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With all the incredible variety of foods suitable for food, and the dishes that people have come up with to cook from them, mankind has invented not so many ways of preparing them. Roughly speaking, there are hardly a couple of dozen cooking methods in total, and those that most people use in everyday cooking can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
One of them is stewing, a method that allows you to get tasty and nutritious meals for eaters of all ages, and from very inexpensive products: the same stew is one of the best dishes in terms of cost-benefit ratio.
It is this last feature of stewing that led to its immense popularity, because cooking some kind of delicacy is usually a quick and easy task, while sometimes you have to break your head over “simpler” products. Stewing removes all these problems, requiring nothing in return – a little patience, so this cooking method is one of the most versatile, win-win, and at the same time well-known.
Surely you cook stews, fish and vegetables quite often, and if you are not sure if you know everything about stewing – read on: in this guide I have collected all the information on how to cook the most delicious stews in the world.
What is extinguishing
Each article on a topic, I usually start by trying to define what will be discussed next, and this time I will not make exceptions either. So, what is stewing? .. In short, stewing is the process of heat treatment of food in a small amount of liquid. Imagine a classic stew, small chunks in gravy.
If there were a little more of it, so much as to completely hide the meat, and we would call it cooking, if it was much less, and the meat would be fried or baked, not stewed, but in this case we simultaneously observe several heat treatment processes occurring in parallel.
The lower part of the meat, which is below the “waterline”, is cooked in gravy, while the upper part is either steamed with a boiling liquid (if stewing takes place in a saucepan with a lid) or baked (if we simmer in the oven and in an open container). There is one more nuance that distinguishes cooking from stewing – in the first case, boiled meat or fish will be served separately from the liquid in which they were cooked (unless we are talking about soup), while stews, as a rule, are always served in a sauce formed in the process of boiling and thickening of the liquid accompanying cooking.
It is this culinary magic – the spontaneous generation of a fragrant, thick sauce without unnecessary hassle – that is another reason for such popularity of stews. But if it’s all about the volume of liquid, then there is a clear criterion – how much water, broth, wine or other liquid should be added to in order to get the perfect stew? .. Yes and no. Such a criterion really exists, but it depends not only on the cooking time and temperature, but also on such subjective factors as the quality of the selected products or even the shape of the pieces for which they are sliced.
Therefore, stews are almost always prepared by eye, fortunately, if necessary, the amount of liquid can be quickly increased (topped up more) or reduced (by boiling over high heat).
Types of extinguishing
We will talk about how to cook stews as if you have been doing this all your life a little later, and now – about the classification of stewing methods. “Have mercy, why complicate things?” – the skeptic will ask, and he will be immediately put to shame: firstly, the subspecies of stewing differ quite strongly from each other, and secondly, only knowing their differences, you can prepare an ideal meal. So,
Classic stewing
Exactly what first comes to mind when we talk about extinguishing in general. Meat, fish or vegetables are cut into pieces a little smaller or a little larger, if desired, they are fried first, then liquid is added – water, broth, and even cream, brought to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer until soft, occasionally looking under the lid to mix the contents and make sure everything is in order and nothing is burnt.
Brezirovanie
In fact, this is a completely separate way of preparing dishes, in English they even distinguish between stewing and braising – actually stewing and stewing, and not everyone has heard such a word in our country. Entering the word “breeding” in a search engine, you will not find there a consensus about what it is, but in fact, everything is quite simple. Unlike stewing, when cutting the product (usually meat, but options are possible), firstly, it is cooked whole, and if it is cut, then in very large pieces, and secondly, the cooking itself usually takes place in a closed heavy vessel – a pot, a rooster and the like.
Additional liquid is not always added – often the one contained in the product itself is enough, so that it is stewed in its own juice. For example, if you cook a piece of pork neck in a closed roaster in the oven (my mother does this amazingly), technically this is breeding. Also, using the shearing method, they prepare, for example, Burgundy beef or Burgundy rooster in wine.
Enlargement
Above, I wrote that stews are usually served directly in sauce, but with stews this rule does not work, therefore, stews are often called a type of cooking. And yet, from the point of view of culinary classification, this is exactly stewing: the product is poured with liquid, but not to the top, so that the lower part of it is cooked, and the upper part is steamed. Simmering is a great way to cook fish that (whole or fillets) is quickly simmered in light broth, wine, or just water, but vegetables can be cooked the same way. This story also works with meat, although it will take longer in this case.
Quenching in oil
We are used to the fact that if something is cooked in oil, it is always about frying. But at a low temperature (below the boiling point of water), oil behaves like any other liquid, which means that it is quite possible to extinguish in it. For example, finely chopped onions and vegetables in general are stewed in oil, which will then become part of a more serious dish – they slowly languish, stirring and preventing color changes.
Another method, which can also be attributed to stewing in oil, is called “confit”, and it was originally invented in order to keep the dishes prepared in this way longer. Now the confit method can be used to prepare both classics – duck legs in duck fat, and more modern dishes – for example, Heston Blumenthal prepares salmon fillets with this method, warming it up in olive oil, the temperature of which is maintained at a certain level.
Pseudo-frying
Unlike the methods listed above, this one is, rather, an error that spoils the intended dish, but everyone has encountered it. You are about to fry pieces of chicken, a chop or something else, put the pan on the fire, add oil, put meat in it, and then something goes wrong: your meat releases so much juice that it fills the entire pan, and fry it as a result, it really fails. Such unsuccessful frying is actually nothing more than stewing in its own juice.
To avoid this, you need, firstly, to let the pan and oil warm up properly – in this case, they will not cool down so much when you put cold meat in them, and secondly, do not overload the pan: fry in several stages, putting the meat in a pan in one layer so that the pieces do not come into contact with each other, and the liquid will quickly evaporate, without bringing the matter to unplanned stewing.
What foods are worth stewing?
Absolutely any. Unlike many other cooking methods, you can stew anything you want, with every reason to expect a decent result. But “you can” does not mean “you need to”: stewing is often called a way of preparing inexpensive dishes, and this is no coincidence. After all, which meat cuts are the cheapest? The toughest are those that cannot be chewed if you accidentally try to fry them, grill them or just bake them.
This rigidity is determined anatomically – the more often during the life of an animal this or that muscle is in motion, the more connective tissue in it, which is not for everyone’s teeth. One of the main “building materials” of connective tissue is collagen protein, which has one wonderful property : in the process of prolonged heat treatment, collagen breaks down, turning into gelatin, which has a soft, almost jelly-like consistency.
It is to this process that we owe the opportunity to eat meat that melts in the mouth, and in this case it is not a poetic phrase, but a rather accurate description of how a properly prepared dish becomes from an inexpensive piece of meat. Of course, you can achieve this result not only by stewing – long-term cooking and baking at a low temperature are quite suitable – but stewing is the most generous method of the listed, giving you the right to make mistakes and a consistently excellent result. I note that some tenderloin after stewing, of course, will also become softer, but it will not be so tasty – which means that rather than translating expensive meat, it is better to cook it in some other way. If you smoothly move from meat to other products, you will find that extinguishing can help us with them.
The fish is stewed in spicy aromatic sauces, cut into large pieces: the fish is cooked quite quickly, so it will take you a little time, and if you add a little seafood at the very end, the dish will turn out to be completely royal. Seafood is less often stewed as the best way for most is to cook it as quickly as possible, but stew it nonetheless. A good example here is squid, the meat of which will become soft if it is cooked for either less than 5 minutes or more than 1 hour, so it can and should be stewed in a sauce, tomato or another of your choice.
Of course, we will not ignore stewed vegetables – the family of dishes is as diverse as it is popular. The most common variation on this theme is seasonal vegetables, which are fried first, then added liquid and stewed until they are completely soft and still hold their shape (although some prefer a different texture – softer or, on the contrary, more crunchy) ).
Braised cabbage is another example, here stewing is rather a way to get rid of excess liquid, to reduce a once crunchy vegetable to a state of tender, soft and pliable. But these are not the only ways to stew vegetables – no less good are dishes in which one vegetable is soloed, for example, onions, carrots or even an overseas artichoke, which is not stewed for long – for softness, but preserving both its shape and a hint of it original taste.
In the same way, cereals and legumes are stewed in sauce – not for softness (they often end up in the sauce already boiled), but to “marry” the tastes of the sauce and the cereals themselves. Rarely, but dough products are stewed (for the same reason), greens, fruits are stewed to make a sweet dessert … In a word, if there is any product left on the planet, no one has tried to stew it – give it to me. I will extinguish it, it will turn out delicious.
How to stew properly – meat and more
So, it’s time to move from theory directly to practice. Now I will tell you in detail, step by step, what and how to do in order to achieve the best result. It is quite possible that you all know this without me – well, in that case, take this section as a kind of checklist that will help you not to forget about something important in the course of cooking. I will explain using the example of stew, but you yourself understand that exactly the same rules, with a slight amendment, apply to stewed fish, vegetables, whatever.
1. Preparation of ingredients
We assume that you have either a recipe or an idea of what and from what products you are going to cook. Prepare all the ingredients in advance – cut the meat and vegetables, rinse the herbs, measure out the required amount of spices and liquid ingredients, make sure that the utensils you need are at hand: these preparations will save you a lot of time and nerves during the cooking process.
2. Roasting
Pre-frying of meat is sometimes ignored: sometimes this is due to the idea of a healthy diet, sometimes a recipe, sometimes a banal ignorance. Nevertheless, in the general case, having fried meat and vegetables, as a result, we will get a deeper and richer taste of the finished dish, which will give the gravy that very golden crust. If necessary, fry the vegetables first and separately from the meat, which must be seasoned in advance with salt, pepper and rolled in flour (if you wish, you can not use it, but flour gives, firstly, a deeper frying, and secondly, it helps thicken sauce). After that, fry the meat in hot oil until crusty on all sides, in several stages, so as not to overload the pan, otherwise you will get what is described above in the “Pseudo-frying” section. Set aside the fried meat on a separate dish.
3. Deglazing
In the bottom of the pan you just used, there are small fry – small pieces of meat and vegetables stuck to the pan. These are real capsules of taste that can and should be released and added to our dish using the method called “deglazing”. To do this, pour the broth, wine, cream, or other liquid in which you are going to stew the meat into the pan. It will boil pretty quickly – don’t yawn here, start rubbing the bottom of the pan with a spatula. The pieces will come off the bottom of the pan and quickly “dissolve” in the liquid, enriching it with their own taste.
4. Quenching
If you will be stewing meat in the same pan, reduce the heat and add vegetables, meat and other ingredients (for example, spices). If you use a lot of small spices, you can tie them in a gauze bag, and tie the herbs in a bunch, so it will be easier to extract them from the finished dish.
Send all the juices that leaked out of the meat while it was waiting for its fate, they also contain a taste that we do not want to lose. If you are going to stew meat in another dish – a rooster, a pot, and so on, the sequence will be reversed: first we shift the meat and vegetables into it, then fill it with liquid from the pan, in any case, without neglecting the previous stage.
After that, you can cover the dish with a lid and simmer until the meat softens with slight heat on the stove or in the oven. The stewing time depends entirely on the properties of the meat you have chosen, while you should periodically look under the lid to mix the contents and make sure that the liquid does not boil away ahead of time.
To prevent this process from going so quickly, which is especially important for stewing in pans with a loose lid, place a sheet of foil between the pans and the lid. At this stage, some recipes recommend adding flour to thicken the sauce, but this technique is not perfect from a culinary point of view. Strictly speaking, additional thickening may not be needed at all – the cream, for example, will thicken perfectly by itself during the stewing process, but if you stew in broth, wine or water, you should first make a flour dressing of roux by frying a little flour in the same amount of melted butter oil, and then add liquid into it, stirring.
But this is not necessary either – if you doused the meat in flour before frying, it may well be enough to thicken the sauce.
5. Finishing touches
When you realize that the dish is almost ready, it is time to bring it to the form in which it can be served. Catch the used herbs and spices, adjust the amount and thickness of the sauce (a lot / liquid – boil over high heat, stirring occasionally, little / thick – dilute and boil a little more), season with salt and black pepper and, if desired, garnish with fresh herbs and vegetables.
6. Innings
Well, everything is clear with this, so I included the last point just for show. Serve the stew (or whatever) is really hot, since the cooling sauce often tends to twitch with a thin film, and as a side dish it is better to choose those that go well with it – cereals, dumplings, some types of pasta. Legumes will show themselves in their place a little worse, and vegetables and, in particular, mashed potatoes with stews in gravy are not categorically friendly, but this is already a matter of subjective tastes: if you like it so much, then on your health.
Little tricks
To conclude this voluminous topic, I want to give you some general practical advice that might make your stews even tastier.
Don’t use water… Whenever you have the opportunity, give preference to liquid with its own taste and aroma – broth, wine, not water. The easiest and most economical way to always have broth on hand for cooking is not to throw away the bones after roasting chicken and cutting meat, as well as trimming vegetables, but to put them in the freezer. Once you have enough of this waste that you would otherwise just throw away, you can boil the broth and freeze it until you need it.
More flavor… Whether you’re preparing a new dish or experimenting with a long-familiar recipe, never neglect the opportunity to add more flavor with spices and seasonings. Any dish will benefit if you add sweet peas, cloves, bay leaves, thyme and other seasonings during the stewing, even if they are not in the recipe.
Do not hurry… Patience is the key to a delicious stew, so don’t cook it if you’re running out of time. It also happens that people, after listening to stories on TV and the Internet, are afraid to stew meat for a long time, because, they say, there will be no vitamins left in it. There is no need to be afraid – there will be no vitamins left in it in any case, most of them are destroyed in the first minutes of heat treatment, so you need to look for them in other products, but your dish will definitely not become tastier from this rush.
Temperature conditions… As a matter of fact, boiling, albeit barely noticeable, is by no means an obligatory element of the program, but it is necessary so that the liquid – both added and that originally contained in meat and other products – boils away and thickens. After that, the heating can be reduced, and if you manage to adjust it in such a way that the temperature of the liquid is close, but still below the boiling point, you can stew for as long as you like without fear that it will boil away.
Fresh vegetables… If you add vegetables along with the meat – say, coarsely chopped carrots and leeks – by the time your dish is ready, they will completely lose their color and taste. Of course, this will not prevent you from eating them, but if you want the dish to become tastier, more elegant (especially important if you are waiting for guests) and have a contrast of tastes and textures, do this: 10 minutes before the end of cooking, catch all the vegetables, and add fresh, blanched, or quick fried in butter instead. In addition to the same onions and carrots, you can add beans and green peas, small mushrooms and other vegetables.
The oven is your friend… In my subjective feeling, meat stewed in a pot or rooster, put in the oven, turns out to be tastier than that that was simply stewed in a saucepan or a saucepan on the stove. There is even a scientific explanation for this, but since we are talking about specific recommendations, here is one of them: when there is such an opportunity, you should prefer a heavy vessel with a tightly closing lid and an oven that will evenly heat it from all sides, unlike a stove, which will heat only from below.
Recipes
Well, any lecture, no matter how informative or, on the contrary, boring it may be, will end someday. But before that, I want to give you material for further independent study of this topic, in other words, a selection of recipes for various stews on which you can hone your skills, bringing it to a level where ordinary stew is no longer just an inexpensive dish for the whole family. and becomes a small culinary masterpiece.
Meat
Braised veal in tomato sauce
beef stroganoff
Beef in dark beer
Braised beef with leek and mushrooms
Beef in pots
Burgundy beef
Florentine tripe
Green curry lamb with eggplant
Vindalu
Braised lamb shanks
Lamb ribs
Stuffed Peppers
Chicken fricassee
Chicken Perkölt
Chicken vertical issue
Chkmeruli Chicken
Rabbit in sour cream
Rabbit in a spicy sauce
Rabbit in wine
Duck leg confit
Fish and Seafood
Stewed trout in white wine
Fish in tomato sauce
Pasta with salmon in a creamy sauce
Karasi in sour cream
Indian fish curry
Fish cakes in tomato sauce
Octopus Maltese
Coconut curry with shrimps
Stuffed squid in tomato sauce
Vegetables
Stewed eggplant with spices
Ajapsandali
Vegetarian dolma
Stewed zucchini with eggplant
Caponata
Braised cabbage
Artichokes in wine