What's the Difference Between Braising and Stewing?

Jakub Burton here from Stella culinary calm and in this culinary QA I'm going to answer a very common question about brazing versus stewing so Jenny M from Chicago Illinois writes what's the difference between stewing and braising is it simply that braises are done in the oven and stews are done on the stovetop to me it looks like the exact same technique tough meats cook low and slow and liquid until the following apart tender what am I missing thanks Jenny well Jenn has a great question but before we can even get into the difference between braising versus doing we first need to understand why we would choose to use these techniques and also where the techniques originated from so the reason why you would use braising or stewing or really any low and slow cooking method like slow roasting for that matter is this thing right here which I'm drawing and it is a triple helix of gelatin and when you have three gelatin intertwined in a triple helix like this is actually called collagen and collagen is a connective tissue that works as a structural element within muscles and so the more work a muscle gets in an animal the more collagen or connective tissue you will have so things like extremity cuts like the shoulder of the shank the ribs all have a lot of collagen in them and it says collagen that makes your meat tough and chewy now at around 150 degrees Fahrenheit at this temperature when enough time is applied the collagen will unravel into three individual strands of gelatin ok gelatin and when this happens when this unravels into gelatin then your meat is no longer tough and chewy it is now succulent and tender which is why you would want to braise or stew something so the actual technique of braising originated back before modern stoves right so they would use cast-iron pots cast-iron and the thing that this is a closest related to nowadays that we find in our kitchen are a cast iron dutch ovens and the biggest difference would be that these cast iron pots would have heavy extremely tight fitting lids that were flat so flat lids and this is important and we'll see here in a second why that's so important now because they didn't have modern stoves like we do in our kitchens today they cooked over coal and in fact the French word for dying coal is very similar to braise and that is where the term braze was derived from it was derived from the French word for dying coals so what would happen is they would take a large piece of meat and the only condition for this piece of meat was that it was tough that it came from a portion animal that got a lot of work out so because of that I had a lot of connective tissue were collagen and they would commonly put some vegetables on the bottom of this pot and because this is a French technique the vegetables would most likely be mirepoix right mirepoix which is our carrot celery and onions and then on top of this mirepoix or aromatic vegetable mixture they would place a large piece of meat that again contain a lot of collagen okay so it was tough it was chewy and then where this technique starts to deviate from our modern understanding of braising or a modern application of braising is they would add just a small amount of liquid now this liquid could be water wine stock and use you is just enough to cover the bottom of the cast-iron vessel they were using the brazen sometimes they'd add just enough to cover the vegetables that the meat was resting on top of but I would never actually add enough liquid to where it would be touching the meat now once the everything was in the pot they would then place another big pile of coals right on top of this tight-fitting flat lid now these coals on top would cause heat to radiate downwards through the cast-iron pot so that basically the coals would heat up the cast iron the cast iron wouldn't turn radiates heat into the meat and this would cause an actual browning reaction through the my yard reaction so the radiant heat radiant heat within cause the my yard reaction which is what causes vegetables and meat to brown and give you those colonization flavors and notes okay now also what happen is so you have this these coals right here radiant heat downwards on top of the meat while these coals on the bottom are heating up this liquid causing it to simmer and then turn into steam so you have this steam rising within this vessel but because this lid is tight-fitting the steam can escape so it's creating a humid environment humid environment and that humidity is important because these the cast iron pot would have natural hot spots and as those hot spots start to radiate inwards that they were going to cost scorching and uneven cooking so this humidity within the pot creates a buffer zone that allows the meat to cook a little more gently and also as this liquid starts to condense back down it will baste the meat and then when you're done with this process at the bottom of the pot you have a very flavorful liquid that makes a delicious sauce now some of you may be looking at this and saying hey I recognize this technique but I call something different I call it pot roasting and indeed our modern take or our modern approach to pot roasting is the exact same thing as classic braising so what we now today commonly confuse with brazing or what we call braising today and in very loose terms is almost the exact same thing it's still a moist heat cooking method we're still a lot of times going to put our aromatics on the bottom of the braising vessel with the meat on the top mainly because that just helps to keep the meat from scorching but the main difference is is now the water is taken up to about two-thirds of the meat so 2/3 and this could be wine stock water whatever just some sort of water-based liquid and then some chefs will even take it all the way above the mean is just a personal preference all right what happens is this is placed in an oven sometimes with the lid usually with a lid but not always lid and it's cooked in the oven low and slow for anywhere for three to eight hours depending upon the actual cut of meat what size it is so larger cuts means you're going to take a longer time short ribs usually take around four hours and so this is going to use this moist heat to slowly break down the collagen into gelatin strands yielding a tender piece of meat and the meat is taken out usually the vegetables are strained and tossed so just yeah the liquid remaining that liquid is reduced into a glaze the meat is reintroduced and then serve so this is what we commonly refer to as braising but technically this is not braising this approach is stewing and it gets confusing because in modern terminology we refer to as stew as usually a hearty or heavy soup that's served in the wintertime that contains chunks of of meat that's been cooked nice and low and slow and that are tender but really stewing it is pure our sense is a technique and it's a technique applied such as this to where the meat is covered for the most part in liquid and cooked low and slow versus braising is what we call today pot roasting now however this is become such commonplace if you cook short ribs like this I guarantee you they're going to call it braising I'll call it braising but it's still nice to know we're braising and stewing came from and understanding the lineage and the difference in their applications if you have your own culinary question you can get answered by shooting me an email jacob pat stella culinary comm or you can Twitter me at chef Jacob

Channel: Jacob Burton

Views: 143,954

Rating: 4.863852 out of 5

Keywords: stella, jacob burton, cooking, food, culinary school, restaurant, how-to, braise, stew, technique, meat

Id: cVkZnUf1RuM

Length: 9min 31sec (571 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 20 2013