Meat

I’m sure there is nothing I can say about meat cooking that hasn’t been better said elsewhere, but I would like to make two observations. The first is that browning meat in hot fat before continuing the cooking elsewhere is not ‘sealing’ the meat, as if by so doing all the juices would remain inside. It does stiffen the fibres so making it more difficult for the juices to get out, but it certainly doesn’t keep them all in. The main purpose of the process ought to be to increase the flavour of the surface of the meat and leave residues of caramelized proteins in the pan to be ‘deglazed’ with water, stock or wine and then added to the cooking liquid.