^^^^ Nice mussels. I hadn't heard of blue ones, before.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TimT
Paul Prudhomme mentions some techniques in some of his cookbooks where veggies, stocks and meats are prepared separately then combined for a bit to get the love going before serving...
Also in some of his recipes veggies will be partially cooked then discarded after they have lent flavor to the sauce or stock...then fresh veggies are added to such that they cook add flavor and still are toothsome..
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Those are what's known as "stunt" veggies. Keller take sit a step further in that he cooks them in ways that are more appropriate to cooking a vegetable. It's hard to get a properly seasoned vegetable from one cooked in a stew.
Another bit of advice... I use what the French call a paleron for this stew. It's a cut of meat that means nothing to the average US butcher, as the French cut up cows in a different manner than we do. Here, you might look for a chuck eye roast. Anyway, I don't cut it into the large chunks typical for this dish. There's 2 reasons for that. One, I want my pieces to be bite sized, so there's no cuttting needed when eating them. Secondly, this gives them a greater relative surface area for their volume, so they taste better. If you cook meat a long time in a braise, any seasoning on the outside of the meat will be long gone by the time you eat it. The "gravy" may be tasty, but as you chew each piece that taste doesn't last and the meat ends up tasting bland before you swallow it. Seasoning the meat at the end of the cooking process,
while out of the stew, helps greatly. Having smaller chuncks helps just as much. It also gives you a lot more surface area to use when browning the meat, if that's what you choose to do. Browning=flavor.
Make sure you remove all imputies along the way as you cook this stuff. Keller cooks his in layers, separated by cheesecloth, to make removal of things like stunt veggies and the bouquet garni easier.
It's worth it to read his books, as there are discussions of techniques that are not always repeated in the individual recipes.
JR