Q&A: Braising

[Marlene]

Does the marinade have salt in it?

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Yes, the marinade calls for 1 1.2 tsp of corse salt.

[Wolfert]

I would love to know her reasoning.

Until then, I'm going to stick to seasoning the meat just as it goes into the pot whether I brown it or not since this method works for me.

[Fat Guy]

Many thanks to you all for your rigorous work and reporting.  My question has to do with the amount of materials in the oven: do you think the results would have been any different for the foil pan in day #1 if there had not been so many other more heavy and dense containers sharing the same cooking space?  Or is that the point...it was generally inferior because of it's flimsiness?  I'm certainly not a scientist, but I've noticed that my new oven has an oven capacity that is greater than my old.  When I use it with one pot, I have to lower the temp about 25-30 degrees, but when I have several items cooking in it, the normal temp works just fine.  I monitor the actual oven temperature, and it seems to be fine (does not run hotter than the old). 

What do you think?

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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.

[lilyspence]

Thanks again for this most informative workshop. I'm braising my short ribs tonight in my Calphalon dutch oven, and reheating and saucing them tomorrow, or maybe even the next day. They went in a wine marinade (Shiraz) yesterday, with the salt. If anything unexpected happens, I'll let you know.

[Marlene]

I would love to know her reasoning.

Until then, I'm going to stick to seasoning the meat just as it goes into the pot whether I brown it  or not since this method works for me.

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I'm not sure. As I re-read the recipe she notes that the salt should be sprinkled over the ribs then the marinade poured over top.

[ChefDanBrown]

Ther was one variation on cooking liquid that I didn't get to do during the seminar, but I'm driven to investigate. I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with braising in milk, I believe it was pork chops that I read about in Marcel Hazan's book, but I can't remember for sure. If anyone has recipes or experience in this area (the one area I'm really concerned about is the milk curdling if it's heated with the dish, and I'm not sure if avoiding other acids or heating the milk separately is the smartest way to tackle this one), can you please share it with me? If not, I guess I'll just go for it, although another braised meat is definitely going to have to wait a week or two.

[Wolfert]

Dan: Perhaps this recipe for a Basque version might be of interest to you: Porc Frais au lait or PORK COOKED IN MILK

I haven't made it in years, but I do remember liking it very much.

There is a Venetian dish called arrosto di maiale al latte (pork loin braised in milk), described by Elizabeth David, which is somewhat similar to this one. I’m not sure where the recipe originated, but it appears prominently in Maïté Escurignan’s marvelous work on Basque cookery.

Though red meats become more succulent and tender when cooked slowly in liquid, white meats, such as pork or veal, sometimes end up stringy and without much taste. Here is a recipe that solves that problem: a pork loin is submerged in flavored milk and slowly cooked at a low temperature. The small quantity of butterfat in the milk “swims” through the meat, and the milk keeps the loin totally moist.

Unlike in many braises, the pork is not browned first. Long, slow simmering in a fatty substance will make the lean meat juicy, and, at the same time, the meat will be virtually fat-free when removed from the cooking medium. Only after the cooking do you brown the pork.

•Begin 1 to 2 days in advance

SERVES 6

3 to 3 1/2 pounds boneless center-cut pork loin, trimmed of excess fat

2 garlic cloves, cut into slivers

Coarse kosher salt

1/4 cup finely chopped carrots

1/4 cup finely chopped onions

2 tablespoons finely sliced leek (white part only)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 quart whole milk

1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper

Herb bouquet: 3 sprigs parsley, 1 sprig thyme, and 1 bay leaf tied together

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

1. A day or 2 IN ADVANCE, stud the pork loin with slivers of garlic. Rub the surface of the pork loin with salt; cover loosely and keep refrigerated.

2. About 4 HOURS BEFORE SERVING, preheat the oven to 300°F. In a 3- or 4-quart flameproof casserole, cook the carrots and onions in the butter over moderately low heat until soft but not brown, about 5 minutes. Place the pork roast on top of the vegetables.

3. In a saucepan, heat the milk until bubbles appear around the edge of the pan; pour over the pork. Add the pepper and herb bouquet. Cover and place on the lowest rack of the oven to cook for 3 hours. Turn the meat every hour so that it cooks evenly.

4. Remove the casserole and raise the oven temperature to 375°F. Transfer the meat, fat side up, to a large baking dish and return to the oven. Roast uncovered until browned, about 20 minutes.

5. Meanwhile, strain the milk cooking juices, pushing down on the milk solids that have separated out in the cooking. Quickly chill in larger bowl of ice and water or put in the freezer so the fat rises to surface. Remove and discard fat.

6. Return the sauce to the casserole and bring to a boil with a metal spoon on the bottom to prevent boiling over. Reduce by two thirds, about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

7. Slice the meat and arrange on a serving platter. Spoon the sauce over the slices and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

c\Wolfert. 1983, 2005

[Smithy]

So the conclusion seems to be that the meat doesn't taste much different depending on how it was browned or even whether it was browned.  However, do you think the sauce would be different?

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The sauce seemed to be different in my test. I plan a more careful series of tests to confirm this, but I thought the sauce from deglazing the stovetop steel (not nonstick) pan was richer, more complex and darker than the other sauces.

For that matter, I also thought there were some differences in the meat texture and taste - but they were admittedly minor, not as noticeable as the sauce differences. I'll know more tonight when I reheat the samples.

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It's tonight. I didn't label the samples. One sample is more tender than the others, but I don't know which one it is, except that it is one of the meats that had been browned beforehand.

How do I know? By the juices, or sauces, whatever you want to call them. (I haven't bothered reducing them, so they're runny but flavorful.) Three are indistinguishable. The fourth is different in appearance, texture, and to some degree taste. It was like this last night too, and even though I've lost the labels I know that this one dish had the unseared meat.

The unbrowned-meat sauce separates readily into two layers, with the top layer a clear, maybe golden, maybe colorless, liquid. (It's difficult to be sure of the color, given the small sample.) It gives the bowl juice a halo effect, of light golden color around the reddish sauce. The browned-meat sauces all are more homogenous, with no halo from having a clear layer floating atop a darker layer. The juices look somehow more coagulated. I can taste the wine, meat juice and spices in all 4 samples, but the unbrowned-meat-braise-juice tastes, erm, lighter somehow. I tried to photograph the differences, but now as I'm previewing the post I don't think they came out. I won't bother casual readers with them, but they're in my Braising Lab 3+ album in case anyone else is interested enough to look.

I poured the juices into small glasses to see how they'd separate. The top layer of the unbrowned-meat juice was clearer than the layer below and the top layer of the browned-meat juices was cloudier than the layer below.

I haven't a clue of the chemistry behind what I'm seeing, or what it might mean for making a sauce, or what it says about the braising method. Either setup tastes fine, but they're different. Why? Enquiring minds want to know!

[...tm...]

Ther was one variation on cooking liquid that I didn't get to do during the seminar, but I'm driven to investigate. I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with braising in milk, I believe it was pork chops that I read about in Marcel Hazan's book, but I can't remember for sure. If anyone has recipes or experience in this area (the one area I'm really concerned about is the milk curdling if it's heated with the dish, and I'm not sure if avoiding other acids or heating the milk separately is the smartest way to tackle this one), can you please share it with me? If not, I guess I'll just go for it, although another braised meat is definitely going to have to wait a week or two.

Meat braised in milk is a common fallback recipe for me. I've done many cuts of pork, beef, and chicken leg quarters. I was just going to say that I liked the chicken the best, but I hink that is just because that is the last one in my memory. Lefovers are especially good and fairly versatile--they can be served over any sort of starch--pasta, mashed potatoes, rice, bread, etc.

Anyway, I usually brown the meat on the stovetop, set aside while I sautee a mirepoix (sometimes plus garlic and root vegetables), then add meat back to the pan, add milk about halfway up, and bring up to a simmer, then place in a 300 degree oven for about two hours. The milk is usually somewhat chunky at this point, but even if it isn't I take the meat out (and pick it from the bone, if necessary) and blend the milk/aromatics. I usually reduce the milk sauce on the stovetop for a little bit before serving. This not only make the sauce a bit thicker, it caramelizes it a bit, which is epecially good with pork.

Now that I think about it, I think I did like the chicken best because a lot of gelatin was produced as I braised it with the skin, cartilage, and bones. It was seriously like some sort of meaty-milk jello mold in the refrigerator the next day. And that's a good thing.

[Fat Guy]

"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.

[Wolfert]

I haven't a clue of the chemistry behind what I'm seeing, or what it might mean for making a sauce, or what it says about the braising method. Either setup tastes fine, but they're different. Why? Enquiring minds want to know

In the French Southwest, I learned a neat trick to extract from the scum-like bottom layer of solids from your cooled down sauce all its wonderfully intense flavor, and end up with a clear sauce rich enough to coat a spoon lightly.

Here is how to do it: after straining the sauce and pressing down on all the solids with the back of a spoon; cool the entire sauce down; remove all the fat that rises; discard or save for cooking; put the remaining liquid (scum and clear) in a small wide saucepan; and set over heat to bring to a boil. Now, shove the saucepan half off the heat and cook at a slow boil, skimming off all the scum-like solids that rise to the top on the cool side of the liquid for about 10 minutes, or until reduced enough to coat a spoon lightly.

This really works though it might take longer than 10 minutes if you have lots of sauce.

Edited February 20, 2005 by Wolfert (log)

[Bella S.F.]

Lean meat such as leg of lamb and rack of lamb are better roasted, steamed, or grilled. The shank, the shoulder and the neck with the bone in are the ideal cuts for Moroccan tagines.

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A question for you. I recently made a cassoulet and then an "Afghani Lamb and Onion Stew". Both recipes called for lamb shoulder. I called two different butchers and each told me that they did not carry lamb shoulder, but that I could/should use leg of lamb. They both said that the meat would be more tender. I did, and both dishes were quite wonderful. However, I am wondering now if I should have tried harder to find lamb shoulder. Would there have been any difference? I know... I need to find a better butcher.

Thanks!

[Ducky]

This is a brilliant thread - which I discovered too late to participate. One question: Are there some conclusions about braising of general application that could be made after all these experiments? Or is the conclusion that the vagaries of equipment, cuts of meat and method make it difficult to formulate any conclusions of general application?

[slkinsey]

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.

Steven,

If I may, I will suggest my eGCI class on cookware for a more comprehensible and accurate description of what heat capacity is and how it applies to cookware.

Here is a quotation from the relevant section:

Heat Capacity

Thus far we have mostly been talking about heat in its pure scientific sense: as it relates to the transfer of thermal energy.  Now, we will turn out attention to the second meaning of heat, as it relates to internal thermal energy.  Every object  -- for our purposes, every chunk of metal -- can not only be described as being at a certain temperature, but also as holding a certain amount of heat.  For example, if we have a one pound piece of iron and a five pound piece of iron, both at 200 degrees C, it doesn’t take too much thinking to wrap our minds around the idea that the 5 pound piece of iron is holding more heat than the smaller piece.  This is easily understood by nothing more than the fact that it had to sit on the stove a lot longer before it came up to temperature.  A more scientific experiment would be to drop each piece of iron into equal sized containers of water and measure how much the temperature of the water goes up in each container.  If you do this experiment, you will find that the water in the container with the large piece of iron is significantly warmer than the water in the container with the smaller piece.  This is because the large piece of iron stores more heat than the small piece, even at the same temperature.

As it turns out, various materials differ in their ability to store heat.  In other words, some materials can hold more heat at a given temperature than others.  For example, a one pound chunk of aluminum holds a lot more heat than a one pound chunk of copper at the same temperature.  The scientific term that quantifies a material’s heat storage capabilities is called Specific Heat.  Specific heat is the amount of heat it takes to raise one unit of a substance by one degree.  The most common way specific heat is expressed is the amount of heat, measured in Joules it takes to raise one gram of a substance by one degree Kelvin, or: Joules per gram per degree Kelvin (J/g K).  That said, you may also see specific heat expressed as British thermal units per pound per degree Fahrenheit (Btu/lb F) or calories per gram per degree Celsius (cal/g C) and so forth depending on the measurement system used.  We’ll stick with good old J/g K for this article.

Confused yet?  It gets even more complicated. We also need to settle on a reference standard.  Specific heat is not an absolute measurement like a meter or a kilogram.  A meter is an absolute quantity -- something that is a meter long is a meter long and something that is two meters long is twice the length of a meter.  Temperature systems, on the other hand, work differently.  Take the Celsius scale, for example...  the values of 1 and 100 are arbitrarily set at the freezing and boiling points of water.  Why?  Why are there 100 units between the freezing and boiling points of water?  Is 20C twice as hot as 10C?  How?  Well, as it so happens, water has an unusual ability to hold a lot of heat, so scientists have arbitrarily designated the specific heat of water as 1.  Thus, all specific heat measurements are given relative to the specific heat of good old H2O.  The illustration below lists the specific heat values for the most commonly used cookware materials.

As we can see, aluminum has a very high specific heat indeed – over double that of iron.  This would lead us to conclude that a one pound chunk of aluminum holds more heat than a one pound chunk of iron at the same temperature.  But wait...  cast iron is supposed to hold the most heat, right?  Yes and no.  It is true that the chunk of aluminum holds more than the chunk of iron, but we haven’t accounted for the density of the materials.  The illustration below shows the density of the same materials.

OK... now we can see that iron is a lot more dense than aluminum.  A one pound piece of aluminum would be almost three times the size of a one pound piece of iron.  Since cookware is described in terms of its thickness (i.e., the volume of the materials rather than the weight) it is more useful for us to understand the heat carrying capabilities of a given volume of metal rather than a given mass of metal.  To obtain these figures, we can simply multiply the specific heat by the density to arrive at specific heat per cubic centimeter.

Now the picture looks completely different, doesn’t it?  Aluminum is way down there on the bottom, iron and copper are in the middle, and steel is up at the top.  These are much more useful numbers that more accurately reflect the way materials are deployed in cookware.  A understanding of these numbers can take us a long way towards understanding the difference between a 3 mm thick aluminum bottom and a 7 mm thick aluminum bottom -- also between a 3 mm thick aluminum bottom and a 2 mm thick copper bottom.  This is because we can use these numbers to understand the Heat Capacity of various cookware.

Heat Capacity is the term we will use to describe the total heat holding capabilities of an entire piece of cookware.  For example, if we have an 11 inch sauté pan with a 7 mm thick aluminum bottom, we can calculate the heat capacity of that base.  If I plug in a radius of 14 centimeters (half of the 11 inch diameter) and a height of .7 centimeters into this handy online calculator we get a volume of 431 cubic centimeters.  Multiplying that by the specific heat per cc number from above, we get an overall heat capacity of 1043.  Now let us compare this aluminum bottom to a copper bottom at 2.5 mm.  The volume of the copper bottom is much smaller -- only 154 cubic centimeters.  Using the number for copper from above, we arrive at an overall heat capacity of 531, or around half that of the aluminum bottom.  This may seem fairly esoteric, but in fact we have just used materials data to compare a 67 dollar Sitram Profisserie sauté pan with a 7 mm aluminum base to a 140 dollar Sitram Catering sauté pan with a 2.5 mm copper base.  What does this tell you?  It tells you that you’re better off buying the cheaper pan if you want a sauté pan with a high heat capacity so you can dump a whole bunch of stuff into it all at the same time.

A good way to conceptualize heat capacity is to return to our “heat bucket” illustration from above.

The illustration above shows the difference between two otherwise similar cooking vessels made with different amounts of the same material.  Because they are made from the same material, the thermal conductivity (as illustrated by the size of the faucets) is the same.  As we can see, the pan made with more material has a larger heat bucket and is able to hold more heat at a given temperature -- it has a larger heat capacity.

Where this pokes a hole in your "aluminum is best for braising due to heat capacity" argument is that, while aluminum does have a higher heat capacity then iron by weight, iron is so much more dense than aluminum that an iron vessel with approximately the same dimensions as an aluminum vessel will have a far greater heat capacity. In order for an aluminum braising pot to have the same (not better, just the same) heat capacity as an iron braising pot of the same size, it would have to be quite a bit thicker. Iron also has the significant advantage for low/slow cooking of having relatively poor thermal conductivity (aluminum has fairly high thermal conductivity). This means that, if the heat is removed from two "equal" braising pots, the aluminum pot will cool down more rapidly. Iron's low conductivity is especially beneficial for those who have an electric stove and wish to braise on the stovetop: although the burner may cycle on and off, the actual temperature of a heavy iron pot won't change that much.

[Wolfert]

Please somehow fit in braising in claypots. I've been braising in claypots for forty-five years and just might be able to offer some commentary from time to time.

[Smithy]

Please somehow fit in braising in claypots. I've been braising in claypots for forty-five years and just might be able to offer some commentary from time to time.

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I don't know whether you were addressing that request to slkinsey in particular, but if you weren't, I will. I didn't much like my clay pot braising results the first night, but as the nights progressed and I continued recombining the meat and juice and reheating them in their pot, that sample became one of my favorites. I doubt that the clay has either the heat content or heat conductivity of the metals. Therefore I think there must be something else going on to explain the clay pot results, and I'm guessing it's related to the way the pores inside the pot exchange moisture and flavors with the meat and juice. What does the materials expert think?

I certainly plan to do more braising in the clay pot vs. the Le Creuset and All-Clad, to see what happens as my technique and control improve. It may be that certain flavor combinations benefit more from the earthy pot flavor than others do.

I have a clay pot question right away, for Ms. Wolfert: do they take on the flavors of the foods cooked in them to the point that you reserve some for certain types of food? If so, which do you segregate?

Finally, thank you Wolfert for the note above about clarifying the sauce. That's a neat trick, and I have a lot of juice on which to try it.

Edited February 20, 2005 by Smithy (log)

[Smithy]

This is a brilliant thread - which I discovered too late to participate. One question: Are there some conclusions about braising of general application that could be made after all these experiments? Or is the conclusion that the vagaries of equipment, cuts of meat and method make it difficult to formulate any conclusions of general application?

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Ducky, as noted in Fat Guy's post to which slkinsey responded in the post right after yours, we all had more satisfactory results in cookware with a higher heat capacity. For ease of figuring you can take that as "more massive" but that isn't the whole story, as slkinsey's explained so well. Beyond that it got down to technique, equipment and to some extent personal taste. I had better results in the oven; a couple of the others did better on stovetop. I think I was the only person who tried a clay pot, and I really liked that too.

[Wolfert]

I have a clay pot question right away, for Ms. Wolfert: do they take on the flavors of the foods cooked in them to the point that you reserve some for certain types of food? If so, which do you segregate

I should explain that I only know the cooking of the Mediterranean and the French Southwest and their claypot cooking styles.

In Morocco, fish is almost always cooked in an unglazed pot called a tagra (see photo below). Not because of fear of flavor transfer but the shape is more 'fish-like'

Before I can share what I know about claypot cooking I need to know which pot you were using. So many types of glazes, clays, additions of such minerals as mica, and shapes have a lot to do with the outcome of your braise.

[Smithy]

I have a clay pot question right away, for Ms. Wolfert: do they take on the flavors of the foods cooked in them to the point that you reserve some for certain types of food? If so, which do you segregate

I should explain that I only know the cooking of the Mediterranean and the French Southwest and their claypot cooking styles.

In Morocco, fish is almost always cooked in an unglazed pot called a tagra (see photo below). Not because of fear of flavor transfer but the shape is more 'fish-like'

Before I can share what I know about claypot cooking I need to know which pot you were using. So many types of glazes, clays, additions of such minerals as mica, and shapes have a lot to do with the outcome of your braise.

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Well, I can answer some of those questions, but my Egyptian isn't good enough to have all the answers!

In Egypt they call this particular pot a tagine, pronounced more or less "DAjin" with a broad 'a' as in 'ahh', and I picked it and the smaller bowls up because I like using them for moussaka. This type of clay cookware is as common as dirt around Luxor, and fortunately as cheap. They're unglazed. I think the clay must come from the stuff mined for the many potteries now - from somewhere near Aswan? can't remember where. Some potters closer to Cairo told me that the present conservation rules forbid using arable land from the Nile Valley for getting clay, so dry material is mined in the desert, brought in sacks of dry powder to the valley factories, and then mixed with water to make pottery clay.

The initial cure involves coating the pot interior with molasses ("asl aswad") and cooking it in the oven in low heat for a long time. Temperature and time eluded our language skills. I've managed so far not to break anything. I think really well-seasoned pots may have a heavier coating.

Here are a top view of the larger pot that I used as well as one of the individual bowls. That's an orange in front, for size comparison. The side view of the tagine gives a better idea of its shape.

And yes, I know this is totally different than a Moroccan tagine. Someday I hope to lay my hands on one of those babies. I've never seen them in Egypt.

Edited to correct a trivial detail on the mining and shipping process, and an incorrect pronunciation note.

Edited February 21, 2005 by Smithy (log)

[andiesenji]

When I was working in Southwest France back in the late 70's and early 80's, I studied briefly with a chef named André Guillot, now gone about 10 years. He used to give cooking courses for chefs and enthusiatic cooks in Santons in Provence.

    Among his most famous fans  were Marc Meneau, Gerard Vie, Jean Marie Amat, Emil Jung and Richard Olney. In fact,  we formed an Association of the Friends of Andre Guillot to keep his name alive, but alas he is almost forgotten today.

    One of his most memorable tips for salting meat included the following:" lightly salt the meat the minute you bring it home. If you do this, you will hardly need to salt later, and in the end you’ll use half as much salt as you would normally. Lightly salted meat will tenderize and mature in flavor when stored overnight in the refrigerator. "

  He also taught me that though some blood will run out, he considered it insignificant. In fact, he  suggested that meat be coated lightly with grape-seed oil right after the salting to keep it from drying out; he prefered grape-seed oil, because it smoked at a much higher temperature than other oils.

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I wonder if this was a process taught years ago but that somehow fell out of favor. The first classes in the French method of cooking that I attended were taught by a Chef Gregoire.

He was quite adamant about salting meat as soon as it was cut. (We started out by getting instruction in how to cut portions of meats from large pieces.) The meat was salted then placed in a colander set in a pan in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, then rinsed, oiled and wrapped for use in our recipes the following day. (Our classes were on Monday and Tuesday, the two days his restaurant was closed.)

I don't recall that any of us ever asked him specifically why we were to do this. We were all so in awe of this man that we accepted just about everything he told us as gospel. One classmate did mention that the process was similar to koshering and the Chef replied that if we bought kosher meat we could skip the salting process as it was already sans sang.

[Fat Guy]

Where this pokes a hole in your "aluminum is best for braising due to heat capacity" argument is that, while aluminum does have a higher heat capacity then iron by weight, iron is so much more dense than aluminum that an iron vessel with approximately the same dimensions as an aluminum vessel will have a far greater heat capacity. 

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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.

[Wolfert]

Smithy: your pots are beautiful.

I need to re-read the whole thread to refresh my memory but the shallow round one with a good cover probably stood up to the best Staub.

Meantime, check out www.tagines.com for very inexpensive unglazed tagines. The one from Ourika has some mica in it and really holds heat and cooks meat beautifully on top of the stove using a flame tamer if you have electric burners or very low heat over gas.

The one from the Rif is great for cooking a chicken whole among other things. This also should be used on top of the stove. I also bake cakes in the bottom part in the oven.

Here is my recipe for home-curing an unglazed tagine from Morocco:Soak both parts of the tagine in water to cover for 3 or 4 hours; Drain and dry; Rub top and bottom inside and out with olive oil; Put on gloves and rub wood ash (from the fireplace) all over the two parts; and set in a 250 oven and let bake overnight.

Cool down the two parts, wipe away the excess ash, rub again with olive oil and let dry in the oven for an hour or two. Wash and dry the two parts and you are now ready to braise Moroccan style in a tagine on top of the stove.

Edited February 20, 2005 by Wolfert (log)

[slkinsey]

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.

What I am suggesting is that, in the real world, the walls of a Calphalon pot will never be thick enough that it has the same heat capacity as a Staub pot of the same internal diameter and height. Of some significance is the fact that the traditional enameled cast iron casserole has a very heavy iron lid, which adds to the overall thermal capacity of the pan.

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.

Yes, that might be true in certain circumstances. The deal with Corningware and Pyrex is that they have a low thermal capacity per unit volume because they have low density compared to metal. As a result they would need to be gigantically thick in order to match a cooking vessel with the same internal diameter and height in either iron or aluminum.

What I'm reading from the lab results in terms of cooking vessels is that the traditional vessels seem to be the best choices. That means heavy enameled cast iron (and perhaps also clay/ceramic, for different reasons).

[Fat Guy]

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.

[ahr]

The side walls of a Calphalon Commercial 2.5 quart low-rise (8.5x3") saucepan, which I bought mostly because it cost only $17, are fully 3/8" thick. I'll bet it will do a heckuva stovetop braise-for-one (or -two).