braising and pot roasting

[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)