Tips and Tricks #12: Food stewing times and techniques

How does stewing work?

The stewing technique combines the pan roasting technique and simmering. Therefore, stewing includes all mixed procedure, which regard:

• an initial browning phase (in oil or butter) to favor a superficial crust formation, whose purpose is to preserve the juices of the food.
• a following simmering, that consists in adding to the main browned product small quantities of water (or broth/wine), continuing to cook at low heat in a pan that will generally be half-open or completely covered.

One important think is never reach the boiling temperature, and the duration of cooking must vary according to the type of food available: very long for meat, less for vegetables, even shorter for fish. Even the Bolognese sauce, one of the most classic pasta sauce recipes, can be considered a stewed cooking.

Stewing cooking times

The stewing cooking times, as previously mentioned, vary according to the type and ingredient. However, there are some general indications that it is possible to give especially when we want to stew or braise, two of the most widespread techniques.

Meat

When we want to stew the meat, we must take into account the type of cut to be used, as some are more suitable thanks to their characteristics. It is therefore necessary to prefer shoulder and neck cuts because they are rich in connective tissue, which contains collagen. This turns into jelly during slow cooking making the meat soft.
Here are the times for three types of meat among the most widespread, taking into account that the duration is intended from the moment of boiling:

• chicken: 40-50 minutes
• beef: 2-2.5 hours
• veal and pork: 45 minutes

Fish

The stewing, in little water or perhaps tomato sauce, is particularly suitable for fish, and specifically the sea bass, grouper, cod, hake, sea bream, turbot, salmon and sole.

Even in this case, the cooking times are extremely variable because it depends on the type of fish, its weight and its size. But, roughly, we can say that it is necessary to calculate about 15 minutes for a fish of 1 kg or alternatively about 10 minutes every 2.5 cm thick of the product.

Vegetables

Finally, speaking of vegetables, it is important to specify that in this case the first phase of stewing requires the use of a classic sautéed mixture. Then the vegetables, cut into pieces, should brown for a few minutes and finally add the cooking liquid (water or vegetable stock) and continue on a sweet flame for about 45 minutes, without a lid.

The classic stewed preparations

Stew

The term "stew" derives from the fact that, in the past, this dish was prepared on the stove, an extremely low cooking method. It consists in slowly cooking, in a covered saucepan and in the presence of a liquid, a food previously browned in fat to obtain caramelization (that is the coloring of the surface of the product), a process that allows to keep liquids inside the food.

Braised

It comes from "ember", and also in this case we refer to the past, when the fireplace was the main instrument in the kitchen. The embers were the heat source used for cooking. Often even the containers lids were concave, to be able to contain embers and realize the so-called "cooking between two fires". Today in the professional kitchens a special tool called "braising pan" is used. While, for domestic use, it is possible to choose a heavy saucepan, in terracotta or cast iron, closed to be almost hermetic.

Stracotto (overcooked stew)

The mature meats cooked for a long time in stew are called "stracotto": for example those of adult bovine animals, donkeys or horses. The denomination refers to many recipes of the northern and central Italian regions, and the preparation includes an extremely long cooking, which can usually go from 4 to 8 hours up to even several days. The stew, for this reason, is hardly prepared at home. But is is possible to taste it in restaurants, especially those in Lombardy and Emilia, where it is used to season some traditional pasta.

Chipped stew

It foresees that the meat is reduced into pieces of about 3 cm on the side, cooked for a long time with the aid of liquids. This preparation is born to reuse, making them tasty, some less valuable parts of beef, veal, lamb and pork, characterized by the great presence of connective tissue between the muscular bundles.

Analyzing the various stewing techniques, we can use them all to cook the beef. Of course, there are also different cooking times for each technique (for 1 kg of beef):

• Stewed: 2/2.5 hours
• Braised: 3 hours
• Overcooked: 6-8 hours
• Chipped Stew: 1 hour and a half

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