Fat Guy

I started off by weighing each sample and taking its temperature. I was able, by sorting through the short ribs, to find four samples that were within a +/- .25 ounce range. For greater precision I also weighed each piece in grams. Sample 1 raw 5.5 oz 158 grams Sample 2 raw 5.5 oz 156 grams Sample 3 raw 5.25 oz 152 grams Sample 4 raw 5.75 oz 161 grams For temperature readings, all were almost exactly 40 degrees F when raw. (They were no doubt colder in the refrigerator, but they sat out for a bit while I got everything organized.) At this point I started my trusty timer. It occurred to me at that point that I hadn't asked for a digital kitchen timer as part of the basic equipment for the lab. I hope you all at least had a watch or clock you could use to record elapsed time. T+19 seconds, mark. I proceeded to brown each pair of samples. I browned the Le Creuset samples in the Le Creuset pot, the Calphalon samples in the Calphalon pot, and the Corningware and aluminum foil tray samples in two cast-iron skillets. I used olive oil, two tablespoons in each pot. I browned for 7 minutes, rotating everything pretty uniformly. One thing I noticed here is that the uncoated cast-iron skillets provided superior browning to the Le Creuset or Calphalon Professional Nonstick II (which provided similar browning to one another). Uncoated cast-iron Calphalon Professional Nonstick II (same in appearance as the Le Creuset) I added stock to the cast-iron skillets, scraped up the brown bits, and transferred one skillet worth of liquid to the Corningware and aluminum foil tray, and I added stock to the Le Creuset and Calphalon pots, all to about 1/2” depth. I was disappointed to learn, in the middle of the experiment, that it was not possible to get all four vessels onto a single shelf in my oven. Naively, I had assumed that since they all fit on the stovetop together, and the oven is below the stovetop, they would fit in the oven together too. But of course the oven has thick walls and therefore it can't accommodate as much on one level as the stovetop. Then I figured, no problem, I'll just rotate the vessels every 30 minutes to even things out. But the way the grates fit in, the only workable solution I could come up with was putting the two shallower vessels on top and the two deeper ones on the bottom. I put my oven, which had been preheated to 325 degrees F, on convection, figuring this would help even out the heat a little, maybe. After those delays, everything went into the oven at T+22 minutes. By the way, after browning, each sample read about 62 degrees F on the instant read thermometer. I checked the samples every 30 minutes for temperature (I had two samples in each pot but only one was the official sample; the other was just there for backup so does not appear in the notes I'm posting). I was a little surprised at how quickly things heated up. At T+52 minutes, the Le Creuset and Calphalon samples read at 168 and 167 degrees F, respectively. On the upper deck, I got 165 from the Corningware and 163 from the aluminum foil tray. I also felt the liquid was simmering too quickly, so I turned the oven down to 300. I measured temperature at T+1:22, T+1:52 and T+2:22. At T+1:22 the two bottom samples read at 179 degrees F, and the two top samples read at 177 degrees F; apparently something had evened out. I turned the oven down to 275 because I still felt that things were running hot and that the simmer was too bubbly. Temperature readings at T+1:52 were all almost exactly 180 degrees F. At T+2:22 all samples felt fork-tender and were continuing to read at close to 180, so I pulled everything out and allowed the four samples to cool until T+2:42 at which point the samples read about 120 degrees F internally. And so, I tasted them. I started with the Le Creuset sample. It was delicious, by the way. I had been surprised at a two-hour timeline for doneness, but the sample was tender and pulled apart easily while still maintaining some structure and toothsomeness. The Calphalon sample was the same. I tasted back and forth three times and couldn't detect any difference. Despite the lags in temperature readings, the Corningware sample also tasted the same (same taste, texture and aroma) as the Le Creuset and Calphalon. Now for the big surprise: the sample I prepared in an aluminum foil tray totally sucked! It was rubbery, dry and didn't have that luscious flavor and texture. It was a total bust. I thought maybe it was just from a bad cow, so I checked the backup sample from that pair, and then compared all the backup samples: again, three luscious ones and one rubbery piece of crap. I have not yet come up with the explanation for this result, and I should add that I had expected all along that it would be the same as the others. So, we can talk more about this. But first, I'm interested to hear what you all observed today. The cosmetic differences in browning that I observed above were not, by the way, evident in the finished samples. (I'll post some notes later on my subjective experience using each piece of cookware.)

I had some similar issues, and one particular result I can't really explain, and no it's not a bust! The reason we have several people doing this is so that when we look at all the data together we can get iron out some of the bumps. Looking forward to your report tonight.

Never underestimate my ability to overlook the obvious!

Okay, I now have everything in the oven, and I wanted to note something that presented a challenge for me: I didn't create a plan of attack for the oven in advance, and that became troublesome when it came time to arrange a bunch of hot vessels in a hot oven. So, while your oven is still cold, I suggest you adjust your oven grates and arrange the empty vessels with their lids on in the oven the way you're planning to do the braising -- because you may find that you don't actually have the height you need, or that a pot handle is occupying the space where you planned to put another pot. This is much easier to do with cold pots in a cold oven than it is to do with hot pots in a hot oven.

Some quick comments as I prepare to start the Lab 1 braising experiments here: - Take lots of photos! I know we're only looking at pieces of meat, and that they're all going to look pretty similar, but let's get photos online so we can all see each other's braising vessels, the different types of meat (raw, in progress and cooked), ovens, and even kitchens if you're up for posting a photo of your personal "lab." Photos can really make the discussion come alive. Don't be shy. Show all. No nudity, please. - No observation is too small to document. Keep a notebook computer or a real notebook near the stove (not too near, though!) and note everything you notice. Eventually, it would be great to have observations like these (of course I have put in hypothetical, nonsensical results -- these are just some of the types of observations you could note for each vessel and sample): Sample 1/ Vessel 1 - Raw weight of meat 498 lbs - Noticed that there was a small Klingon living in the Le Creuset pot - Dropped the Le Creuset lid on my foot and broke 4 of 5 toes - Temperature of raw meat 98 degrees below zero - Used a chain latte as my braising liquid - Oven preheated to 800 degrees F - Braising liquid came to a simmer at 17 minutes - Meat internal temperature at 30 minutes = 800 degrees F - Meat internal temperature at 1 hour = 800 degrees F - Meat internal temperature at 1 hour 30 minutes = still 800 degrees F - Meat internal temperature at 2 hours = no change from 800 degrees F - Meat fork-tender at 2 hours, removed to let cool for 15 minutes - Tasting notes: seemed a little burnt Sample 2/ Vessel 2 - Raw weight of meat 503 lbs etc. . . - Please get your notes written up and your photos uploaded to ImageGullet throughout the day, and hold them on your computers in a word processing file or whatever works for you. Tonight we will open a topic for Lab 1 notes, at which point we can start posting and discussing our results. - Please remember the cardinal rule of the seminar. To repeat: All are free to read along, but only those who actually do the lab work may participate in a discussion on a given day. - Finally, I'm thrilled that we seem to have a good number of people who are going to participate. I'm really looking forward to doing this with you all.

Starting with a very long wish-list, we had to cut literally hundreds of potentially interesting experiments so that we could reduce the universe of experiments to a total of five. So, there's no plan to do a stovetop comparison of vessel performance as part of the basic coursework. But if someone would like to do it for "extra credit" then I would happily award . . . extra credit!

Variations in pot size are inevitable, which is why I've recommended that everybody add braising liquid to a specified depth rather than in an absolute amount. Anyway, even if we had pots that were the same in volume, what are the odds that they'd have the same diameter and height? I think the Le Creuset pot I have here is 7.5 quarts whereas the Calphalon ones are maybe 6 quarts -- at some point I'll measure. It's a variable, yes, but I hope the aggregated data from a bunch of people doing these experiments will reveal if it's a relevant one. In terms of your stock, it's hard to tell without tasting it, but as a rule of thumb for braising liquid I'd probably estimate 1 pound of chicken/beef/whatever parts to 1 quart of stock as an end product -- that's not going to be a very powerful stock, but while you braise there will be some additional reduction (even though the pot is covered, there will be some moisture loss), the items that you're braising will also be contributing flavor to the liquid and, in the end, you may reduce the braising liquid further into a sauce. So you could probably go 3:1 in terms of using water to reconstitute that stock, or 2:1 if you want a richer liquid.

Please do try to get some photos -- it will make the discussions all the more interesting. And yes, I think seasoning is fine so long as it's applied uniformly and it's not so powerful as to reduce your ability to taste the meat. In terms of vessels, I like the idea of copper. I don't know that we have anybody using a copper pot yet, so that will augment our database. I wanted to mention that I'll be offline for most of tomorrow, Sunday. I'll try to answer whatever questions are online by about 9:00am New York time, and then I'll be back online late in the evening to get caught up. Janet Zimmerman ("JAZ"), the dean of the eGCI, will be around and is fully conversant with the course logistics, so she may step in to answer questions if they are urgent, e.g., "I'm at the market right now and the butcher is asking how to cut the short ribs . . ."

No matter how much I try to avoid it, I sometimes find myself using aluminum foil pans (by the way, I was walking up Third Avenue in Manhattan today and saw the 5 for 99 cents!). Every once in awhile I get in a situation where I need to do something like braise six briskets at once for a pot luck, and I only have two vessels big enough to hold a brisket. So I use the foil trays (doubled up for stability). Plus if I'm transporting them, I can take the foil trays wherever I'm going and just leave them there -- nothing to carry back, nothing to clean. For that and other reasons I thought it would be interesting to use foil trays as one of our vessels. You could also just construct a pseudo-tray/pouch out of several layers of foil. But be extremely careful if you do that, and only do it if you're experienced at working with foil under such conditions. Be especially cautious when looking in to check progress and temperature -- I don't want this class filling up the emergency rooms and burn units of the world's hospitals.

The butcher had so many questions about how I wanted these things cut!!! I would have needed a laptop to show him your pictures. Eventually, I think I got what I needed and am ready.... I do have one question: each "vessel" has 4 pieces, right? And we keep 3 from each "vessel"...?? ← You could definitely do it that way -- it would be nice to have all that extra material -- but the minimum is only that you have one piece in each vessel, and that you save three of the four total pieces. I wouldn't feel right requiring 4x4 pieces every day for 4 days straight -- that's like 42 million short ribs. Just a quick note in terms of understanding short ribs, the following two references may be of interest to ultra-die-hards: Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications for Beef (IMPS) -- here you will find photos of the chuck and plate and descriptions of different types of short ribs. It's a 2mb download, and once you pull up the .pdf file you want to focus on cuts 123 and 130. Beef Cuts Chart from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. The short ribs I get at the supermarket look a lot like the ones at the bottom of the Chuck section (top left box, last cut depicted in the box), although mine are cut longer -- one of mine is like those two pieces combined.

For Lab 1, yes, all go in the oven. This is a vessel comparison, not a heating method comparison. In a later lab, we will do a heating method comparison between oven and stovetop.

I'm envious of anyone who can get institutional meat cuts. You could go your whole life and never see short ribs of those dimensions in a supermarket! I'm coming to your place for dinner at the end of the course.

1) Two would be the minimum, and four would be preferable 2) Please keep your notes in any format that is useful to you and where the text can be cut-and-pasted into an eG Forums post 3) On Monday evening, as per the schedule, we will create a topic onto which you can place a summary of your notes (aka a "lab report"). You can upload your photos to ImageGullet and insert those images into your lab report. Exactly right. 0) Yes 1) You can brown all 6 faces of the rectangular prism that is a short rib, or you can (as I did) brown the 4 main faces and not the two "ends." So long as you do it the same for each. 3) I'm going to do it together, but you could do it separately too, for "extra credit" 4) Yes, if that is your preference and you do it uniformly, though you might want to save the bones for stock 5) Stock, wine and water are recommended, but you could use other liquids so long as you maintain uniformity in the relevant comparisons (e.g., if comparing vessels, you use the same liquid in each vessel). On the day when we do liquid comparisons, however, it will be more important to use stock, wine and water (plus aromatic vegetables where the instructions, to be posted Monday, will indicate) 6) I won't be seasoning, but you can if that's your preference; again, just be sure to do the same thing to each sample. Thanks for all these great questions. I think they will help others.

Lab #1 is designed to ascertain the differences between the same thing being braised in different vessels, not the differences between batch sizes in a single vessel. If we wanted to design a lab for the latter, we could, and anybody is welcome to do it as "extra credit" for the open discussion on Friday. But the fact that there are many possible comparisons out there, and that some may offer greater contrasts than others, has nothing to do with the worth of any given comparison.

We're going to face this issue repeatedly in several contexts. If we all had infinite time, money, space and equipment, I would say "yes!" to a suggestion like "cook a full batch." But we are making compromises here in order to keep the overall scale of the course manageable. Those compromises are based on a number of suppositions I have made, in consultation with the eGCI team, about the acceptable range of variation. In this case, yes, a single small piece of meat will not likely cook the same as a full batch. However, we will be cooking the same quantity of meat in every vessel. Since we are studying variation among vessels, this should provide us a good relative comparison. The other issue we run up against, if we start working with full batches, is what is a batch? Should the batch be measured absolutely (10 ribs per pot) or relatively (cover 50% of the bottom of each pot)? The variables never stop coming, and in theory we would want to try it both ways. Certainly, though. if you have extra meat, you should feel free to cook two, four or six short ribs in each of your vessels. I will be cooking two in each. What I would like you to avoid, however, is packing any vessel very tight. If you make multiple pieces of meat, please make sure there is at least an inch of space between each and at least an inch between the wall of the pot and any given piece.

Raw, a nice meaty short rib might run 3.5" x 1/5" x 1.5" -- though most are not even that big. In terms of browning, the way you're describing it would be one variant on the experiment. It isolates the actual simmering from the browning process. But while planning the labs, I opted for browning in each vessel that allows for browning. I think it's best for the comparison to be realistic. So, for example, if the Le Creuset Dutch oven somehow browns meat in some unique way, and if that carries through to the finished product by making it taste better, that's something worth knowing. As with any of these multi-variable tests, every variable introduces uncertainty unless you pursue it individually in a geometrically expanding number of different tests, but overall my preference is: - Brown your meat for your Le Creuset (or equivalent) in that vessel. - Brown your meat for your non-enameled metal Dutch oven in that vessel. - Brown your meat for your non-stovetop-safe vessels in a skillet, making sure to deglaze and transfer the browned bits from the skillet to the cooking vessel.

Exactly so. As mentioned above, because we're concerned with vessels not pieces, all you need to do is keep track of each vessel during cooking, and label the pieces afterwards. I would say the minimum size is about the size of a short rib, so a shank will be plenty big. The important thing is that you try to get shanks that are similar to each other, so they won't become too much of a variable. We want the meat (and the liquid, temperature, etc.) to stay constant, and we want the variable to be the cooking vessel. In terms of total number of pieces, 20 will do the trick. We may only use 19 -- some decisions in later labs will depend on results from earlier ones.

Have a look at the Lab number 1 instructions, which are separate from the course introduction.

Yes and no. The idea with Lab #1 (those of you who haven't seen the instructions yet, please click here) is not for you to use vessel singular, but rather to use vessels plural, so as to be able to compare the results of braising the same item in different vessels. Why are we doing that? Well, if you've spent three minutes reading the eG Forums or you've ever shopped for a pot at Williams-Sonoma, Sur La Table or pretty much any store where they have sales help, you've no doubt been subjected to a barrage of opinion about why this Le Creuset or that All-Clad pan will, for just $200, make your braises taste so much better. We're going to find out, among other things, whether that's true. Not only are we going to find out if different pots make a braise taste better, but also we're going to find out if they make it different at all, and if so how. So, to answer your question, the choice of vessels is up to you, based on what you have or can borrow, but the idea here is to try to use four different vessels and cook one piece of meat (each piece being the same as the others) in each, in order to compare results. Continuing with the comments in the previous passage, a three-types-of-chicken experiment (if by that you mean three different chicken recipes or three different species of bird) would not be a Lab #1 experiment, because Lab #1 is same-item/different-vessels. I would encourage you to do a three-types-of-chicken experiment whenever you like, and to share your results with us, but the day to share those results would be Friday, in the open discussion. The discussion on each of the lab days (Monday-Thursday, Labs 1-4) is more narrowly tailored to the exact experiments set forth in the lab assignments. How does this affect marking? Well, if you've got four different vessels you don't need to mark anything during cooking because the samples are (we hope) not going to get up on their own and transfer themselves from pot to pot. What you will need to do is mark the pieces after cooking, which is much easier because you don't need super-heat-proof marking technology. For me, I plan to take each sample out of its braising vessel and line them up on a platter with a Post-It note in front of each saying, for example, "From Le Creuset pot." When I store them in the refrigerator, I'll put them in sandwich-sized Zip-Loc bags, on which I'll write the same thing. Later in the week we may have some need to mark pieces while they actually cook. I haven't decided what I'll do for that, so suggestions are welcome. I personally would not hesitate to use it, and have used longer-frozen stock than that on many occasions. I'm probably defying some conservative food-safety estimates by doing so, but I do that every time I eat a rare steak.

It really depends on the size of the vessels you're planning to use, but measuring with the vessels I'm using, on average it takes about 1/2 a quart (aka a pint) to do each experiment, with each lab consisting of 4-5 experiments. Not ever experiment, however, will use stock -- a couple will use water or wine. There is also one experiment where you will use more stock than in any other (fully or almost-fully submerged braising). I've got 8 quarts ready to go but I don't expect to use them all. You can also extend your stock -- if you get to day 4 and you have 1 quart of stock but you need 2, you can just cut it in half with water or wine, or if you run out you can do all the day 4 experiments with wine.

Bartow, that will be a terrific addition to Monday's lab (aka Lab number 1). We'll be posting those instructions tonight -- once you read them, it will be very intuitive to add the tagine. jgm, one of the reasons I chose short ribs is that they don't take very long to braise. I don't want to bias anybody by giving specific times or temperatures, but when I braised short ribs for the preliminary course photos they were done in about 2.5 hours. And that's really all the time you need -- whatever time it takes to braise them (although one experiment will take a bit longer, you could always skip that one). So it's just a question of doing it as your evening activity, if you're into it. Also, you can do Monday's coursework on Sunday. I hope you'll find a way to work this in!

Fantastic. You should easily be able to adapt the lab instructions (the instructions for the first lab will go up today) to chicken.

riboflavinjoe and vue_de_cuisine, thanks for your posts. I'm going to ask that you repost those comments next Friday, when we have our open discussion about braising. Right now, we're only going to discuss the actual logistics of the lab work for this seminar. jackal10, if I understand your comment correctly, you're suggesting additional experiments. I hope you'll do some of them and report back, within the guidelines specified here and in the course introduction.

It's more than okay. It's "extra credit"! And yes, I would suggest doing them on the same day for the most immediate side-by-side comparison. The only thing I would ask with that experiment, however, is that you post the results next Friday, in the open discussion. None of the five lab experiments that we'll be working on as a group from Monday through Thursday really syncs with a comparison of different types of poultry, so it's best to save those results for Friday (of course, you can actually cook and eat the chickens any time -- it's just better for seminar logistics if you post those results on Friday). If you'd like to do any of the other experiments with chicken, that's great. What I'd suggest for some of those is maybe picking up one of those big "family packs" of legs and thighs and doing some of the experiments with them. Nobody is going to get expelled! We do, however, engage in corporal punishment. But seriously, folks, there is no need to use aromatic vegetables in any of the experiments, save for one: the aromatic vegetable experiment, which will be part of Tuesday's lab focusing on braising liquids. So you've got no problem doing any of the other experiments. If you want to have fun with science, though, when we get to next Tuesday go ahead and make a batch with aromatic vegetables (including carrots) anyway, remove the carrots after cooking and hide them far away, and have your family taste it blind against a batch that was made without aromatic vegetables. Let's see if they really hate carrots, or just think they do.

Mine are bone-in. But, Cusina, it doesn't matter. The important thing is that you use all of one or the other, so all your results will be directly comparable to each other. For myself, I'm using the bone-in short ribs because that's what the Fairway market in Manhattan always has on the shelf. In most cases, people are going to have an easier time getting bone-in than boneless, but you can certainly use either.