An introduction to braising

This past week my article on cast iron cookware seemed to be among the most popular items I have posted to the website. I figured I would follow up on that with an article about braising, which will allow you to maximize your cast iron dutch oven.

You can purchase very expensive Le Cruset cookware, or just a simple plain cast iron dutch oven from lodge logic. I personally own this one and it works quite well for my purposes: Lodge Dutch Oven, however it seems like the people on my facebook page think plain cast iron is the best, so this one might be a great option for that: 7 quart dutch oven. You can also get a dutch oven that can be held over a camp fire via a tripod of sticks, which is a cool way of cooking outside.

Braising is a very old technique of cooking. Traditional braising is when you sear a piece of meat and then cook it slowly in a cast iron dutch oven. A crock pot (slow cooker) is a modern form of braising. I like both methods. Traditional braising is when meat was cooked over top of a bed of chopped vegetables. Little to no liquid is needed since the meat provides it’s own juices and the vegetables provide the rest of the moisture.

Braising is a great technique for cooking gamy meat, or lean meat is it imparts a lot of flavor into the meat and renders it very tender.

Typical cuts of meat used in braising are pot roasts, rumps, shanks, ribs, and vegetables such as brussel sprouts or radicchio, however it is pretty much possible to braise any sort of meat, including fish.

Here are the steps involved in doing a basic braised roast. You can adapt this technique or recipe for other types of cuts, or even cube the meat to make a nice stew.

Credit for this recipe goes to my Dad who introduced me to this method of cooking.

Ingredients
3 to 4 pound top round or other roast
4 to 5 large onions (chopped)
4 to 5 large tomatoes (quarter and then chop each piece in half)
5 cloves of garlic (minced)
Bay Leaf
Oregano

1. Salt and pepper the meat on all sides
2. Add a bit of oil or some lard to a dutch oven
3. Add Beef.. sear on all sides (including ends)… make sure the dutch oven is nice and hot so it will quickly sear the meat
4. Set meat aside for now
5. Sauté onions and garlic until translucent in the beef juices
6. Remove from heat
7. Add tomatoes, bay leaf, oregano
8. Add meat on top of the layer of vegetables
9. On top of that add root vegetables
10. Put dutch oven, with the lid on, into a 350 degree oven for 3 to 4 hours, beef should be falling apart

Alternative
Sear the meat in a normal frying pan and then place it in a crock pot. Cook your onions and garlic in the same frying pan and deglaze with a bit of wine and then add it all to crock pot. Add all other ingredients to the crock pot. Cook on low for 8 hours. I prefer the dutch oven if time allows, however the slow cooker is great for a weekday. You can prep the meat and sear it when you awake and then just leave it cook all day while you are at work. Most modern crock pots will have a “keep warm” options so if the pot is on for an extra few hours it will be nice and hot for you to eat when you return from work.

The large quantity of tomatoes and onions will cook down and provide the enough liquid to properly cook your roast. I’ve made this with canned tomatoes. I find 4 cans of stewed tomatoes will work nicely, however I still use fresh onions.

Here is one of my favorite braising recipes: Fall off the bone short ribs. I loved making the slaw this past year with fresh ingredients from the garden. One alteration I made is replacing the mayonnaise in the slaw with plain yogurt to make this dish a bit healthier, and I doubled the jalapenos to increase the heat.

Once you get the hang of it you can start making more fancy dishes such as Coq au Vin, a classic braised dish.

If you want to learn more about braising then I suggest this book All About Braising

You will be hard pressed to eat a bad meal if you use that cookbook.