What are the most complicated recipes you know?

November 26, 2014 8:26 PM

What are your favorite super-involved, day-long recipes?

I absolutely love cooking big, elaborate meals on weekends. Killing a Sunday cooking a complex dish is one of my favorite things in the world - nice roasts, interesting braises, that kind of thing. Unfortunately, I'm running out of ideas. What are some great big, involved recipes that I should try? For reference for the kinds of things I'm looking for, last weekend I made this bo ssam, and the weekend before that I braised and oven-grilled pigs feet, then made soup dumplings with the collagen-ey broth left behind from the braising.

Weird or esoteric ingredients are fine - I'm based in NYC so I can get a hold of most things with a little notice. Equipment should be limited to anything you'd find in a well-appointed American kitchen, though I'm not adverse to buying new equipment if I can find it online and its under fifty bucks or so.

posted by Itaxpica to Food & Drink (38 answers total)

Best answer: Well if you want to go totally overboard, invest in any of the elBulli cookbooks, or Mosaic (the Alinea cookbook) or Rene Redzepi's--the name escapes me.

But without doing that, something you can do is look at the things you love to cook and think about how they can be intensified. Make your own pasta. Intensify a stock two or three times (make a stock, then make another stock with fresh bones/etc but using the first stock as the liquid). Think about stacking the same flavour in a single dish multiple ways. Here is one of my dishes (selflink) that takes two days to make. Longer if you smoke the chicken yourself. It's... involved.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:42 PM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Cassoulet is complicated and delicious. Jacquilynne once sent me a recipe for mushroom lasagne that was delicious and time-consuming, especially as I added a layer of pureed butternut squash. I might be able to find the recipe.

Get Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking I and II*; that should keep you occupied.

Obligatory
posted by theora55 at 9:02 PM on November 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

I read about the Heston Blumenthal's hamburger recipe It was very demanding. It's in his In Search of Perfection. I imagine many of the other recipes in that book are likewise very demanding.

Here'a a video about one guys progress through the Alinea cookbook. Judging from your question, the cookbook might be a little more than you're looking for. Still, you can pick easier recipes and cut a few corners. For instance, this guy took machining classes so that he could built special service vessels. You might choose to skip that.
posted by stuart_s at 9:03 PM on November 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yes, Mastering the Art of French Cooking will keep you busy.
Consider making your own sausages, smoking meat, cooking entire animals (chickens, ducks, turkeys, pheasants, rabbits, pigs, goats, fish).
Pickling and preserving take time.
Baking will really stretch your endurance. Start your own sourdough culture. Bake delicate loaves layered with herbs. Croissants. Fussy cookies. Filled cakes.
I spent 15 labor hours on this cake from Baking with Julia. I think I could get it closer to 10 labor hours now.
http://www.food.com/recipe/chocolate-raspberry-ruffle-cake-156874
posted by littlewater at 9:08 PM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

this is the most difficult cake recipie I have ever made:
After years of research, I have discovered a transcendentally delectable dessert
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:08 PM on November 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I would really love for someone to make the Serious Eats Vegetables Wellington and report back. Kenji describes it as "quite possibly the most involved recipe I've ever written." (which is saying something)
posted by dorque at 9:13 PM on November 26, 2014 [12 favorites]

Best answer: An oldie but a goodie: Slooooooow Food.
posted by the webmistress at 9:20 PM on November 26, 2014

Modernist Cuisine is another book that might be best considered as more of a coffee table decoration and less of a practical source for cooking projects. Modernist Cuisine at Home is a baby version that's meant to be more accessible to home cooks and it might be something you'd like. Do you have a sous vide setup? I assume that Modernist Cuisine will require this and some other specialized equipment. It would be outside of your $50 budget, but it might be versatile enough that you'll make an exception. Of course, the book itself is also not cheap.

Honestly, you could do this with anything. I have a friend who devotes this kind of attention to pizza crust. Just because it only has four ingredients doesn't mean that it can't absorb stupendous amounts of concentration. BBQ ribs are another of his pet projects. The recipes may not be complicated, but you can spend years mastering the art of the perfect pizza crust or the ideal BBQ rib. In the same way that he's obsessed with pizza, his wife is fanatic about cookies, ice cream, etc... Macarons are notoriously difficult. She read extensively, took personal cooking classes and experimented for a long time to master cooking macarons.
posted by stuart_s at 9:23 PM on November 26, 2014

Response by poster: To clarify, I'm not looking for simple recipes that can take a lot of focus and work to perfect (though I do love those, too - I've been tweaking my shakshuka recipe for almost a decade now). I'm specifically looking for recipes that are involved and complicated - the Vegetables Wellington above is a perfect example of the kind of thing I want.
posted by Itaxpica at 9:27 PM on November 26, 2014

Best answer: Chicken galantine:

Skin a whole chicken, leaving the skin in one large piece. Remove the meat from the carcass, reserving the tenderloins. Prepare a forcemeat from the carved chicken and use the carcass to make stock. Make a stuffing to your liking, but it should probably include mushrooms. Lay out the skin, spread the forcemeat on it, add the stuffing on top, and then roll it all up and tie it closed. Poach in the stock unit. Cooked through. Optionally, encase the whole thing in aspic. Chill and slice, serve cold.

Took me about eight hours to make the first time.
posted by backseatpilot at 9:28 PM on November 26, 2014 [4 favorites]

Cooks Illustrated has a mushroom lasagna recipe that I usually prep over two days, because there's just a lot going on, especially if you start by making the pasta. It's recreated on the web in a few places so you can google it.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:30 PM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Charcuterie can be very time consuming, so Charcuterie? I believe Thomas Keller made a point of presenting the recipes in the French Laundry Cookbook exactly as they're executed in the restaurant. Certainly, many of them will be complicated and time consuming. Escoffier's Guide Culinaire? It's authentic classic French cooking - the canonical example of demanding cuisine.
posted by stuart_s at 9:47 PM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

The traditional mole poblano in Rick Bayless's Authentic Mexican book has about a million steps and 3-4 sub-recipes that go into it. I think it took us three days to complete.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 9:53 PM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer:

Here is an old French regional dish for you to try. Attempts by presumptuous chefs to refine it have failed to subdue its basically hearty nature. It demands some patience, but you will be abundantly rewarded for your pains.

The classic Roast Boned Rolled Stuffed Shoulder of Lamb.
posted by Wet Spot at 12:35 AM on November 27, 2014 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Carnitas.
posted by saladin at 4:08 AM on November 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I was fortunate not to be the one stuck making it, but I've eaten Rick Bayless' Oaxacan Black Mole, and I can confirm that it is freaking delicious, so it was definitely worth the other person's time and labor. :)
posted by obfuscation at 5:01 AM on November 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

Chicken Marengo.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:02 AM on November 27, 2014

Best answer: My husband learned how to make puerco pibil from a Robert Rodriguez video. It is amaaaaazing and well worth the time and effort.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 8:12 AM on November 27, 2014

Seolleongtang is a bone-broth-based soup with an extra-long cooking time. You either blanch or soak the bones and meat first to get the blood out. Then you cook them at a rolling boil rather than the bare simmer you'd use for European-style broth recipes — and cook them for a very long time, upwards of twelve hours, to the point where you're extracting a great deal of minerals from the bones and the broth comes out a milky white color.

It's not a finicky recipe — few steps, little activity, much checking and waiting — but it definitely requires a full day in the kitchen, and you can do it mostly in the background while you're making something else.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:22 AM on November 27, 2014

Sorry, don't have a recipe, but have you made tamales? People I know who do make tamales seem to make a day out of it, so it seems like the right idea fir you.
posted by CrazyLemonade at 9:45 AM on November 27, 2014

a lot of Mexican/Mexican-influenced food (tamales, chilaquiles if you unorthodox-ly start from zero, mole, Homesick Texan's chili, etc., where you char and reconstitute dried chiles and blister peppers and toast pumpkin seeds and use masa to make homemade thickening agents or tortillas you then crumble and marinate and brown and shred beef or chicken or whatnot), if done traditionally where everything start to finish is from scratch, takes all day and yields incredible results.

it's not the same "in a day or two, but aaaaallllll day" thing, but Laurie Colwin's infamous black cake recipe (which she herself mentioned offhand she'd never actually made) comes to mind this time of year too. it takes a loooong time.
posted by ifjuly at 10:16 AM on November 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: and it might not be involved enough for you--SE is chock full of involved stuff as mentioned above--but i made this mushroom and cabbage lasagna recently and it took hours and every pot pan and dish in my kitchen but holy moly was it worth it. incredibly delicious, and i'd always been disappointed before when i tried making cabbage pie-type stuff.
posted by ifjuly at 10:18 AM on November 27, 2014

oh oh OH and i forgot to mention too, Molly Stevens' two classics All About Braising and All About Roasting have lots of recipes that takes 3 hours minimum where that's just the cook time. your mention of bo ssam (one of the best things ever!) reminded me, because she has a cochinita pibil recipe (in the roasting one IIRC) that has a similar approach and yields completely different flavors but is just as awesome. it involves making achiote paste with annatto seeds, wrapping the whole huge thing in banana leaves, etc.
posted by ifjuly at 10:20 AM on November 27, 2014

Colombian pasteles (similar to Mexican tamales, but giant) take all day and are typically a Christmas food. Families make a bunch and then give them to each other during holiday visits. They freeze well.
posted by justjess at 10:26 AM on November 27, 2014

oh, and pho! taking the time to brown marrow-y bones to make stock, prep all the fixins, making sauces from scratch if desired.

similarly, this pork soup takes days.
posted by ifjuly at 10:30 AM on November 27, 2014

Best answer: Suggestions:
The Zuni Cafe Cookbook has the roast chicken recipe that takes 2 days but isn't finicky. Many great stocks in here, I've been working my way through this for the better part of a year.

Things have taken up great amounts of time and provided great fun:

• Short ribs braised in chimay ale
• Zuni Hamburger (grinding your own meats!)
• Sand dabs with shallots, sea beans and sherry vinegar
• Duck braised with red wine and prunes
• Quail and sausage braised with grapes

Alternatively, Modernist Cuisine At Home's roast chicken is a lot of fun too. Finicky, kindof worth it, but I usually default back to Zuni when I want to play with my food.
posted by msamye at 12:32 PM on November 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

Veal Prince Orloff.
posted by kmennie at 2:28 PM on November 27, 2014

I was going to mention an idea very similar to the vegetables Wellington that I did last year, except my further goal was to make it a rainbow, with minimal bleeding between colors. So that's another direction you can go there.
posted by tchemgrrl at 4:41 PM on November 27, 2014

Best answer: We are the same! I have gotten a lot of joy out of various ragus -- find a meat that will stand up to braising (I love the grassy tang of beef shank, my spouse loves whole stewing hens best, our happy middle ground is lamb shoulder or duck legs), and sear it; meanwhile, cut some carrots and celery into brunoise and mince an onion and plenty of garlic, and blanch and peel some tomatoes. Soften the vegetables in the pan, then deglaze with a slug of whatever you plan to drink later, add the peeled tomatoes and enough stock to not quite cover, and let it barely simmer for a few hours while you bake bread and make fresh pasta. Fish the meat out of the sauce and shred it off the bone to add back in if you want, or save it to eat in a separate course. This has been basically my every weekend since the weather got cool.

My plan for this weekend is to butterfly, score, season, roll up and wrap in its own skin a turkey breast to roast and serve along side turkey legs confit (probably also whatever vegetables I can shove in the pan alongside the legs because to be real there is no resisting artichoke confit).
posted by bewilderbeast at 4:42 PM on November 27, 2014

Macarons are crazily complicated.
posted by Deodand at 6:14 PM on November 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

This is probably too obvious, but if you like Momofuku's recipes, try the ramen. The Momofuku cookbook goes through every step in the process: broth (which takes a day or more on its own, I think), noodles from scratch (alkaline salts and all), pork belly (marinate overnight), pickled vegetables, onsen tamago, etc. If I remember correctly, it didn't sound terribly difficult, just fiddly and very time-consuming. And expensive.
posted by spelunkingplato at 8:03 PM on November 27, 2014

Also, have you seen this previous thread? It sounds like the asker has a slightly different take than you, but you might still get some inspiration.

On a more casual note, I tried the Kitchn's curry method last winter and found it satisfying to cook in a meditative, 'takes all day but only requires stirring and checking on every few hours' kind of way, which if you like roasts and braises sounds like it might be the part you like.

This question also sounds like something Chowhound would have a good answer for. I searched for an appropriate thread, and found a few: this one is interesting, and this one is half joking, half serious.
posted by spelunkingplato at 8:43 PM on November 27, 2014

This cake was involved and worth it when I made it for a couple birthdays a few years back. Ditto with this one, though I swapped the frosting for a Swiss buttercream.
posted by OneSmartMonkey at 12:42 AM on November 28, 2014

Marcella Hazan's bolognese lasagne is totally delicious and would fit this bill. The sauce itself takes a good 5-6 hours, minimum (it's pretty good after about 4, but transcendent if you give it the full amount of time), though that is mostly unattended. But if make your own pasta for the lasagne, that plus the bechamel puts it fully into project status. I actually usually make the Hazan sauce from her Essentials cookbook and then follow the Smitten kitchen lasagne recipe - not really sure why except I did it that way once and was too pleased with the results to want to vary anything. So good.
posted by yarrow at 6:08 AM on November 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

Tomorrow is my youngest daughter's birthday, and she has asked for a Moroccan Feast. I don't know where exactly she has this idea from, but we live in a mixed neighbourhood, and specially when she was young, we would quite often do pot-luck parties where the main dish was a cous-cous royal, and there would be a number of north African appetizers. Desert tomorrow will be either slices of orange with cinnamon and sugar, or Mousse au Chocolat, or both.
None of the dishes are complicated, but I will spend all day cooking, I'm certain.
posted by mumimor at 9:55 AM on November 29, 2014

Stanley Tucci's Timpano alla Big Night!
posted by magstheaxe at 7:09 PM on November 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

This tonkotsu ramen recipe.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 8:33 PM on November 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

These recipes on ChefSteps seem like they might be up your alley, especially if you're looking for complicated (as opposed to just taking a long time to cook).
posted by kejadlen at 1:26 PM on December 3, 2014 [1 favorite]