’t mind something that says “you know how to do this, so here’s some things to do with roast lamb once you roast it”—that’s kind of Sifton’s thing. I do mind “here, do pulled pork or roast lamb this way” where there’s something basically wrong with the advice.