Don't Sweat the Aubergine

the juices is to cooking what bloodletting is to medicine. That sizzling noise in the pan? It’s the water from the meat being vaporized as it reacts with the pan and the hot oil. Have a look at a piece of browned meat. Does its surface appear to you to be water-impermeable?
    The high heat required for browning actually causes rapid fluid loss. Cooks usually think that the sacrifice is worthwhile, though, in exchange for the flavours from the Maillard reactions, the complex and tasty results of the collision at high temperatures of carbohydrates and amino acids in proteins.
    To reduce the risk of burning the oil, add oil to the meat, not to the pan.
    Make sure that the pan is thoroughly hot, and do not throw in too much meat at once. If you do, you will lower the temperature, and the water that should have vaporized instantly will flood the pan, boiling the meat rather than browning it.
    You could brown the meat in the casserole dish, before you soften the vegetables – or after, provided you have removed every trace of the vegetables from the dish first. My method is easier, I think.
    3 • Softening the vegetables . The onions and garlic, particularly, lose their harshness during this process, becoming sweeter. You may fear that the garlic will burn while the onion is softening; but it doesn’t seem to. If you’re worried, add it a couple of minutes before this stage is complete.
    I have been a bit vague about the amount of oil you will need. You want just enough to ensure a layer of oil between the vegetable and the bottom of the casserole, to stop them catching. Start with a little, and add more as necessary.
    Many recipes include carrots at this stage. As I remarked in the Stocks chapter, I think that the flavour of carrots in a sauce can lose its freshness after long cooking. If you want the sweetness of carrots in a stew, add them half an hour before the end of cooking.
    4 • Reducing the wine . To lose its harsher notes. Of course, the sauce will be subject to a good deal of evaporation anyway. But you may not want the wine to take up a significant percentage of it.
    5 • Drowning the meat . So long as it is submerged in liquid, the meat will not have to endure a temperature much higher than 100°C (although some of the contents of the sauce may raise the boiling point).
    6 • Gently does it . The heat and rollicking motion of the liquid in a rapidly boiling stew will drive out moisture, as well as fat and gelatine, from the meat; you’ll be left with lumps of dry fibre. Always remove meat when you’re boiling a sauce to reduce it.
    With the surface of the stew showing only the mildest evidence of disturbance, the temperature of the liquid may be several degrees below the 100°C boiling point (if you put it on the hob and turned up the heat, it would take a little while to come to a proper boil). The loss of those few degrees, as well as of a good many agitated bubbles, will give you a much more beguiling result.
    I used to bring stews to simmering point on the hob, then put them in the oven. Harold McGee has reformed me. You just have to learn not to be dismayed to find, particularly if you have a heavy casserole, that the stew you put in a 140°C oven an hour ago is showing little evidence of progression.
    You needn’t worry. There is progress. Meat starts to cook when it reaches about 50°C; its collagen starts to dissolve at 70°C . Even at below 50°C, the gentle heat is weakening the connective tissue, reducing the time the meat will have to spend at temperatures that will dry it out.
    However, you may not have the luxury of an extended deadline. If you need the stew to be ready in three hours or under, start it off at gas mark 6/200°C, but turn down the dial when the liquid simmers.
    As soon as the meat in a stew is tender, stop cooking. It won’t get any more tender, but it will get more dry.
    7 • Resting . The meat will reabsorb some liquid as it relaxes in the cooling stew. An overnight rest will do your stew even more good than a half-hour one: the flavours will develop; and fat will rise to the surface and solidify, so that you can remove it easily.
    (I should point out that if you leave overnight a stew cooked with stock, then reheat it, you are going against the Food Standard Agency’s advice that you should not reheat a stock twice – see here . But I have never poisoned myself, or heard of anyone being poisoned, in this way, and I’m happy to carry on reheating my stews.)
    8