[blindcooks] Re: Up cooking early/cooking terminology?
- From: "Jon Rawlings" <twosocks76@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <blindcooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2014 10:41:25 -0700
Jacob:
I feel it necessary to correct a very common misconception on the heals of
your last post. There is no such thing as sealing in flavors or juices when
cooking meat of any kind by searing or browning or grilling or sauteing. That
is a widely-held myth. It is true that when foods are cooked in this way that
a crust forms and that when properly executed, the meat is moist and juicy, but
the formation of that crust does not, in and of itself, keep the juices in the
meat. As for the rest of your post; I apologize, but I found it difficult to
follow and understand. You referred to pre-cooking cubes of lamb when making a
curry or a stew. I'll admit that the terms searing and browning are often used
synonymously, but to me, they are slightly different. In North America, often
times when a beef stew is made, the cubes of beef are dusted with seasoned
flour and browned before the rest of the ingredients are added. This is the
flour both helps a flavorful crust form on the meat, as well as helping the
sauce in the stew to thicken and take on some body. If this step is done
without the flour, I would call it searing, or, if the heat is a bit lowering,
perhaps it would be sauteing. Jon
----- Original Message -----
From: Jacob Kruger
To: blindcooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2014 11:57 PM
Subject: [blindcooks] Re: Up cooking early/cooking terminology?
Thanks, John.
This side we generally just call it browning meat when it comes to sealing it
with relatively high heat, before adding in certain other ingredients, and then
turning it down to simmer.
As in, in this case, before adding in pieces of tomato, I effectively
needed/wanted to seal the outer layer of the chicken pieces, before adding in
tomato pieces, since, as I understand it, it both helps them maintain their
lack of dryness, by sealing moisture in, and also helps to keep the acidity of
something like the tomato juice out of their innards, until it's been in the
dish for a little while, etc.
Generally think of browning when it comes to sort of pre-cooking something
like mince before adding in what's effectively the third round of ingredients,
and this has occurred when mince has changed colour/texture all over, and has
in fact separated into all it's small bits, instead of any left over clumps
thereof.
If was doing something similar with pieces of sliced up/diced lamb for
something like curry/stew, then would also just refer to it as browning the
meat.
Maybe searing is the most correct term, except that, for whatever reason, I
myself would have thought of searing as involving a form of gas jet/flame, or
cooking on a relatively hot/active open fire, or something.
Stay well
Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
"Roger Wilco wants to welcome you...to the space janitor's closet..."
----- Original Message -----
From: Jon Rawlings
To: blindcooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, 26 April, 2014 8:08 AM
Subject: [blindcooks] Re: Up cooking early/cooking terminology?
Jacob:
As far as the correct definitions of cooking terms, I can only tell
you how certain words are defined in North America. If a piece or pieces of
meat of any kind are coated in flour or some other starch and then cooked until
the outer surface of that meat becomes brown in color and a crust is formed,
then that is browning it. Where I come from, these terms mean things, and
while some techniques do have a way of blending into others, certain words
should bring to mind certain cooking techniques. To saute usually refers to
small pieces of food which are cooked over medium to medium-high heat with a
moderate amount of fat of some kind. These pieces of food are generally
flipped or stirred often as they cook. If you are cooking whole or boneless
chicken parts as a preliminary first step, for example, when you make your
curry, with the intention of cooking the chicken to doneness in the finished
dish, and the chicken is not coated in some kind of starch, then the more
accurate term would be that you're searing the meat, not browning it. Searing
is usually done with no to little fat in the pot or pan and with high to very
high heat. There is an exception for ground beef to some degree, but by and
large, searing, browning, and sauteing are all somewhat different procedures.
If you need a clearer definition of something you are doing, describe what it
is you're doing and I'll do my best to attach the correct label to it. Jon
----- Original Message -----
From: Jacob Kruger
To: blindcooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2014 10:45 PM
Subject: [blindcooks] Re: Up cooking early/cooking terminology?
I don't really work with/on fixed recipes for things like this - will be
bit different each and every time, but suppose sautéed is closest to what was
thinking about.
Either way, for this bit of chicken curry, just started off with bit of
cooking oil, in combination with chunk of butter, and once it had melted
butter, but before is necessarily too hot, sliced up a large clove of garlic,
and a largeish onion, into sort of strips, for a bit of shape/texture, along
with initial spices of roundabout 5 teaspoons of medium curry powder, paprika,
dry ginger, dry nutmeg, and touch of dry tarragon, along with roundabout 4
teaspoons of peanut butter, and fried them in pot until they softened.
Then added in roundabout 6 pieces of chicken, skin, bone and all, and
tossed them around in hot butter/fat until they'd been sautéed/sealed/browned.
Then added in one tomato that had diced up into blocks, and had sprinkled
with brown sugar to sort of counteract it's acidity, and left to stand for
roundabout 5 minutes, along with 3 medium potatoes that had just washed off,
but had left skin on for fibre/texture, that cut up into smallish blocks, since
actually want them to sort of dissipate to add to sauce, and with the tomato,
also added in roundabout a teaspoon and a half of dry origanum, and then just
added in roundabout 1 and a half cups of water, and a bit of garlic and
barbecue sauce, and it's now simmering away on stove, and will just go check on
it every half hour or so, stir it up, and when potatoes have started breaking
up, and when chicken starts separating off bone, then to finally thicken it up,
will most likely crumble up roundabout one slice of bread into sauce, and break
in one egg, which will immediately stir in to make sure it doesn't just leave
pieces floating around, and would then turn it off, and leave it to stand on
stove for a while to sort of settle/merge flavours, etc.
And, lastly, will probably cook standard rice to go with this for
serving/eating, but, let's see.
Stay well
Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
"Roger Wilco wants to welcome you...to the space janitor's closet..."
----- Original Message -----
From: Susan Tabor
To: blindcooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, 26 April, 2014 6:52 AM
Subject: [blindcooks] Re: Up cooking early/cooking terminology?
Hi, Jacob:
I love chicken curry! Yum! Would love your recipe!
I think chicken is still browned. It is also sautéed.
Cheers!
Susan
From: blindcooks-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blindcooks-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jacob Kruger
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2014 11:40 PM
To: blindcooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blindcooks] Up cooking early/cooking terminology?
Firstly, was up rather early, so decided to just be at least productive
- chicken curry on the go now downstairs in kitchen - but, also made me wonder
about certain terms - when we talk about browning read meat, it makes sense,
but, when it comes to something like chicken, what do we call it, aside from
browning?
Lightening? Searing? Sealing? Prep'ping?
Stay well
Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
"Roger Wilco wants to welcome you...to the space janitor's closet..."
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