Chefs around the country simmer with ideas for braising beef

Nation's Restaurant News, Sept 20, 2004 by Dina Berta

The Phoenix Bread Co., a small bakery cafe in Hopland, Calif., doesn't list its braised beef brisket on the menu board, so it has to tell customers about the item when they walk in.

"I can't tell you the number of people whose eyes light up when we mention the braised brisket with caramelized onions," says Lee Burns, who with his wife, Cynthia, owns the bakery in this small town north of Santa Rosa on Highway 101.

"They think of their past, their mother," Burns says of the customers. "When they taste it, they say: 'This is unbelievable.'"

Burns seasons the brisket, puts it in a smoker for about an hour and slowly roasts it in the oven--fat side down and thick slices of onion on top--for four hours or more. The onions caramelize. The flavors penetrate the meat. It becomes soft like butter, Burns says.

He lets it cool and then rolls it in dough. In a brick oven he bakes his interpretation of a fougasse, a style of bread from Provence, France. The beef brisket fougasse is 10 to 14 pounds, 30 to 32 inches long. He sells fougasses whole or by halves or by the slice, which is between 12 to 14 ounces of meat. He charges $9.50 for a sandwich. It always sells out, he adds.

The popularity of slow-cooked meat among customers has made many chefs fans of braising. The process also can turn a less expensive or tough cut of meat into a mouthwatering dish, and it gives them a chance to be creative with a simple cooking method, according to chefs across the country.

Down the coast from Hopland, in San Francisco, a signature dish at the 4-month-old Levende Lounge and Restaurant is braised beef cheeks served on a bed of spring onion mashed potatoes with sauteed mushrooms.

"The servers love them, too, and they suggest them," says executive chef Jamie Lauren. "Customers really dig them. They are apprehensive at first, but once they try them, they are really into them."

Americans are not so accustomed to beef cheeks, which are more popular in France, she explains. Braising the meat, however, is a way to win over the cautious customer.

"Where it's located, in the cheek of the cow, the muscle is used a lot," Lauren explains. "It develops a lot of collagen. You have to cook it for some time--about four hours--to break down the tissue. It's a great cut of meat and not expensive."

Lauren sears the meat first to seal in the flavors. She places it in warm stock and cooks it very slowly, bringing it to a simmer. Then she turns the temperature down to 250 degrees. The dish should have slight bubbles the entire time, she says.

Beef cheeks have been a best seller at Signatures in Washington, D.C., according to executive chef Morou Ouattara. He has been using Kobe beef for his pot stickers of braised cheeks, English peas, chanterelles and truffle jus.

He pan-sears the meat to give it a little crust after seasoning it with spices--paprika, cumin, coriander and African black pepper. The meat is braised for five hours in veal stock with onions and garlic and a touch of red wine. While the meat cools, he reduces the braising liquid down to a glaze. The glaze and meat are chopped up and stuffed in to the pot sticker.

Ouattara, who grew up eating slow-cooked meats in his native Ivory Coast, long has seen the value in braising.

"We used to cook everything slow, for a long, long time--wild animals like guinea hens, guinea pigs, antelopes, lambs, lamb jaw," Ouattara says. "Goat meat also. Goats love to jump around, and the meat tends to be tougher. Good things come out of the long period of cooking the product."

Cooking slowly is sometimes the hardest rule of braising for new chefs to learn, says chef Cathal Armstrong, who this spring opened Restaurant Eve with his wife, Meshelle, in Alexandria, Va.

"It must be done very slowly, at a low temperature for much better results," says Armstrong, who usually has a braised item on the menu. Currently, it's been braised oxtail ravioli with leeks, red wine jus and thyme.

"It sells like hot cakes, like it's going out of fashion," he says. "The virtue of braising is it is so much more flavorful, and more cooking is involved. Anybody can saute a piece of fish or meat. To braise something well is more challenging and an interesting process for us."

Braised beef has a heartiness to it, so often chefs will wait for cooler weather before they put it on the menu, but others find it to be a best seller year-round. In Salt Lake City,

Tom Grant, chef of Martine, a Mediterranean and tapas restaurant, has been doing Burgundy braised beef tips and Moroccan braised beef for the last four years. "They sell very well; they've been popular for years," Grant says.

Done correctly, braised beef can sell well in even a seafood restaurant, says Glen Harris, executive chef and partner of the Neptune Room in New York. Among the main courses at the mostly seafood restaurant is a grilled flat iron steak with braised short ribs on a bed of farro with Asiago and jus.

"I have to service all my guests," Harris explains. "Not everyone wants seafood. Some want poultry or red meat. To accommodate them, I serve the grilled flat iron steak and braised short ribs. Braising makes the meat supertender. Short ribs are generally a fatty piece of meat. Braising removes a good percentage of the fat from the ribs and also makes it quite tender. It does pretty well for a seafood restaurant."