Earlier today I was reading a recipe which talked about a pork roast. Here’s a snippit:

In a large mixing bowl, combine the pork cubes, Sazon seasoning, oregano, ground cumin and brown sugar. Place the pinto beans in the pot of a 5-quart or larger slow cooker. Then layer with the onions, seasoned pork, green peppers and tomatoes. 

I always think about this topic while cooking, but never remember to write about it. So, here goes.

Brown your meat.

That’s all I ask. If you are going to make stew, brown the meat first. If you are going to make pot roast, brown the meat first. If you are going to make a roast beef, brown the meat first. If you are doing just about anything with meat, brown the meat first.

Why? Because browning is a chemical reaction (called the Maillard reaction). You know why coffee, roasted meat, and toasted bread taste so good? That’s the Maillard reaction. You want to get a nice well-browned coating, and then you can shift to whatever cooking method you are using (ex. braising / slow cooking a pot roast). Your intention is not to cook the meat, but to get that beautiful and delicious chemical reaction started.

One thing to keep in mind when attempting to sear and brown meat: water is your enemy. Water will prevent you from properly browing something. You see, you don’t get the chemical reaction until the water is boiled away. Too much water and you are left with gray meat that doesn’t look or taste too great.

So, what you need to do is simple. First, make sure you carefully dry the meat with paper towels before attempting to sear/saute/brown it. This goes for anything (pork chops, chicken breast, beef, whatever). Get that excess water and/or marinate off the meat. It won’t brown unless it’s gone.

Second, don’t overcrowd the pan. The cookbooks warn this, and it’s not because overcrowding “cools” the pan. It’s because there is a much greater chance that the “weeping” meat will dump too much water at once, resulting in a pot full of gray stewing meat. It’s much much better to brown in batches. Put in a little, get it well browned, remove, repeat with next batch. The results will look and taste so much better.

BAD BROWNING!!!
OVERCROWDING!!!
NONSTICK PAN!!!

Third, use a steel, aluminium, or cast iron pan. Either of those will give you a much nicer reaction than a non-stick pan. (Yes, I know non-stick is nice. But you are losing a lot of flavor using one. We’ve done head-to-head tests and found that the non-non-stick pans produce much more flavorful dishes. Really noticeable.)

So, that’s my plea. Brown the meat first. You’ll be happy with the results.

Update: So I went looking for a good example photo of browning meat. And I couldn’t find any. Everyone out there is overcrowding their pans and keeping them stewing in juices in horrific cheap non-stick pans. For the love of god–meat is expensive–treat it well. Please.

Update 2: My faith in humanity is restored. The good folks at California Hunting Today know how to brown their meat. Thank god the Hog Hunting Blog writer knows how to brown meat.

Uncrowded!
Looks Like Steel!
The Hog Would Be Proud!

After looking though pages of photos of gray meat, I feel better now.