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Amazing Braise

Braising and stewing are compound methods that begin with searing or pan-frying and finish with simmering, and as far as I’m concerned, braises and stews are the finest edibles on earth. They’ve got it all: caramelized crusts, tender interiors, and of course . . . sauce. A braised dish typically contains either a large piece of meat or smaller pieces that are left whole. Pot roast is typically a braise, as is osso buco (braised veal or lamb shanks). The meat is seared in a hot pan to brown the exterior, then cold liquid is added (along with vegetables or other bits and pieces), the vessel is covered, and the dish is simmered for as long as it takes for the collagen in the meat to dissolve into gelatin. In a stew the meat is usually cut into bite-size chunks, which are sometimes dusted with flour, seared, then just covered with a flavorful liquid. A stew is as much about the liquid as the meat.

(Besides beef stew, consider beef Stroganoff, blanquette of veal, and chili.)

COLLAGEN AND GELATIN

Animal muscle is composed of bunches of meat fibers held together by connective tissue. Cuts of meat from parts of animals that don’t do much work don’t have a lot of connective tissue, but parts that either work a lot or have a lot of bone, do. However, not all connective tissue is created equal. See, some of the tissues don’t do much but shrink up and get chewy when they meet heat—we can refer to those as gristle. But others are coated in a protein collagen, and under the right circumstances collagen dissolves into gelatin, the stuff that brings body to homemade stocks and helps your family’s favorite gelatin mold set.

Note that this transformation of collagen to gelatin takes time. In fact, to do it right takes a lot of time. (That is, unless you swap hours on the clock for pressure; for more on pressure cookers.) How does this magical change happen, you ask? Gelatin is obtained by the hydrolysis of collagen, a process that is catalyzed by enzymes called collagenases. It all has to do with a slow, low, moist, covered cooking method. Taking the slow and low approach allows for increased conversion of collagen to gelatin and reduces the chance of over-coagulated muscle fibers. Upon cooling, the gelatinized protein partially resets, and can hold added moisture, resulting in a meat that is moist and flavorful.

The problem with most braising and stewing recipes is that they call for too much of a weak thing—liquid. Meat, like most living tissue, is mostly water, a good bit of which is wrung out of the meat during the long cooking necessary to render the meat tender. That liquid leaches out, and unless the liquid added by the cook is very concentrated, the result is a very weak sauce.24 The key is to start with a flavorful liquid, reduce it, then let the meat liquids reconstitute it. Start with a quart of liquid, reduce it to a pint, and you’ll have a quart of rich sauce at the end of cooking.

The braising of tough cuts of meat reminds me of an old saying that one hears quite a bit in the film business: You can have it fast, you can have it cheap, you can have it good. Choose any two.

The catch-22 of braising and stewing is that when it comes to tough cuts like chuck, brisket, ribs, and shanks, you can’t have moist and tender. It’s simply impossible. Here’s why.

The metamorphosis of collagen to gelatin requires moisture, time, and heat. Since there’s already a good bit of moisture in meat, the amount we need to add is relatively low. The heat required however (a minimum of 140° F, but most often at temperatures close to boiling), would certainly qualify as well done in anything other than the darkest meat of poultry. That’s because as meat heats up, the individual muscle bundles tighten up like fists around wet sponges. The meat literally wrings itself out into the pan where it either waters down whatever flavorful liquid has been introduced or evaporates. That means that by the time the collagen conversion is just cranking up, a significant portion