Best beef for stew?

[LilianNY]

I tried to make the Peruvian beef stew w cilantro that they serve at Flor de Mayo. Bought stew beef from citarella's (i believe it is sirloin tip). Browned in batches and then slowly simmered in liquid for close to two hours. with veggies cilantro onion garlic beef broth wine. The chunks of beef, while not horrible, tasted too dried out and didn't have that "sweet" meat taste when I was done. Should I be using a fattier cut? Should I do it w less liquid? in the oven? help!

[Gifted Gourmet]

In my opinion and from my personal experience, the best stewing beef comes from well-marbled meat that is tough and full of connective tissue... This will deliver a richer taste when broken down by long cooking. The stew meat that I select comes from the chuck and the round. Hope this helps!

[battleofthebulge]

Hmm not sure why this didn't work so well but yes, I would always recommend a relatively fatty cut, and don't cut the cubes small. I often don't bother browning (heresy to some!) and I'd cook for about 3 hours in a very low oven, in a stockpot with added greaseproof paper to keep a good seal. I think having too much heat to begin with dries out the meat, after which it's difficult to resurrect just through the stew liquids. Did you use plenty of onions? I find they somehow add to the 'juiciness' of the stew.

edited for spelling

Sarah

Edited October 15, 2005 by battleofthebulge (log)

[LilianNY]

i didn't add a lot of onions. i don't think the flor de mayo dish had that many either or i would have noticed. the stew flavor itself was fine. just the meat was not the firm yummy way it should taste in a stew.

[rjwong]

I was reading through Harold McGee's book, "On food and cooking" (rev. ed.), and on pg. 163, there is a section titled "Guidelines for succulent braises and stews." I'll try to summarize:

Summary:

The key is to cook slowly to a minimum of 160-180 F / 70-80 C gradually for a prolonged time (one or 2 hours). The meat should be cut into relatively large pieces (at least 1 inch / 2.5 cm on a side). Start the stew with a cold oven, set the thermostat to 200 F / 93 C  so the stew heats up to about 120 F / 50 C, slowly for over two hours.

As expected, McGee gets into the technical aspects of stewing. You can read all the details in his book. My overall impression with McGee's book is definitely stew your meat ... slowly ... It seems to me that using a crock pot is ideal for making a stew.

I hope this helps.

[Ben Hong]

It mostly has to do with the meat. Blade, chuck, shortribs, etc. are well marbled and has a lot of connective tissue which gives stew that richness and texture. I find that the lean cuts cannot give you the mouth feel and taste. Round steak is absolutely the worst in this regard, as it gets a "powdery" texture when cooked with stew times. Agreed that s-l-o-w cooking is the best way.

[slkinsey]

I agree with everyone: It's the meat and it's the technique.

IMO, the chuck at Citarella is too lean and doesn't have enough connective tissue -- it's too pretty. I made a beef and cauliflower tagine using chuck I bought at Oppenheimer Prime Meats (and which was cut to order from a massive hunk of chuck) and the meat was one of the most tender I've ever had. I made the same exact tagine a month later using beef from Citarella and it was dry.

Keeping below-the-simmer temperatures as recommended by McGee also makes a big difference (one reason why tagines can be so tender).

[Luckylies]

cierella does not sell fatty meats. even if you beg (i've tried) everything is trimmed to hell....just quit and go to a real butcher. it's just not worth it to spend more for less. I've had some luck woith jeffferson market (if you are downtown)

oxtails are great for stews. yum.

[Shalmanese]

Hrmm.. it seems what everyone seems to be dancing around is the fact that meat begins to have significant chemical changes from about 55C to about 70C. In fast cooking, this would normally correspond to going from Rare to Well Done with a subsequent loss in moisture. Thus, it seems logical that the optimal way to stew is to raise the meat to around 65C which corresponds to medium rare and then leave it there until all the collagen dissolves into gelatine.

Using a temperature probe and a low oven seems like it should produce the best, albeit longest cooking stew. Can a stew be overcooked? that is, the meat is too tender that it feels unpleasantly mushy? If not, then I would suggest putting it in a 65C - 70C oven the night before and letting it cook for over 20 hours unattended to achieve the most succulent stew. Since the meat never gets above medium rare, you can get away with using cuts relatively low in fat since you don't need as much fat to lubricate the strands. Anybody willing to try?

[carswell]

Piling on here but my first thought was the cooking temperature. Stews should cook at the gentlest of simmers with only the occasional bubble breaking the surface. Even a medium simmer will dry out the meat.

Any French butcher worth his cleaver will insist you choose at least two, often three cuts of beef for a stew, to give a deeper flavour to the dish and a richer texture to the sauce. (As I recall, the last time I asked for stewing beef, my butcher gave me some round, some blade, some neck and a few short ribs.) One of the unintended consequences of this approach is that it provides the opportunity for side-by-side comparison of how the various cuts react to identical stewing conditions. While it's true that the fattier and more gelatinous cuts turn out more succulent and the leaner cuts stringier and drier, the difference is minor in a properly cooked stew, which is why I suspect cooking temperature may have been the culprit in your case.

[slkinsey]

...I would suggest putting it in a 65C - 70C oven the night before and letting it cook for over 20 hours unattended to achieve the most succulent stew. Since the meat never gets above medium rare, you can get away with using cuts relatively low in fat since you don't need as much fat to lubricate the strands. Anybody willing to try?

This would be fairly easy to do using a sous vide technique. I've cooked short ribs for around 30-36 hours sous vide at 60C. It's good, but nothing like a traditionally braised short rib. So I don't think a stew with tender, medium rare chunks of meat would be very "stew like." One trick might be to cook it LTLT and then, just before serving, take it quickly up to a simmer.

[bigbear]

..... in the oven? .....

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Bingo.

[Shalmanese]

...I would suggest putting it in a 65C - 70C oven the night before and letting it cook for over 20 hours unattended to achieve the most succulent stew. Since the meat never gets above medium rare, you can get away with using cuts relatively low in fat since you don't need as much fat to lubricate the strands. Anybody willing to try?

This would be fairly easy to do using a sous vide technique. I've cooked short ribs for around 30-36 hours sous vide at 60C. It's good, but nothing like a traditionally braised short rib. So I don't think a stew with tender, medium rare chunks of meat would be very "stew like." One trick might be to cook it LTLT and then, just before serving, take it quickly up to a simmer.

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So what makes stew meat tender? Is it the moisture or the fat or something else? If the meat is over 65C, then how does it keep moist?

And I'm unconvinced "gentle simmering" has much to do with anything. Using my probe thermometer, a "gentle simmer" reads about 98C and a rolling boil reads 100C. It seems to me that simmering probably does something (although I haven't actually tested) but I can't think of any mechanism that would cause it.

[slkinsey]

What makes stewed meat tender is a combination of things, I think. Certainly fat and gelatin make a difference. This is why "stew meat" is typically high in both fat and connective tissue. The other thing that makes stewed meat tender is technique. Cooking at low temperatures can make a difference. Meat that was cooked mostly at 70C and was then brought to 100C for 1 minute will have a different texture than meat that was cooked at 100C the whole time. Also, if more conventional cooking temperatures/techniques are used, I think the cook has to know when to check the meat so that it is served right when it reaches readiness. Overcooking can dry out a piece of stew meat just as much as it can a piece of fillet.

[carswell]

And I'm unconvinced "gentle simmering" has much to do with anything. Using my probe thermometer, a "gentle simmer" reads about 98C and a rolling boil reads 100C. It seems to me that simmering probably does something (although I haven't actually tested) but I can't think of any mechanism that would cause it.

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Mechanism, schmechanism. I'll take centuries of French cooking tradition and proven results over a probe thermometer any day.

[fifi]

Here is the science behind all of this . . . As discussed in many of the smoking meat threads, there is a conversion of collagen to gelatin and melting of fat that takes place at about 170 degrees F (about 75 C). In the smoker, you will see a temperature "stall" at about this point as the conversion requires energy (heat). It is a thermodynamics thing. The same thing happens with stews and braises. If you are not starting with a cut of meat that has connective tissue and fat, you are doomed to dry meat. My preferred cut for stew is a well marbled chuck. I put most braises in the oven at 250F or 225 if I am going shopping. I don't want it bubbling away. In a crockpot, the low setting is the best.

[UnConundrum]

First, my favorite cut for soups and stews is short ribs. Nothing compares... Cook them whole. Brown in the pan, and continue with your stew recipe. When they're done, remove from the stew and cut up then..... You'd probably want to trim the fat really well before browning them.

Second, as pointed out by other posters, collagen is what makes the meat tough when not cooked properly, yet so delicious when it's understood. One point I want to differ with. I believe the collagen will start to disolve at 130 F or so, just it's very, very slow at that temperature. That's why Michele Richard offers 72 hour short ribs.... it takes that kind of time to disolve the collagen at such low temperatures. Those of us who make smoked briskets know to cook them at about 225 - 250 for 12 - 18 hours. If you graph that cook, you'll see that the temperature will plateau at around 160 - 165 as more energy goes into disolving the collagen than raising the temperature of the meat. Often, the internal temp of the meat actually declines slightly. If you rush the cook, you'll bring your meat to finished temperature (185 - 195 in the case of a brisket) without giving the collagen sufficient time to disolve/melt, and you'll have a tough brisket. Take your time, with a slow simmer, and you'll have a delicious result. As Slkinsey indicated, that's what sous-vide seems to be all about.

[Juanito]

Very interesting. So none of the posters here advocate browning the meat first?

Browning would seem to be the wrong tack to take, given that we are looking for a long, slow, cooking process. But I've always been taught get good color on the meat first, before the stewing begins.

Who knew?

[LilianNY]

thanks for all the tips--i definitely had the meat on very very low heat. so i'll try a different cut next time. like short ribs a lot... whole foods has really good boneless short ribs. or i'll try the stew meat at one of the butchers recommended. btw--if anyone has the recipe for the peruvian cilantro beef stew like the one at flor de mayo, i'd love it. i think i have it pretty close but would like to hear what others have.

[carswell]

Very interesting. So none of the posters here advocate browning the meat first?

Browning would seem to be the wrong tack to take, given that we are looking for a long, slow, cooking process.

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That's not my take on this discussion.

For my part, I almost always brown red meat before adding the braising liquid, for colour, yes, but mainly for flavour. The browning should only sear the outside, not cook the meat through.

[Dan Ryan]

Shin of beef. Fantastic flavour and texture when stewed.

[Adam Balic]

...I would suggest putting it in a 65C - 70C oven the night before and letting it cook for over 20 hours unattended to achieve the most succulent stew. Since the meat never gets above medium rare, you can get away with using cuts relatively low in fat since you don't need as much fat to lubricate the strands. Anybody willing to try?

This would be fairly easy to do using a sous vide technique. I've cooked short ribs for around 30-36 hours sous vide at 60C. It's good, but nothing like a traditionally braised short rib. So I don't think a stew with tender, medium rare chunks of meat would be very "stew like." One trick might be to cook it LTLT and then, just before serving, take it quickly up to a simmer.

←

So what makes stew meat tender? Is it the moisture or the fat or something else? If the meat is over 65C, then how does it keep moist?

And I'm unconvinced "gentle simmering" has much to do with anything. Using my probe thermometer, a "gentle simmer" reads about 98C and a rolling boil reads 100C. It seems to me that simmering probably does something (although I haven't actually tested) but I can't think of any mechanism that would cause it.

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Water boils at 100C at sea level, so a gentle simmer or hard boil will not differ much in actual temperature. But the amount of energy that you are pumping into the system is very different. Put two identical pots with the same amoiunt of water in each on the stove, one at a hard boil, the other at a gentle simmer. They will not boil dry at the same rate, so temperture alone doen't describe all the reactions.

The problem is that I don't have much of an idea of how this affects cooking chunks of meat though.

I think that there are lots of factors that effect 'tenderness', as this is not an exact term and can describe different things. A raw piece of fillet steak can be tender and so can a well cooked piece of beef brisket. What I look for in a stew is a conbination of "tender" (meat fibres seperate with out two much resistance) and "succulence", this means that the meat doen't doesn't have a dry , cottonwool mouthfeel. I guess this could be retained moisture through gentle cooking, but my impression is that is due to an inital high collagen content, which upon conversion to gelatin gives a non-dry mouthfeel. I imagine that gelatin retains water well also (jelly/gello for instance).

I have a temperature probe and I know from experience that some cuts of meat will never become tender and succulent not matter how long or short a time they are cooked at ~65C, even if they are a cut that should - supermarket brisket for some reason. It maybe that all collagens are not equal (beef v fish for instance) or that other factors are involved (age of amimal, age of meat cut post-mortem). Still getting to grips with this.

So if I sellect a cut of meat for a stew it tends to have a high conective tisse content, rather then being about selecting a cut with a high fat content. But, fat contains a great deal of flavour so this is another, if seperate issue.

[k43]

A great reason to pay $45 for a full year’s access (100 items per month) to the New York Times archive is Molly O’Neill’s wonderful long article with recipes from January 5, 1997 called “The Clue to a Stew.”

Boiled down, her ideas (in my words) are:

-- Browning is essential for caramelizing, which adds color and flavor. Dust the meat with seasoned flour for better browning plus thickening.

-- With today’s extra-lean meats, use stock rather than water as cooking liquid.

-- The flavor foundation is caramelized onions and carrots, plus balancing acidity from tomatoes, wine, vinegar or mustard, and mushrooms to balance the sweetness. A couple of anchovies also work magic.

-- Lighten the final texture with crunch from a vegetable added late. Just before serving, add a little lemon juice and a garnish of oregano, parsley or basil.

[kalyson]

We've used brisket for braising and stews and it tastes great and has a nice texture.

[mrbigjas]

Shin of beef. Fantastic flavour and texture when stewed.

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yeah, what he said