10Slow and low: braise, stew, sous vide

Some of the most useful cooking in a kitchen happens slowly, at gentle heat. Braising and stewing turn tough, cheap meat tender by cooking it for a long time in liquid under a lid. Sous vide works differently: the food is sealed in a bag and held in a water bath set to exactly the temperature the food should reach.

All three methods put the cook in control. Gentle heat keeps the cooking steady, and a lid, a liquid or a sealed bag holds the moisture in.

10.1 Braising

What braising is

When the food is meat, a braise is often called a pot roast. Not every cook agrees that the two are the same thing. Some say a pot roast has no extra liquid added, and a braise does.

A pressure cooker cooks by braising. So does a slow cooker, such as a crockpot.

Why it works on tough meat

Many famous dishes began as a way to make hard, chewy food good to eat. Coq au vin is one of them.

The basic steps

Most braises follow the same pattern.

• Sear the food in a pan until the outside is brown. Browning builds flavor through the Maillard reaction. Meat, vegetables and mushrooms can all be braised.
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• Add liquid if the food will not give off enough of its own. Stock is common. An acid is often added too, such as wine, beer, tomatoes or balsamic vinegar.
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• For a classic braise of a large, mostly whole cut, the liquid comes one-third to one-half of the way up the food. It does not cover it.
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• Put the lid on. Keep the pot at a very low simmer.
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• Cook until a fork can cut the meat with almost no pressure. You should not need a knife.
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• Turn the cooking liquid into a sauce or gravy to serve with the food.
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Braising poultry

With red meat, the size of the piece decides the method. A large cut is braised, and small pieces are stewed. Most birds are small, so with poultry the two methods are treated as one.

Braising can soften an old, tough bird. But cooks more often braise a young, tender chicken or duck. The aim then is to add moisture and flavor, not to tenderize. The bird is cut into joints and cooked on the bone. Stop as soon as it is done, so the meat stays juicy. Ducks and geese are cooked much the way red meat is.

Three classic chicken dishes cook this way: coq au vin, chicken fricassee and chicken cacciatore. Cacciatore and coq au vin start with a thorough browning. Fricassee does not.

Season well. Much of the flavor comes from the liquid and from what you add to it, so both the bird and the liquid need seasoning. Add any extra seasonings at the start, not the end, so the flavor has time to blend and reach into the larger pieces. These might be an onion piquet, a sachet, a bouquet garni, or dried herbs and spices. If you coat the pieces in flour before browning, you can mix the seasoning into the flour.

The goal is an exchange. The sauce should taste of the poultry, and the poultry should carry the moisture and taste of the sauce.

Once the liquid is in, keep it at a slow simmer. Never let it boil hard. You can do this on the stove or in the oven. Low heat keeps the cooking under control, and the meat ends up tender and juicy.

To test for doneness, push a kitchen fork into a piece. It should go in easily, and the piece should slide off the fork by itself. But the piece should still hold its shape. If it falls apart, it is overcooked. Test small boneless pieces by cutting into them with a fork.

Braised poultry is always served with its cooking liquid. Rice, pasta, boiled potatoes and boiled vegetables all go well with it.

The full procedure for poultry is below.

• Brown the poultry in oil or butter, as dark as the dish needs.
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• Add the vegetables and other ingredients the recipe lists, and sauté them.
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• Add flour or roux, if the recipe uses it.
• Pour in the liquid.
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• Cover. Simmer on the stove or in the oven until done.
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• Add seasonings and garnishes at the right points as it cooks.
• Finish the sauce. You may add cream or a liaison, or adjust how thick it is. Taste and correct the seasoning.
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• Serve each portion of poultry with sauce and a suitable garnish.
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10.2 Stewing

Stewing is close to braising. It is also slow, and it also uses liquid. The main difference is the amount: in a stew, the meat is completely under the liquid.

Use a heavy pot. A stockpot or a Dutch oven works on the stove or in the oven. A slow cooker works too.

Cut and coat

Cut the meat into cubes about as big as a golf ball. Bought, ready-cut chunks should be about the same size. Pieces that are too small will overcook.

Many recipes ask you to dredge the meat before you brown it. To dredge is to roll the pieces in flour, here flour that has been seasoned.

Brown

Browning goes in this order:

• Warm a little oil in the pan over medium heat.
• Brown the cubes on every side, in batches if the pan is small.
• Drain off the fat, unless the recipe tells you to keep the drippings.
• If the stew will finish in a slow cooker, move the meat into it now.
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Add the liquid and simmer

Next come the seasonings, the vegetables and the liquid. Follow the recipe. The liquid might be beef broth, wine, beer, juice or plain water.

Bring it to the boil. Then turn the heat down to low and put on a lid that fits tightly.

The stew is ready when the meat is fork tender.

10.3 Low temperature and sous vide

How sous vide works

Sous vide cooking runs in four steps:

• The food goes into a food-grade plastic bag.
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• The air is sucked out and the bag is sealed.
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• The bag goes into a water bath.
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• The water is held at a precise temperature, the one you want the food to reach.
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The right setting depends on the result you are after.

The water heats the food through the bag but never touches it. So nothing in the food can dissolve into the water and be carried off. The food keeps more of its flavor.

Fruits and vegetables

Blanching and steaming soften vegetables, but they wash out vitamins and minerals. Sous vide softens them and keeps more of those nutrients. One reason is that the bath stays below the heat at which the cell walls break down completely. So the food becomes tender but keeps some of its shape. Another reason is the bag: any nutrients that do leak out stay inside it.

Fruit cooked at a low temperature can also take in flavor. Put a liquid in the bag with it.

Two things in plants keep them crisp: pectin and starch. Pectin is the gelling agent that gives jam its set. Pectin breaks down at 83°C (183°F), and it does so more slowly than the starch. The result is often a tender fruit or vegetable with an unusual texture.

With fruits and vegetables, time and temperature are not a safety question. What they change is the structure.

Custards

A custard is easiest to think of as a texture: smooth, rich, with a particular feel in the mouth. Cooks have made custards for centuries by gently cooking eggs with milk and heavy cream. Today there are many other ways.

Sous vide can make many custard-type preparations: sabayon, curds, crème anglaise, dulce de leche, and bases for custards and for ice cream. It gives a more even result every time, and better control of texture. That texture can be light and airy, as in a sabayon, or thick and dense, as in a posset.

The eggs in a custard are properly cooked at 82°C (180°F). Set the bath to that, and the custard cannot overcook.

Every custard has plenty of fat. Fat gives the rich mouthfeel. It also carries flavors and aromas that dissolve in fat.

A lighter custard can be cooked sous vide, chilled, and then put through a whipping siphon. It comes out as a smooth, creamy foam.

Other uses of the vacuum sealer

Compressing fruit. A vacuum chamber lowers the air pressure around the food. The air and water inside the plant tissue swell fast and burst the tiny spaces that hold them. When normal pressure comes back, those spaces collapse. Light now passes through the food instead of scattering, so it looks see-through. The texture changes too: it becomes denser, with more bite. Watermelon is a well-known example.

Infusing. Seal a food in a bag with a liquid, and the vacuum pushes flavor in quickly. This works best on porous foods, for example spices in cream or herbs with melon. It is faster than a traditional infusion.

Practice