Definition, use, and examples of the word braising.
For further reading, check out “THE CHEF: SAM HAYWARD; The Zen of Braising” in the New York Times by Nancy Harmon Jenkins.
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I’m Jenn de la Vega and this is your culinary word of the day.
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Today’s word is braising
It is spelled...B-R-A-I-S-I-N-G.
According to Merriam Webster, to braise is a transitive verb, “to cook slowly in fat and a small amount of liquid in a closed pot.”
More specifically, it means to "to stew in a closed pan with heat from above and below." Its origin dates back to 1797, braze with a Z, short for 17th century French braiser "to stew, cook over live coals." It goes even further back to 12th century French brese, Italian bragia, and Spanish brasa for "embers.”
Culinary scientist Jessica Gavin asks, “What Culinary Problem is this Method Solving?”
“Braising is the best way to coax as much flavor and tenderness out of tough cuts of meat as possible. It enhances the flavor of the food, and it improves the texture of what is cooked, too.
[...] First, the food is usually seared at a high temperature to brown it and give it a nice crust, then a small amount of liquid is added and the temperature is turned down low, to cook for a longer amount of time. Once the initial browning occurs, thanks to the Maillard reaction, the food’s flavor is intensified. When liquid is added, all that heat, moisture and cooking time breaks down the connective tissues into gelatin and softens muscle fiber for an incredibly moist and tender dish.”
On Food52, Sohla El-Waylly writes,
“You can cook with dry heat, like roasting a chicken in the oven until the skin is burnished and crackling. Or you can give in to moist heat, like gently simmering a stew on the stovetop. But with those powers combined—the browning from dry heat and chill spa vibes from moist heat—
The terms stew and braise are often used interchangeably, but there are critical differences between these techniques. In a stew, the stuff you're stewing (whether it's beef chuck or button mushrooms) are cut into small-ish pieces and fully covered in liquid. A stew is all about moist heat, resulting in something really saucy and spoonable.
On the other hand, braises involve hefty, burly chunks of meat or vegetable, like a bone-in lamb leg or head of cauliflower, which are only partially submerged in liquid. The braising liquid creates steam and provides moisture, breaking down tough connective tissue and tenderizing dense vegetables. At the same time, the half that's uncovered can go to brown town. And the braising liquid reduces to a sauce, so you've got a glazy fork-and-knifer instead of soup.”
Finally, Howard Yoon for NPR:
“Once humans learned to cook, everything changed. The heat in cooking breaks down the fibrous collagen in meat and the stringy fibers in plants, making chewing easier and providing the luxury of consuming way more calories in far less time.
We became "cookavores," according to Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham, the leading thinker in this cooking-evolution theory. The extra time we saved from eating and chewing, he argues, led to the evolution of larger brains; smaller, sculpted teeth and jaws, rather than the spiked teeth of carnivores; and more compact bellies. This all helped us to walk upright.
Halfway in and halfway out of water, like Darwin's evolutionary amphibian, braising represents a breakthrough for cookavores, because it can turn a chewy piece of meat into a fork-tender, melt-in-your-mouth meal.
When done with the proper liquids (stocks or wine) and the right aromatics (root vegetables and herbs), braising carries more flavor than boiling or stewing and doesn't dry out or burn food the way roasting can.
[...] The braising liquid never drowns the food. Instead, there is just enough liquid to help break down the toughness of the food, to penetrate and season it with juices, and to make the foundation for a flavorful sauce. Braising is good for any tough or semi-tough cut of meat, such as pork flank, oxtail or beef ribs and shanks. It also works well with poultry and vegetables such as cabbages, fennel or artichokes.
Two of the best-known braised dishes are coq au vin (French for "chicken in wine") and osso bucco (Italian for "bone with a hole," a veal shank with delicious edible marrow in the center of the bone).
For further reading, check out “THE CHEF: SAM HAYWARD; The Zen of Braising” in the New York Times by Nancy Harmon Jenkins.
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I’m Jenn de la Vega and this has been your culinary word of the day.
Next time on Culinary Word of the day, we become flatter.
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