• Alaskaball [comrade/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      3 years ago

      wait does that make every meat a chili when it's cooking in it's own liquids?

      • TrudeauCastroson [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I think you mean stew since chili is a specific stew.

        Braising - cooking a meat in its liquid and maybe extra liquid so it don't dry out or for flavour. If you take the meat out of the liquid to eat the meat then I wouldn't call it stew.

        Meat stew- braise meat and eat it in its braising liquid without overly reducing into gravy which is defined by being viscous.

        So it's a very blurry line between braised meat and a stew and it depends on what you do after the meat is done cooking and as tender as you're aiming for.

        • NPa [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          A braise has at most 1/3rd of the meat covered by liquid, a stew would be fully covered, no?

          • TrudeauCastroson [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            3 years ago

            Depending on the cut of meat sometimes you want the meat more submerged. Wikipedia says 2/3rds in but idk seems arbitrary to me. I would do more than half andthen make sure to rotate so all of the meat is submerged at some point. For some cuts I'd do more liquid if I knew it wouldn't be tender enough after 2 hours otherwise.

            Also Wikipedia says usually a braising liquid has an acidic component like vinegar or wine which I've never thought about but I guess I do use wine plus broth most of the time.

            When I do a meat pie I fully submerge chunks so it's arguably a stew but I reduce the liquid so much that I don't think it makes sense to call what's in the pie stew but maybe it is

            • NPa [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              It's probably one of those weird french rules, but the point is mostly to allow the meat to steam and not boil, leading to more breakdown of connective tissue. At least that's what they said at culinary school.

              I'm sure you can find hundreds of different ways of doing it depending on the cuisine, but I find that to be a good rule of thumb, since the more you submerge the meat, the more browning from the initial searing is lost to the liquid. Better sauce but weaker meat.

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      If you dared to give me chili con carne without kidney beans I would throw it in your face

      That shit's integral to the experience