— ly brod

So I'm gonna outline, uh, this is the, the basic outline for the stewing cooking method, okay? And this is going to, um, be the, the typical framework that's applied to, uh, meat, okay? A meat stew. And I'll say that, uh, the stewing method is fundamentally the same as brazing, uh, in the textbook. You know, what you will learn is that the, the big difference is that, uh, brazing will encompass larger cuts of meat, uh, whereas stewing and, uh, is applied to smaller pieces of meat. So that's the fundamental difference there. Okay? But with, uh, the stewing cooking method, uh, it's pretty common to get the meat into the pan first. Uh, sometimes oil is added to the pan and, uh, you know, sometimes if there's, uh, sufficient fat to be rendered, you know, from the meat itself, then maybe you can skip the additional oil. But there's browning that you apply to the meat first, then that meat can be removed from the pan, or it can remain in the pan. So, either way, um, just, you know, follow the recipe that, uh, you're preparing or try both ways, and you can, you know, uh, figure out what might work best for you. But, um, so, uh, the, the next step is to get your other aromatics, uh, in the, in the pot. So you've got your onion in this case, and you've got garlic. Um, and, and I'm just gonna say for the sake of today's example, that we're gonna keep the meat in the pan after it's brown. To that we're gonna add onions and garlic, okay? We're gonna saute those, um, you know, at least until the onions are translucent, right? The garlic's gonna be aromatic. And then, uh, to that, we can add the flour. And, um, you can incorporate that, uh, you know, smoothly. But in terms of time, it can be minimal time in just a couple of minutes. Uh, or you can apply a little bit longer time to bring a little bit more color or browning to the rue itself, you know, in the pan with these other ingredients. And so, the difference here is gonna be the difference that, uh, you would recognize between a white ru and a blonde ru and a, a white ru, if we're making just a ru right, is gonna be the pretty quick incorporation of the, the fat. Again, classically it would be a clarified butter, uh, with an equal part by weight of flour. And then it's just cooked for a couple of minutes to, um, to, to smoothly incorporate those two components. Whereas a blonde roo then is cooked a little bit further for a few more minutes, and the length of time is gonna vary based upon, um, how much ru you're making and the, uh, the heat of the pan. But the benchmark you're looking for, if you're making just ru, is this nutty popcorn aroma that comes off of a blonde rue. And the, the color will shift a little bit, but often the color shift is not so obvious. And, uh, so it's good to keep a, a, a nose on things. And once you reach that, uh, classic benchmark of, of popcorn sort of, and nuttiness, then you've got the blonde roo. Okay? Then, uh, the, the, just as an, an aside, uh, a brown rux is gonna take you another probably, you know, 15 minutes or so to add a, a lot more color to that product. Okay? But if we back up a couple of steps, uh, for our discussion right now. So in the pan, uh, we've got, uh, meat that's brown with sufficient oil to matchup with the amount of flour that you're gonna incorporate. And then, um, so, uh, at this point we can add stock, okay? And, uh, uh, you can, you know, thicken that liquid and then let this whole thing simmer, uh, to let that, uh, meat cook. Uh, and then the, the paprika, you know, there's a couple of ways to approach this. Um, if you've got, uh, some paprika with some, uh, some, some gentle flavors, uh, then you can add that later on in the cooking process in order to maintain, uh, some of that flavor. Um, another approach is to add it in two steps. You know, one would be to add it soon, and then you, you get this underlying incorporation of flavor into the foundation that you're making. And then you can add more to, uh, uh, toward the end of cooking, which gives you a fresher, uh, note, uh, of the paprika. And I, I'm, I'm gonna take a little tangent again here and say, if it happens to be smoked paprika that you're using, then, um, I'm gonna throw out an idea, just something to consider. And that is early on, uh, in the cooking process, like when you get your aromatics in the pan, add some black cardamon and, uh, just, uh, it comes into a decent sized pod. They're, um, 2, 3, 4, 5 times bigger than the green cardamon, but just lightly crush the pod, um, so that the flavors can come out a little bit easier during thesing process. And that adds this, um, uh, this nice, um, uh, uh, there's, there's a smokiness to it and a touch of menthol as well that, um, maybe isn't obvious, but there's a little touch of that cardamoms. And then you can always finish it later on with your, um, smoked red paprika, or just red paprika, uh, if you'd like. But those are, you know, some things to keep in mind, um, when you assemble your stew.