A simple trick makes this chicken dinner especially delicious

Since food writer Molly Stevens published her cookbook “All About Braising” in 2004, she’s often wondered why it still resonates. To this day, she regularly hears from readers old and new, which is a good thing, because Stevens says she never tires of talking about braising.

In a recent email, she attributed the book’s lasting appeal to “the confidence that learning to braise can build in a cook.”

“And confidence,” she said, “is a cornerstone in any cook’s journey.”

I never considered how the way I braise now is a result of confidence, built over time, but looking back, Stevens may be right.

Nearly 17 years ago, one of my first purchases as a young bachelor in New York City was a mustard-yellow Dutch oven, a proper enameled cast-iron pot with a heavy lid. It was the era of “Julie & Julia,” and French braises – cooked low and slow with just enough liquid, as cooking encyclopedia “Larousse Gastronomique” dictated – filled my early culinary repertoire. Staying home and nursing a pot of meat felt far more fun than going out.

Those dinners were fine, but rudderless and inconsistent. At times they’d be too bland or too salty, the liquid not reduced enough or the fat not skimmed enough, the meat tough because I hadn’t given the collagen ample time to break down. But with each mistake, I got better at it, and not enough became enough.

Now, reading “All About Braising” feels like finding the instructions for a Lego set after years of trying to wing it.

Whenever I want my house to smell like a home, I braise, specifically chicken legs in kimchi. Here, I use water as the braising liquid to let the rest of the ingredients shine.

The use of water as a braising liquid (over stock or wine, the usual suspects) is a recent development for Stevens. Doing so, she said, can result in a more straightforward result. “When braising something fatty,” she explained, “the fat that rises to the top is clearer and rises more neatly.”

As the chicken and kimchi cook and release their moisture into the braising liquid, the water becomes a flavorful stock that not only cooks the food, but also becomes steam that rises and falls back onto the food, infusing it. (In her book, Stevens delightfully calls this process “a delicious cycle of flavor give-and-take.”)

While many braises start with a sear, this one doesn’t. But trust me: Skip the sear. Or rather, don’t apologize for cutting that step, a product of French cooking that isn’t as prevalent in the braises of other cuisines.

Instead, try blanching the chicken, then shocking it in cold water, a technique used in dishes like Chinese white-cut chicken and Hainanese chicken rice. This does two things: It removes any scum or gaminess that might obstruct the clean taste of the poultry. And the temperature shift tightens the skin, leaving the chicken intact but meltingly tender inside after just a half-hour of braising.

Additionally, the kimchi’s acid tenderizes the meat and intensifies the final gravy, an electric-red pool of umami that builds across a few quick steps. First, stir-frying fine matchsticks of ginger in a pool of butter releases an aroma for the gods and echoes the kimchi’s gingery punch. Then, two generous spoonfuls of gochugaru, the Korean red-pepper powder that’s mild in heat but deep in savory sweetness, bloom in that fat, staining it neon. In the end, this gingery chile butter fuses with the chicken fat and floats atop the braising liquid like lily pads.

Lifting the lid releases a waft of steam, a sight that would raise any cook’s confidence.

Braised Kimchi Chicken With

Sweet Potatoes

A ginger- and gochugaru-infused butter underpins the multilayered seasonings in this savory braised chicken dish. Kimchi’s acid tenderizes the meat and provides intensity to the final gravy, an electric-red pool of umami. White rice tastes great with this, as do mashed potatoes or crusty bread, to sop up all the buttery juices. An age-old secret to juicy chicken is blanching, then shocking the meat with cold water, a technique that appears in dishes like Chinese white-cut chicken and Hainanese chicken rice. This initial step also results in a clean chicken flavor and a rich, pure-tasting sauce.

Ingredients:

2 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken drumsticks or leg quarters

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 (3-inch) piece ginger, peeled and cut into fine matchsticks

2 tablespoons gochugaru (see Tips below)

11/2 packed cups finely chopped kimchi, plus any juices

2 tablespoons fish sauce

1 tablespoon honey

2 fresh or dried bay leaves

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 large or 2 small Asian sweet potatoes (about 10 ounces), peeled and cut into 2-inch chunks (see Tip below)

1 small yellow onion, peeled and cut into 2-inch chunks

Preparation:

Fill a medium bowl with ice water. Then, fill a large Dutch oven or other heavy-bottomed pot with cold water and bring to a boil over high. Add the chicken and poach for just 5 minutes (it’s OK if the water doesn’t come back to a boil). Shock the chicken in the ice water to stop the cooking and set aside. Drain the Dutch oven, rinsing if very dirty, and return the pot to the stove.

In the now-empty, fairly dry pot, melt the butter over medium. Add the ginger and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir the gochugaru into the gingery butter, just a few seconds, then immediately add the kimchi, fish sauce, honey, bay leaves and 1 cup water. Nestle in the chicken pieces so they’re partly covered by liquid. Season with salt and pepper.

Raise the heat to high and bring the pot to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low to continue simmering the chicken for 10 minutes to begin its braising journey.

After 10 minutes, place the sweet potato and onion over the chicken, coaxing them into the liquid if possible (or at least spooning over some of the liquid). Continue simmering the stew, partly covered, until the sauce is reduced, the potatoes are tender and the chicken falls off the bone, about 30 minutes. Serve the chicken and vegetables with the sauce ladled over.

Yield: 4 servings

Tips: Asian sweet potatoes have tapered ends with reddish-purple skins and yellow-white interiors. They also become gloriously fudgy when braised like this (or dry-roasted whole). Their orange-bellied American counterparts, varieties such as Beauregard, jewel and garnet, would disintegrate into a soft sludge, but the Asian sweet potato – particularly the Japanese satsumaimo and the Korean goguma – remains sturdy even after a long, slow cook, their chestnut-sweet interiors only deepening with time.

Gochugaru, a mild, intensely savory Korean red-pepper powder, ranges from a fine dust to tiny coarse flakes. Try to buy the coarse variety for a deeper, sweeter flavor. You can find gochugaru at Korean and other Asian supermarkets and at many grocery stores, as well as online.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.