The Stewing Method: No Recipe Required!

It bears repeating, the best meats to use in moist cooking methods are the cheap cuts with a lot of connective tissue. There are two pieces of good news that go along with that (besides the price): 1)the cheaper cuts are more flavorful, and 2)once you get finished with them they will be ridiculously tender.

When looking for meats to use in stewing, look for cuts that are closest to the head and the feet of our animal friends. "Closest to horn and hoof, I've heard it said."

Here are some choices--tough old chicken or turkey (dark meat does especially well), lamb, beef or veal shanks, pork shoulder, brisket, oxtail,
chuck roast, rump roast and short ribs

Once you choose your meat, you can marinate it, but it will be cooking low and slow for hours, so it's not going to need any help with tenderizing. If you're just marinating to add more flavor, go right ahead.

Cut up your meat into large-ish chunks, pat it dry and dredge it in some seasoned flour (salt, pepper, herbs--whatever you like). Brown up this meat in a hot pan in some olive oil (heat the pan first for 2-5 minutes, depending on your stove, then add the oil. Wait until the oil is shimmering all over, then put in the meat).

Deglaze with some stock or some wine, and use this liquid as a part of your stewing liquid.

Thanks to Bertrand Dupperin for the photo. See his photostream here.

Please, don't get caught up by the word "stew." Almost every culture has stew--they just call it different names.

Ever heard of these dishes?

Hungarian Goulash
Cioppino
Chicken Frikassee
Chicken Paprikash
Beef Bourguignon
Coq au Vin
Pot-au-Feu
Curry

All of these are stews or braises. I don't want to cause too much confusion--any, if I can help it--so let me take a minute to talk about the difference between a stew and a braise.

There's not much of a difference. You could differentiate between the two by saying that, in a braise, you use enough liquid to come about 1/2 way up the meat and in a stew you cover the meat. In a braise, you might take the cooking liquid and reduce it to make a sauce. With a stew, the liquid is the sauce. Both are moist heat cooking methods, both yield dishes with complex flavors, both render tough meat tender by breaking down collagen into gelatin. And there you have it.

I am sure the list I made is not exhaustive, by any means. If you know of a stew by another name, please let me know. This way, we can teach each other!