Braising questions

[fifi]

It also prevents the steam, condensation, drip cycle. Don't ask me what difference, if any, that makes to the braise.

I thought that is what braising is all about. But then, when I put the pot in the oven instead of on the top of the stove, there isn't much condensation going on so what do I know.

[Wolfert]

The reason I use crumbled parchment paper dipped in water is I can easily fit it over chunks of food that "stick up" over cooking liquid.

As for the layer of parchment: it helps regulate the moisture level and keeps the food in place, allowing it to literally bathe in a small amount of liquid. In many recipes of the Mediterranean, I begin with a small amount of liquid and let it slowly develop deep flavor as the food cooks.

The alternative is to boil down liquid at the last minute. The flavor is never the same.

Edited November 22, 2003 by Wolfert (log)

[snowangel]

Thanks, Paula! Nice to know that you are still poking around here. I just love being able to get an answer from the cookbook author!

[FaustianBargain]

i have been over this again and again in my notes..isnt it the same technique with different names?

[Suzanne F]

The New Food Lover's Companion (3rd edition) says:

braise  A cooking method by which food (usually meat or vegetables) is first browned in fat, then cooked, tightly covered, in a small amount of liquid at low heat for a lengthy period of time. . . .

pot roast  n: Usually an inexpensive, less tender cut of beef that is first browned, then braised very slowly in a covered pot with a little liquid. . . . pot roast  v: To cook meat by browning, then braising in a covered pot either on top of the stove or in the oven.

Does that help?

[bleachboy]

Yeah, what Suzanne said. You do braise pot roast, but you can braise other things as well. Braising is a general cooking technique, like sauteeing or poaching. Pot roast is just the name given to a braised beef roast.

[chefdg]

The New Professional Chef says "Pot Roast This common american term for braising is also the name of a traditional braised dish" I guess they are essentially the same thing. Although you would be able to "braise" cabbage, you wouldn't want to call it "pot roast cabbage".

[FaustianBargain]

dandy...for the next class, we are going to pot roast(poelage...i think it means 'pot roast' in french) a ballontine of guinea fowl...why on earth would we 'pot roast' fowl stuffed with forcemeat...i suppose we'll just be 'braising' it...i am getting ahead of myself and reading my notes way too early...the terminologies used didnt make sense to me...danke...will keep you all posted on how it goes..

[Fat Guy]

The best thing I've ever read on braising is the braising chapter of James Beard's Theory and Practice of Good Cooking. Everybody who is interested in basic cooking techniques should acquire this book, because it is organized around techniques (braising, roasting, frying, etc.) rather than in any of the more traditional cookery book schemes.

In any event, to answer this question, Beard begins his chapter on braising thus:

"Braising" is a term that is far too seldom used in our gastronomic vocabulary. You'll hear people say, "I'm making a pot roast," or "I'm going to make a stew of this meat," or "I think I'll simmer this in wine," and what it all comes down to, whether they know it or not, is braising, or cooking with moist heat, probably one of the earliest and certainly the most effective ways to tenderize tough cuts of meat, game, or mature birds, wild or domestic.

[Fat Guy]

("Poeler" is I believe another way of describing what we would call braising)

[Mark Sommelier]

("Poeler" is I believe another way of describing what we would call braising)

Poeler means to sear in a pan. A sauté pan in French is called a poele .

[FaustianBargain]

poelage definitely says 'pot roast' in my notes..however...i take it that braising meat=pot roasting(is 'potroast' an american term?)

however..when in doubt, i always look up Chef Simon ...my french is rusty, but i navigate well when there are pictures...

both braising and potroasting have three things in common..covered pot/pan/etc, on a bed of vegetables/mirepoix and covered in minimally req cooking liquid..i am sure you can 'braise' a cut of beef or pork...and then you brown it...potroast or braising...the terms seem absolutely interchangable here?

[slkinsey]

("Poeler" is I believe another way of describing what we would call braising)

Poeler means to sear in a pan. A sauté pan in French is called a poele.

Actually, un poêle means "a stove" (aka "oven"). Un poêlon means "a casserole." Une poêle à frire means "frying pan." Une poêle à sauter means "a sauté pan." Etc.

My understanging of poêler poêlé and poêlage is that they translate roughly as "to stove (something)," "stoved" and "stoveing" (or "to pan (something), "panned" and "panning"). I have commonly understood poêler and poêlage to mean cooking something very slowly in fat and a moderate amount of liquid in a tightly covered casserole in a stove. On the other hand poêlé seems to mean "pan-fried" in some uses. I suppose it depends on whether one is making a verb of stove or pan.

I've never heard poêle used to mean "sauté pan" specifically, as opposed to just being a general-purpose word for "pan." AFAIK, a sauté pan is most commonly called a sauteuse.

[Fat Guy]

That's my understanding too Sam. Most recently I've seen "poeleed" foie gras on the menu at Ducasse NY to mean pan-seared, whereas I was just googling for poeler and got "Poeler: A mode of braising meat, covered" from ChefDirect. I hope we can get Jack Lang to comment here because on the Boris_A foodblog thread he posted some serious etymology research on this very question.

[chefdg]

Now that we are on the tangent: At school we learned Poele of Pousson (sp) is a butter roasted small bird. This may be one of those "food tornedos" I mentioned in another thread.

[Suzanne F]

Sorry, Sam and FG, but according to my New Cassell's French Dictionary, published by Funk & Wagnalls, the FIRST definition for poêle is:

n.f.Frying-pan. Tenir la queue de la poêle  to run the show; tomber de la poêle dans le feu, to jump out of the frying-pan into the fire.

The second definition is "stove." Third is "Pall (at a funeral)," as in pall-bearer.

Julia Child, in Volume 1 of Mastering the Art of French Cooking (page 6) says:

A chef's skillet, poêle, has sloping sides and is used for browning and tossing small pieces of food like mushrooms or chicken livers; the long handle makes it easy to toss rather than turn the food. A sauté pan, sautoir, has straight sides and is used for sautéing small steaks, liver, or veal scallops, or foods like chicken that are browned then covered to finish their cooking in the sauté pan.

I have always known poêlée to mean cooked in a skillet.

Edited July 12, 2004 by Suzanne F (log)

[Shalmanese]

I thought I had braising figured out, you suspend meat in a liquid at a temperature such that the middle stays at medium rare for long enough that the collagen turns to gelatin. Whan you end up with is tender meat because the collagen is gone and moist meat because none of the water has been squeezed out. Indeed, that's what I've been doing for some time and it's produced excellent results.

But while trying a Beef Bourguignon from egullet, I had crappy supermarket round eye (hey, it was cheap) that were way too thin because apparently uneducated people like buying things that look like steak even though you can't cook it like steak. By the time in was browned, the meat inside was an inedible well done.

Not wanting to waste it, I proceeded ahead with the recipe and, for some bizarre reason, around the 2 hour mark, the beef suddenly turned from dry and inedible to fall apart tender all within the span of 20 minutes or so. Now, this does not fit with my understanding of braising. It always seemed to me that meat which was ruined stayed ruined yet apparently this is not so.

Got any suggestions why?

[culinary bear]

How much of the cooking wine went into the braising pot as opposed to your glass? :)

I've had a similar thing happen; I shall mull it over and see if my brain copes.

[RETREVR]

Shal- I always end up on the same threads as you. We must have common interests.

You are part right and part wrong.

What do you mean by "suspend".

When I braise I add liquid 3/4 of the way up the side of the meat. If you are covering it, then you are stewing more so than braising.

If you mean "suspend" as in to keep at a temperature appropriate to medium rare, then that is not really true. Braises may be done a moderate temperature. However, even in a 200'f oven, your cooking time will bring the cut well above a temperature consistent with medium rare.

You are on the right track about breaking down the collagen though.

Last week, I had a gig coming up at a barrel race. I had a bunch of eye of round in the freezer with no real use for it. I decided to make BBQ sandwiches with it, knowing that I had a battle on my hands with this cut. The cut really doesn't have enough fat and connective tissue on it to compete with other more appropriate cuts. I cooked it regardless. I actually roasted it, sliced it, and then simmered it in sauce for ....oh....about a day and a half. If eventually broke down and was ok.

I don't think it is true that the meat juices are staying in the meat in a braise. They are cooking out, mingling with the braising liquid and then being sucked back into the cut...along with all the flavor of the braising liquid.

I need to go back a read some stuff on real BBQ. Those guy are able to breakdown a brisket using dry low heat.

[Shalmanese]

Well, I don't quite know what is going on then because my meat consistently comes out with a tinge of pink in the middle when I cook it in my normal braise/stew manner. I know theoretically that the meat should get well above Med-Rare temps but it doesn't seem to be happening. Perhaps next time, I'll try stick a thermometer in a large chunk of meat and see what temps in reaches.

I know technically that a stew means more liquid than meat and braise means more meat than liquid but does it actually affect the end outcome? I always assumed that the reason for the small amount of liquid was for better reduction into a sauce.

So which of these situations would keep meat edible:

Hard boil for 24 hours

Hard boil for 2 hours, simmer for 24 hours

simmer for 24 hours, hard boil for 2 hours

[MobyP]

The first thing you should do is read Jack Lang's science class on meat.

Medium rare is in the 130-140 range, and with braising - as someone pointed out above - you're dealing in the sub-200F range. I noticed too that when you cut into a piece of braised meat (when cold), you find some which is slightly pink. This is probably the part has remained both unoxidised, and also the wine stock mixture hasn't permeated that far. But it isn't medium rare, under any circumstances.

The reason boot leather meat suddenly becomes tender is because the collagen surrounding the muscle strands gelatinizes - a state between solid and liquid. This is an intermediate state though, and if you keep cooking, the collagen will drain out, leaving dry but stringy meat. Some cook short ribs for 3-5 hours at 275 (Keller), and others at 190 for 7-9 hours (Blumenthal). The point is to gelatinize the collagen, not how you do it.

A quote from Jack's class:

Collagen starts to turn into gelatin and dissolve at around 60C/140F. This process (and also the fat melting) takes energy. Experienced BBQ cooks know that during the long slow smoking of brisket there is a "temperature stall" at around 72C/165F, where the internal temperature, instead of continuing to climb, stays steady for a long time before increasing again. That is the period the collagen is converting to gelatin. Once the temperature starts to climb again the conversion is complete, and the meat is tender. Any more cooking tends to dry the meat without improving tenderness.

Heston Blumenthal says that softening the collagen also improves even normally tender cuts of meat, such as the roast beef above. He suggests holding the temperature of the beef for up to 10 hours at 55C/130F (longer will start to generate ‘off’ flavors) to make beef that is "unbelievably tender."

It doesn't really matter if you cover the meat by a third (Judy Rogers) or completely (Daniel Boulud). The cops won't kick down your door and bust you on it. The only issue is how much work you want to put into cleaning up your sauce afterwords - straining, removing the veg, and reducing the liquid to a sauce consistency.

Edited January 20, 2005 by MobyP (log)

[Shalmanese]

Okay, it was pink when hot but why does wet cooking lead a piece of well-done meat to be pink while dry cooking makes it grey? So your saying that excess simmering would have meant my meat just fell apart?

[MobyP]

As to the first part, I'm not sure.

The second part - yes. If the temperature was sufficient, eventually the collagen would drain away, leaving the meat dry and stringy, and various other chemical reactions would take place (Jack - where are you!).

[MobyP]

What I want to know - as I have yet to do this - is: can you measure the 165F 'temperature stall' in something like short ribs with a probe thermometer? Are they perfectly done when they reach 170F? Are they better at 168F? And is it a meat-wide temperature, or only at the centre? And is this also true for brisket etc?

[Dave the Cook]

On the pinkness: I'm not certain, but my guess is that submersion in liquid prevents oxidation, even though the meat temperature rises far above well-done temperatures. Color isn't always a reliable indicator -- think of cured meats and how they maintain their pink color, even through long cooking times. I've also seen rack of lamb seared, then put in a vacuum pouch with a marinade for a day. Even though it was cooked to only 130 F, it was uniformly gray inside.