Bonjour La Tendresse

The other night I had a wonderfully seared New York strip steak. Love that cut. Very flavorful yet chewy and, when it’s seared, it gets a nice salty crust that balances and protects the internal rare juiciness. I thoroughly enjoyed it and the virility—a manly man thing a charred steak is—of it all. And yet… maybe because it’s winter turning tentatively to spring (or maybe because my spring is turning to early winter), I am coming to regard a steak cooked in that manner as a thing of my youth. No, I haven’t lost my ability or will to chew. In fact, I’ve always rather enjoyed that which I can sink my teeth into, both literally and figuratively. It’s more that I am appreciating the delicacy and decadence of the slow hand, as it were.

There is certainly a primal carnality to searing. Hot flames, high temps, precision. Too long on the heat and the item being cooked—be it a quivering diver scallop or a stalwart sirloin—turns tasteless and leathery. Done right, the rough char of the exterior safeguards the sweetness within. In a way, searing food requires gamesmanship: risk-taking, the ability to count the cards, bravado. Remember, the food that is best suited to grilling or pan searing is the lean, unfatty cuts of exceptional quality. So the cook’s job, really, is to do no harm; s/he must be swift and sure, and know when to say “enough.”

As I grow older, I have come to see the value in a different kind of cooking, a different kind of cook. Don’t get me wrong: I will never say no to a perfectly grilled steak. And I appreciate the skill of someone who knows how to grill. But where grilling is youthful instinct, braising is mature experience. When a cook grills s/he is like the intense, ardent lover but when s/he braises, s/he is a seducer, a coaxer, a conjurer. Poetry is to be found in the slow cooked dish.

Unlike a grilled strip steak (or lamb chop or quail) which can reveal its pink pleasures nakedly with little adornment save large grains of sea salt, the chuck roast or shank must be treated tenderly and plied with spices. The cook who knows how to braise transforms the unsexy tough, fatty cuts into silken, luscious invitations to gustatory sensuality. This is an unhurried, patient cook who trusts the alchemy of time, heat, and ingredients. This cook is a conductor who melds the disparate flavor voices into a pleasurable melliphony. So, to take the metaphor achingly farther, while a grilled steak asserts itself in a solo, command performance, a braised short rib is an ensemble player, working with rather than dominating.

In these days, let us give praise to the braise.