Boiled Beef

[emsny]

I think that in terms of one's Dining Pleasure, this whole question of losing flavor/gaining flavor is something of a red herring. My father-in-law, who was an engineer before he retired and became a full-time gardener and kibitzer, maintains that if you can smell something cooking it is losing valuable flavor molecules to the aether. He is probably right in theory.

Anyway: part of the dish that gave rise to this whole thread - rare-poached as opposed to long-boiled beef - is the spoonful or two of broth that surrounds it on the plate. Poaching the beef in a liquid - Bittman's NY Times water, my Washington Post salted-water-with-aromatics, or stock - adds flavor to the liquid and makes that part of the dish better. If it is a zero-sum game (which I guess it is, again in theory), then the diner still gets 100 per cent.

The full flavor of the beef, even after leeching out some of its goodness to the poaching medium, is attested to by the fact that, as I said in my Post story, most tasters preferred it without condiments, just with a moistening of broth, some great salt and pepper. And something I didn't say in the story was that people who really LIKE the taste of beef loved the standard version, while those who like beef probably for the caramelized crust and the salt (and the french fries - yum) preferred the spiced-wine-poached tenderloin, the recipe for which was axed at the last minute for want of space in that day's paper.

Bittman is so right about tenderloin staying tender: this is true even after re-cooking the stuff. My leftovers went into a miroton (for which the seasoned-water broth was a more than adequate sauce base - another bonus), and even after reheating to ultra-well-done they remained fork-tender.

[Jinmyo]

Well, I'm certainly convinced that this is worth a try. I wonder how well it would work for venison tenderloin?

[Fat Guy]

Let's start boiling lots of stuff. Then let's report back here. I'm thinking I might try a porterhouse tomorrow.

Maybe I should open a restaurant:

STEVE'S BOILED STEAK

I would do this in the U.S. South, so people would pronounce it "balled steak."

Or maybe I would call it:

BOILED WORLD

Like Fried World, Only Boiled

[Peter B Wolf]

Steve, why do you want to try this "boiling lots of stuff" thing? Why not ask the Chaps that live under the Crown, they been accused of boiling everything to he... Or was it the wrong stuff they boiled?

[emsny]

Boiling lots of stuff makes for one of the world's best dinners: Bollito misto. And Steven's restaurant already exists outside Verona; I can't think of the name (obviously, it isn't as catchy as any of Steven's ideas), but it serves almost nothing but bollito misto, preceded by fresh egg pasta with three choices of sauce. What beautiful words they are: "And a little slice of head, sir?".

[Fat Guy]

I don't want to stray too far from the topic of boiled beef, but I thought it was rather obvious from my previous post that my restaurant would specialize in Italian/New-England fusion cuisine. I will in fact be filming my first television commercial at the very restaurant you mention, which is called Ristorante Bollito Misto by the way. In the commercial, which will in 30 seconds tell the story of Americans from Vermont meeting their Italian relatives near Verona for the first time, the extended family will be dining on cauldrons full of boiled foods in a festive Italian environment.

Little Timmy from Vermont: "Dad, I don't want to eat the head!"

Uncle Vito from Verona: "Try-a the head. You like-a the head."

Little Timmy reluctantly takes a bite and chews, first with hesitation and then with gusto. He displays an ear-to-ear grin.

Uncle Vito: "See! What I say? He like-a the head!"

The family members, united at long last, begin to dance, while Little Timmy's sultry Italian second-cousin, Tina, gazes longingly at him with newfound admiration and respect.

Narrator: "Steve's Boiled Steak: Italy, in a Yankee pot."

[Wilfrid]

I was boiling beef this weekend, and this seems the right place to pose a question about it.  I was dealing with corned beef, rather than tenderloin, and I think I made the mistake of having a recipe intended for more tender cuts at the back of my mind (and having read this thread, I now realise it was Poumiane's recipe for boeuf a la ficelle which I looked at a few weeks ago).

In short, I was pleased with the flavor and aroma of the meat, cooked in seasoned water with juniper berries, bayleaves, onions and carrots; and the broth, once skimmed, made a nice ingredient for an unrelated tomato sauce I also made at the weekend.  I digress.

But the meat was tougher than it should have been.  Am I right in thinking that a fifteen-minutes-per-pound approach to simmering corned beef was really dumb, and that I should have been approaching it in a slower, gentler fashion?

[Fat Guy]

Wilfrid, just to be clear, you were cooking a brisket?

[Wilfrid]

Yup.

[Fat Guy]

Then the answer is yes, your approach was dumb. But you are not dumb, as we know from your intelligent contributions elsewhere on the site. So don't feel too bad about it.

Brisket is, as McGee explains in the quotes above, a tough cut high in collagen. The goal is to gelatinize that collagen. McGee uses the example of a rump roast, which he reports will have 14% of its collagen gelatinized when roasted and 52% of its collagen gelatinized when braised for 90 minutes.

[Wilfrid]

The important thing is to notice when you have done something dumb, and then to confess shamelessly.

Should I infer that 52% gelatinization is the target for a reasonably tender result?  And what about size (if I may)?  My brisket was three and a half pounds, so it got an hour (using the totally inappropriate Poumiane time scale), and then a bit more as it obviously wasn't ready.  So ninety minutes doesn't make a lot of difference if the rump roast is of comparable size to my brisket.  What about minutes per pound?  And should it be at a very gentle simmer rather than a lively one?

Grateful for your help, of course.

[Fat Guy]

I don't know for sure, but 52% sounds low to me. I'd say 100% would be the target, but I'm not sure if some residual ungelatinized collagen is useful for any particular purpose -- or perhaps you can't reach 100% gelatinization without destroying the meat. I should very much like to ask McGee about it.

In any event, I'd think you'd be looking at a minimum of 2 1/2 hours for proper braising of a big brisket. And yes, a very gentle simmer -- just a few bubbles popping up here and there -- is what you're looking for. I've found that it's not possible to predict braising times with great accuracy. Factors like thickness start to matter more than weight, it seems, especially when you break a certain size barrier. You really have to test with a fork. You want it to be fork-tender. That doesn't mean it has to release the fork effortlessly (that would mean it's overcooked) but it should let go very easily.

Anecdotally, what I've noticed is that you put a raw brisket in the braising liquid and for the first while it siezes up and becomes very tight. Then it begins to relax and soften.

[Liza]

Where and/ or who is this Stew Leonard? Or is it a command, as in "Stew, Leonard!"

[Fat Guy]

It's a wonderful supermarket with a dairy theme. Ellen documented a vist at length on eGullet awhile back.

"You'd have to own a cow to get fresher milk!"

Click for Stew's site.

[Wilfrid]

Very useful, Steven, and the anecdote is helpful too.  I will try it again.

[Bux]

McGee uses the example of a rump roast, which he reports will have 14% of its collagen gelatinized when roasted and 52% of its collagen gelatinized when braised for 90 minutes.

"Braising" would imply, to me at least, that the meat was browned first. It would also imply that the meat is not necessarily submerged in a liquid. Otherwise we're talking poaching or boiling. Nevertheless, I can't imagine that browning the surface would affect the interior very much and I suspect that braising, stewing, poaching and steaming may all have similar effects, although in different times spans.

[Fat Guy]

Bux, that's the traditional usage of the term "braising," but current restaurant technique (this I can testify to for sure) and recipe-writing convention (in some cases, at least) call for simmering braised items completely submerged in liquid, and browning is not necessarily an integral part of the process (we could have a separate thread on whether browning makes much of a difference -- in fact I think we have). I think this is the common usage such that braising is really synonymous with simmering in a flavored liquid these days. Take a look, for example, at how Daniel Boulud braises his short ribs:

http://www.danielnyc.com/recipes/ribs.htm

I assume if he's calling for three bottles of wine and three quarts of stock he wants us to cover the short ribs. Also note how he says, "Braised in red wine," indicating that the braising process is something separate from the browning process.

[ActorDan]

One of the most amusing culinary essays ever took as its subject, boiled beef or tafelspitz. Please see below. In late 19th and early 20th C. Vienna, tafelspitz was as integral to a certain sector of society as a table at Nobu. One was in fact sized up by the maitre d', upon entering the most famed tafelspitz establishment, as to which of the 53 varieties (based on the cut) of the specialty one would order.  There was a hierarchy.

Calling boiled beef "gray meat" would to an aficionado of tafelspitz be tantamount to labeling beluga caviar fish eggs.

For more on the foregoing, try this book:

"This essay form is a genre of writing for which M.F.K. Fisher is best known and for which Joseph Wechsberg is perhaps best remembered in his Blue Trout and Black Truffles (1953), a book with perennial charm and great literary polish - one of Wechsberg's essays, "Tafelspitz for the Hofrat," is now considered a classic and is widely read in American universities."

[Bux]

... how Daniel Boulud braises his short ribs:

Dust half the ribs with about 1 tablespoon flour and then, when the oil is hot, slip the ribs into the pot and sear 4 to 5 minutes on a side, until the ribs are well browned.

Also note how he says, "Braised in red wine," indicating that the braising process is something separate from the browning process

In the book (this recipe appears to be the one that appears in his Café Boulud Cookbook, although the dish may be served at both restaurants from time to time) he says "The success of the dish depends on browning the meat well at the start and tending the meat during its braising time." The question is whether or not there's a braising time if the meat is not browned. There's no question that culinary terms just like other parts of language, change over time and are frequently used rather sloppily or creatively at times depending on one's viewpoint.

[Fat Guy]

I'm certainly aware that if you look in most any culinary reference work you'll see a definition that says braising means cooking some browned meat covered 1/3 or so of the way with liquid. I'm just saying that's not how the term is used in the real world of cooking.

There are a couple of questions raised in your post: The first question is how is the term "braise" used in regular culinary discussion? And I think it's pretty clear if you talk to chefs you will find that the primary contemporary usage is that to braise means to cook completely or almost completely submerged in liquid. The second question is does braising automatically assume browning? And I think that, while most chefs assume they're going to brown most things they're going to braise, they'd probably also say that something like a blanquette de veau -- which is not browned -- is braised. When you're dealing with braised briskets, they are often not browned. For example, if you want a brisket to come out the way it does at an old-style Jewish deli, the last thing you want to do is give it a crust. It's supposed to be uniformly soft throughout. But I still think it qualifies as a braised item.

[Steve Plotnicki]

We made the Schneider recipe for dinner on Sunday night, using beef stock from Eli's as the poaching liquid. The dish was enjoyable, the meat extremely tender. But to be honest, I found the dish suffered from the same malady as most boiled beef dishes I've had in the past which is lack of intense flavor. In this instance, the condiments were crucial, especially the puckery cornichons. In fact my wife ate the leftovers tonight, and her response to my question about how was it was "plain." The Boeuf ala Ficelle I've had in Paris is the one served at D'Chez Eux. In fact, it is one of the recipes in Barbara Dannenberg's book about Parisian bistros. And I have to say, the version I ate there didn't have all that much more flavor than what we made on Sunday night.

To me boiled meat is boiled meat and ultimately the action is in the broth. I would much prefer to eat a Pot au Feu than what I had on Sunday as the bouillion really gives the dish lots of flavor. And those condiments are a much better counterpoint to the broth produced by fatty shortribs that need hours of braising than what you get from a filet roast that has been poached for a short period of time. Though I am going to reread the Wechsberg and check out the variations of boiled beef. But I have to say, they always read better than they taste.

Anyway I have never been but, isn't the famous Bollito Misto restaurant Fini in Modena? The same people who make the dried pasta. I was under the impression that they served it from a silver chariot like the Brits serve roast beef, along with something like 7-8 different condiments including the house mostarda.

[emsny]

Oh, yes, Fini - one among many restaurants that does an elaborate bollito misto presentation, and good too. But the place I was thinking of is more of a countryside/roadside operation - and EVERYBODY orders the bollito misto, though I think you can get arrosto misto too (roasted meats). I've looked it up: it is Ciccarelli, in a locality called Madonna di Dossobuono, 8km outside Verona. The guy who first took us there, probably 20 years ago or more, is no doubt horrified that it is now in the Michelin red guide - it even gets a "Bib Gourmand" icon to indicate good grub for a fair price. Gosh, I don't think I've been there in ten years!

[Steve Plotnicki]

EMSNY-Shall we open a restaurant named "Misto"? It will have, Bollito, Arrosto and of course Frito   Mistos. I actually always wanted to open a restaurant where all the food was served from carts. This could be it. Then there would be a cart that only had condiments. You know like 3 dozen condiments for the various foods. And the appetizers would be on their own cart, and then a salad cart, and then you would get to choose one of the three entree carts. Then a cheese cart, and then a dessert cart. High end filling dim sum!

Gee it would be loads of fun. And loads of food too!

[project]

There is some discussion of chemistry of meat

cooking in

    http://www.eaglequest.com/~bbq/faq2/12.html

Will look for McGee again.

Wanted to make 'stew' starting with lean cubes of

bottom round roast, and did some trials.

First efforts were to brown the cubes, cover with

water-based liquid, bring to simmer on stovetop,

cover, place in oven at, say, 325 F or 350 F, and

cook.

Results were quite uniform:  Disaster.  Meat came

out dark, hard, brittle, dry.  If cook long enough,

say, 36 hours, then the meat will crumble but

breaking as easily across fibers as between them.

Tried in a pressure cooker, on a stovetop, and at

careful lower temperatures, e.g., 180 F.

Order of events:  The meat, raw, is flexible.  The

heat of browning starts to make the meat firm.  In

the cooking liquid, as the temperature reaches, say,

170 F, the meat becomes quite firm, we could say

tough and hard.

Continued cooking causes the meat to shrink and

become dark, hard, brittle, dry.  At no time in the

interim does the meat become tender, flexible,

'succulent'.

The common view that long slow cooking will make

tough low fat meat tender is not fully true.

An EPA document on effluent from industrial

processes said that such effluent sometimes contains

acids because in cooking meats, it is important to

have the pH lower (acid, below 7, instead of basic,

above 7) so that the meat will be grey and flexible

instead of dark and brittle.

Also, many credible recipes for cooking bottom round

roast involve vinegar.

Hmm?

So, for a trial, when stewing 6 pounds of lean cubes

of bottom round roast, tossed in 1 C of Heinz

distilled white vinegar -- i.e., just simple acetic

acid at a standard concentration.  The EPA was

correct:  The vinegar was a BIG help.

Put three oven thermometers in electric oven and

adjusted the dial to get the thermometers reading

175 F.  Used two 'instant' reading thermometers and

stovetop to get meat cubes and liquid up to 175 F

quickly (food safety) and then covered and placed in

oven.

After 24 hours or so, put meat cubes in a colander.

Interesting results:

    o    Hot Flows.  For some of the trials, had a

         lot of flavor in the cooking liquid.

         E.g., took two pounds of yellow globe

         onions, chopped coarsely, and cooked

         slowly in Canola oil to a nearly uniform

         brown mush with lots of sticky lightly

         caramelized onion juice; removed; cooked 2

         pounds of sliced carrots in same oil until

         soft (GREAT tasting carrots with all the

         sweet caramelized onion and carrot juice

         and oil); added usual suspects, maybe 1

         ounce fresh parsley leaves with stems, 2

         sprigs of fresh thyme, two medium dry bay

         leaves, 2 cloves of garlic with ends

         removed, lightly crushed, lightly chopped.

         For about 10 hours, the vegetables and

         vinegar filled the kitchen and beyond with

         aromas.

         But, when the meat cubes were in the

         colander, could put face close, inhale,

         and smell everything that was there, and,

         surprisingly, could detect NOTHING of the

         flavorings in the cooking liquid.  NOTHING

         -- nichts, nie, nill, zip, zilch, zero.

         Could smell some 'beef' and maybe even a

         cow pasture or a stockyard but NOT the

         cooking liquid.  In particular, could not

         smell the vinegar.

         Conjecture:  When the meat is hot, the

         flows go only one way -- from the meat to

         the liquid.

    o    Cold Flows.  When the cooked meat cools,

         it will readily absorb water-based

         liquids.

         And, it is possible to put a lot of flavor

         into meat by marinating in cold flavorful

         marinade.

         So, at room and refrigerator temperatures,

         it is possible to get meats to absorb

         surrounding liquids and flavors.

         Lesson:  When making a beef stew, by all

         means let the cooked meat sit in the final

         dish overnight in a refrigerator so that

         the meat can absorb liquid from the stew

         'gravy'.

    o    Vinegar.  With the 1 C of vinegar, it is

         not noticeable at all in either the meat

         or the cooking liquid after 16 hours or

         more at 175 F.  So, increased the vinegar

         to 2 C.  Now the vinegar IS noticable at

         the end, in the liquid but still not in

         the meat.  So, with 2 C, the vinegar does

         not all evaporate; so we have to suspect

         that with 1 C the vinegar does not all

         evaporate and, thus, must be lost to a

         reaction of some kind.

    o    Broth.  One way to analyze what is

         happening is to keep some of the

         ingredients separate.  So, for the cooking

         liquid can use just water and vinegar.  In

         this case will get a light 'beef broth'.

         With 1 C vinegar, this broth will be

         reddish; with 2 C vinegar, the color is

         more yellow.  Generally we know that acids

         with proteins turn yellow.

         If brown the beef cubes and use 1 C

         vinegar, then the broth will be reddish

         brown.  The browning does affect the

         flavor of the broth a little but hardly

         affects the texture or appearance of the

         meat.

         Generally the beef broth is not very

         appetizing.  The smells can be strongly of

         a stockyard.

         Can remove fat from such broth, filter it,

         and clarify it:  To clarify, add one egg

         white, whip vigorously, bring to boil,

         simmer for one hour, and pour through

         paper coffee filters.  Reducing will

         result in, say, 1 C of syrup.  When cool

         the syrup can be a firm glossy jelly.  If

         the reduction goes too far and the syrup

         is burned, then result can smell a little

         like chocolate -- but then I sometimes

         think that Chinese fermented black beans

         sometimes smell a little like chocolate.

    o    Fat.  When stewing the meat, can have fat

         in the stewing liquid.  So, can have fat

         from browning onions and carrots, and can

         have fat trimmings from the meat.  It is

         not clear that such fat in the stewing

         liquid affects the texture of the meat.

         So far my trials suggest that any such

         effects are at most small.

Future trials will investigate effects of stewing

with wine with its alcohol present and effects of

marinating the meat at refrigerator temperature

before stewing.

[Fat Guy]

A fascinating project, Project. Please keep us posted.