Fat Guy

The saucepans are the thickest Calphalon pieces. My Dutch ovens and saucepan are from the same Calphalon series -- Professional Nonstick II -- and the saucepan has got to be twice as thick as the Dutch ovens. I wish they made all Calphalon pieces super-thick. I remember the original anodized aluminum Calphalon pieces, very beefy and with those great flat handles. Since then, every Calphalon design "innovation" has been a step backwards. FYI, check out this link: The International Dutch Oven Society. Also, 12" Anodized Aluminum Dutch Oven from Clavey River Equipment: "These new 12" Dutch Ovens offer the cooking qualities of cast iron but with half the weight." Could just be hype, but the theory does seem at least somewhat sound.

I agree with that, but I might also suggest that the "real world" may be making the wrong choice based on tradition rather than engineering: it is possible that a superior braising vessel could be made out of anodized aluminum and would be half as heavy (not to mention probably half as expensive) as its enameled cast-iron equivalent. And while the walls would be beefy, it's not as though they'd be a foot thick.

The American prime rib dinner, which is taken to the most abusurd extreme of over-representation in Las Vegas but is prevalent throughout many regions of the country, is a very close relative of the British classic meal of roast beef with Yorkshire pudding.

The quote above -- "aluminum is best for braising due to heat capacity" -- does not come from me. What I said was: "by weight, aluminum is the most desirable material for braising." If you take an aluminum pot and a cast-iron pot of the same internal diameter and height, the aluminum pot can weigh half as much yet have the same heat capacity as the cast iron. The walls of the aluminum pot will be thicker, of course. Conductivity may be important as well, especially if the "insulation" hypothesis holds true, however it is worth noting that if it is important the Corningware and Pyrex must be by far the best materials -- their thermal conductivity is worse than that of cast iron by something like a factor of 70.

Just back from an early morning run to Fairway. The Pomi tomatoes are actually $1.59, not $1.99 as I had previously suggested. At Teitel Bros. they are usually cheaper.

"Meaty Milk Jell-O, now available in the Kosher section." There are a number of braising liquid permutations I'd have liked to try given unlimited identical vessels and oven space. One that I've seen recommended by a number of trustworthy sources -- and I've been served some good examples -- is to use no actual liquid at all but, rather, a large quantity of sliced onions as a bed for the meat. As they heat and exude liquid, they braise and flavor the meat, and they "melt" and combine with the meat juices to become a wonderful sauce. Beer is, of course, an important variation, as in beer braised short ribs. Then there are all the issues of the mirepoix, its composition, should you sweat it, salt it, etc. However, what I think we learned in the lab -- though I don't by any means think this is an absolute -- is that variants in the braising liquid are much more important to your sauce than they are to your meat. Perhaps this is so obvious it didn't even need to be said, but to me meat braised in any liquid tastes at least close to the same meat braised in any other liquid. It's when you make that liquid into a sauce, or you start doing intensive glazing with the liquid, or you slice up a brisket and submerge it in the liquid and reheat it, that the liquid becomes most important.

I've been very, very happy so far with the Panasonic FlashXPress unit. It looks good, it works well and it's really fast. It comes up to temperature almost instantly and it uses a combination of two types of elements to heat at an alarming rate. Or, you can use it for normal oven-type uses and it works very well at that too. I'm still getting used to some of the automatic settings, and I don't really understand the sensor technology that it uses to adjust the time -- some sort of thermostat, I guess? -- but it works well and that's what matters. Sorry I haven't had a chance to get a good photo of the unit, but here's a bad photo of an 8"x8" Corningware casserole being used to reheat short ribs in the unit: Just out of curiosity, how long does it take you all to toast an average slice of bread in your toasters?

Let me tell you what I think we learned. Rather, let me tell you my working hypothesis: greater heat capacity = better braising. It seems at least somewhat clear from the experiments, which in all cases favored heavy metal vessels over aluminum foil and in most cases favored the heaviest vessel (Le Creuset) over others, that for whatever reason (and a few theories have been bandied about) the materials with greater heat capacity provide better braising. If you have more stuff in the oven, this will also have an effect related to heat capacity I think. I should add, however, that weight is not the only factor in heat capacity. The nature of the material is also important. According to this list of engineering material properties the heat capacities of the materials I used are, in J/kg*°C: Aluminum 963.00 Borosilicate glass 710.00 Iron 440.00 In other words, the borosilicate glass (which is I think the basis of the materials we call Pyrex and Corningware) has half again as much heat capacity per kilogram as iron, and aluminum has more than double the heat capacity of iron. So an aluminum pot weighing 1 kg has more heat capacity than a cast-iron pot weighing 2 kg. This is why I think my aluminum (Calphalon) and glass (Corningware) vessels, though smaller and lighter than the iron (Le Creuset) vessel, did so well at braising, such that I didn't detect any real difference in final product. This would also tend to support the notion that, by weight, aluminum is the most desirable material for braising. It has far greater heat capacity per kilogram than any of the other commonly used cookware materials. In addition to the ones listed above, copper is 385.00 and steel runs from 419.00 to 503.00 depending on the alloy.

Does the marinade have salt in it?

The Pomi/Parmalat tomatoes in cartons are terrific, and were $1.99 for a 24 ounce box at Fairway last time I stocked up. The tomatoes themselves are of very high quality and they have a wonderful freshness that you simply don't get from canned. You have to retool all your recipes and expectations when you use them, though. Because they're packed without salt, their flavor is unexpected, and if you're accustomed to canned tomatoes it can be disorienting. There is also a certain "canned tomato taste" that is simply not present in the Pomi tomatoes, and while I believe the lack of that taste is a good thing it is, again, disorienting not to taste it. Also, because their most attractive characteristic is their fresh taste, these tomatoes perform best in quick-cooked or even raw sauces, although they can also add dimensionality to longer-cooked sauces. My current formula (I've done this about 5 times this winter now) for a fresher-tasting version of the classic New York Italian restaurant-style tomato sauce is a 36 ounce can of Francesconi whole tomatoes (the ones from Teitel Brothers), roughly cut up with kitchen shears while still in the can; a 24 ounce box of Pomi crushed tomatoes; a 7 ounce can of La Squisita tomato paste; a pint of "grape tomatoes," quartered; a medium onion, diced fine; a clove of garlic, crushed; a fistful of chopped fresh marjoram and basil; olive oil; salt; pepper. Cook the onion over medium heat in olive oil until translucent, then add the grape tomatoes, garlic and half the fresh herbs and cook until the tomatoes start to give up liquid, then add all the other tomato products, bring up to a simmer on medium-high heat and reduce to a simmer for about 20 minutes, adding the rest of the herbs, plus salt and pepper, in the last 2 minutes.

Well, I think that does it. My heartfelt thanks to those of you who chose to become my colleagues in the "Truth About Braising" seminar. As with much of scientific inquiry, I think we both learned a lot and raised a lot more questions than we answered. We took a bit of a risk when we designed this class: there was some speculation that not a single person would participate, and we considered bringing in some ringers from the Institute staff so that we'd guarantee a minimum level of participation. I'm glad we didn't. What we had this week was the real deal. At this point, all are welcome to comment on the four lab topics as well as the general Q&A topic related to this seminar. And the organizational scheme here is such that, even if you missed the "live" seminar, it's never too late to do these experiments on your own. I'm hoping that we'll see more people doing these tests over time, learning from earlier reports and tweaking the new tests to reduce unwanted variables. I'm also hoping that we see some new experiments. Every day, I think we saw places where we could have gone in multiple directions in addition to the ones we chose. There was a limit -- just the 20 or so experiments we did were exhausting -- but now we have the whole future ahead of us. You've all seen how to do it now -- the gang wrote up some great lab reports -- so try it on you own. Thanks again to all who joined in, and also to all who read along.

Please report your weights in 1/4 ounce and 1-gram increments. Thanks.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for getting a new scale. I confess that behind the scenes the other participants were saying that if you didn't get one by the end of the week they planned to take you out back behind the barn and shoot you. You made it with only hours to spare.

The low simmer is a weakness of most electric cooktops, which typically cycle on and off to maintain an average temperature rather than a constant one. I have a feeling this is why mass-market recipes rarely if ever recommend stovetop braising, even though it's so convenient.

The San Marzano Imports site is full of ambiguity and wiggle words. For example, on the home page there's a link to a certification document that, if you read it, means little. There is lots of talk about San Marzano tomatoes and how great they are, but nary a mention of the DOP concept. Articles about San Marzano tomatoes in general -- as opposed to this particular brand -- are cited as testimonials.

In my opinion the best deal you can get on high-quality Italian canned tomatoes is at Teitel Brothers on Arthur Avenue. A gigantic can of Francesconi brand tomatoes -- 6 lb 9 oz -- is $3.99. They are not San Marzano but they are very good, grown and packed in Italy. The 35 oz cans are $1.39 and a case of 12 cans is $15.50.

To add a bit more detail about the Colicchio method: First, it should be noted that when he braises he comes near to covering the meat entirely with liquid -- in his recipes he refers to this as "to not quite cover," and the braising I saw done in the kitchen in Gramercy Tavern had only the slightest bit of meat poking above the surface of the liquid. This is great if you have enough stock and wine around (as a restaurant always will) to "not quite cover" your meat even after you've reduced it by half (as he calls for in his recipes), but for most people it's just more convenient to braise in 1/2" of liquid, covered. Second, I should add that essential to the Colicchio method is that you turn the meat often enough (about every half hour) so that you're always drying one side's surface while remoistening the other. My standard procedure for brisket, because it's so unwieldy, is to skip the stovetop browning process and just uncover it during the last hour of braising (turning it over half way through that hour). This gives a surface effect that's a dead ringer for stovetop browning.

Jack, you or anybody else should feel free to conduct any experiments you feel will be as or more (or even less) interesting as the ones we did this week. This topic and the lab topics will remain open indefinitely for the addition of such observations. We have a temperature lab topic open, so temperature-related experiments would go there. And if anybody wants to do a comparison of sous vide or crock pot or pressure cooker to braising at standard simmering temperatures, that's great too.

A few people have mentioned frozen stuffed pastas like tortellini, ravioli and manicotti. I think these are some of the best items in the freezer section, particularly if you get a premium product like Putney Pasta from Vermont, which is organic to boot. I'd be very interested in trying some of the Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller frozen meals from FiveLeaf. The dishes are cooked sous vide and then flash frozen. You can get Boulud's "Braised Veal Shank with Lemon Vegetables & Creamy Polenta" and Keller's "Monkfish Stew with Oyster Mushrooms, Pearl Onions & Root Vegetables."

This lab yielded some interesting results for me. I hope it did for you all too. I started out by browning one short rib under the broiler . . . . . . and one in the braising vessel. I combined those with an unbrowned rib. The short ribs I used today came from the freezer, where they had been since last week. I also added one fresh (non-frozen) short rib, unbrowned. Now a convert to stovetop braising, I brought the liquid up to temperature and then set the pot to simmer for about 2.5 hours. I was pretty amazed by the results here: I couldn't really detect any difference between the browned ribs and the unbrowned ones, or between the two methods of browning, or between the frozen and unfrozen. They all tasted pretty much the same, and had similar textural properties. More unusual, their appearances were not all that different. Somehow, the braising process "de-browned" the browned pieces somewhat. And, somehow, the braising process did a little bit to "brown" the unbrowned ones. It seems that the exposed part of the meat undergoes some sort of chemical reaction that, at least cosmetically, is not all that different from browning. This didn't happen early on, but as the braising liquid started to reduce slightly, the surface of the unbrowned ribs started to change a bit. I would like to experiment more with this phenomenon -- for example, I wonder what would happen to the surface if I finished it uncovered in the oven. I also reheated, for the third time, the Lab #1 samples, and to my surprise they keep getting better. More tender, more flavorful, more juicy -- yet they haven't become mushy like I thought they would. I may reheat them one more time tomorrow, just for fun.

We'll leave the light on for you.

By the end of the week we should all be exhausted, confused and out of stock. Here at the eGullet Culinary Institute, we aim to please. And yes, Dan, please get a new scale before we institute corporal punishment here.

Friday.

Hey that looks good!

Short ribs and flanken are the same thing, just cut two different ways. The short ribs are cut as individual pieces. Flanken is a cross-section of several ribs with the meat intact and connecting all of them. I'm making a beef-vegetable-lentil soup right now with a melange of leftover unwanted vegetables, braising liquids, short ribs and lentils that have been in the cabinet for like a decade. I'll post some photos later.