Cheating

I can't stand sugar. Hate it. Despise it. Sure, it has it's place in desserts, but that's not what I'm talking about. I get very angry when sugar is used in savory cooking. I don't even want the bloody stuff near my coffee, much less in my sandwich bread. White sugar in particular is the worst. When something savory is sweetened with cheap, banal, white sugar, it tastes the same: cheap and banal. Maybe, maybe, if you make a deep caramel first, then possibly you might get away with paring it with a gamey meat dish. Probably not.

Sadly, I know too many chefs who use sugar in tomato sauces, soups, stocks, dressings, and whatever else they find in need of a boost. Call it “sugar cheating.” It's not just chefs either. Read the ingredients of the next jar of pasta sauce you buy at the grocery store, sugar is pretty high on the list. How many recipes in your collection call for a tablespoon of sugar?

Let me be perfectly clear, I am not against sweetness in savory foods. Pasta sauces aren't supposed to be all tomato-acid bitter, and the salts in cured meats need to be balanced by a rich sweetness. I will admit, adding sugar is, at times, warranted. Most chutneys, for example, call for sugar, but dark brown or smoky demerara yield superior results to that of white. However, these exceptions are few and, as a general rule, you shouldn't be adding sugar to your cooking.

How then, is one to sweeten foods without adding sugar? Through the skilled control of temperature and ample application of patience.

Many of the savory foods we eat are filled with natural sugars. It is my job as a chef (and yours as a cook at home) to coax them out. These sugars - in onions, carrots, celery, wine, vinegar, even fish and meat - have deeply complex flavor profiles, and once you grow accustom to them in your foods, you're tastebuds will be able to spot “sugar cheating” at first bite.



Chef's call the process of drawing out these naturally sweet flavors “caramelization.” Technically, the word is a scientific term which applies only to certain chemical reactions in food, and is differentiated from other browning of food reactions (such as bread and meat) by a lack of interaction with amino acids. However, in practice, the terms “to color the food,” “brown the food,” and “caramelize” are all interchangeable in the kitchen. Let's not get bogged down in technical details.



All you really need to know is that, in general, “low and slow” is good for vegetables, and “searing” is better for most meats. Carrots and their ilk need time over moderate heat for their sugars to develop. Meats, on the other hand, require high heat, as they taste best when seared, as apposed to boiling in their own juices, where the temperatures are not high enough to brown the meat. Done properly, both caramelized veggies and meats yield a roasty, complex, rich, full-pallet sweetness that, frankly, beats the living bejesus out of anything made with white sugar.

Any chef who can't do this is either incompetent or lazy, or both.

Let's practice.



Braised Ox Tail Cannelloni with Parsnip Puree and Ox Tail Jus

O.K. I know there are a lot of instructions here, but this isn't really that difficult. If you learn this method, you can apply it to all your braises. The result here is a rich, savory, meat-filled pasta with a sticky, salty, sweet jus. It is well worth the effort. This should make about 5 servings.

1 ox tail, jointed (ask your butcher do do this for you)
1 carrot, peeled
1 onion, peeled
1 stick celery
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 sprig thyme
1 bay leaf
beef or brown chicken stock
100 ml red wine

Begin by cutting your vegetables into large chunks (see first photo above). Cut the onion into quarters, and cut the carrot and celery on a diagonal to increase their surface area; we'll be using this greater surface area to our advantage: the greater the surface area, the greater the carmelization. Crack the garlic lightly with the heel of your palm. Have all of these at the ready.

Heat a heavy-bottomed pan on high heat until it is very hot. Working quickly, sprinkle the ox tail segments with salt and pepper, pour a couple tablespoons of oil into the hot pan, and lower the meat piece by piece into the pan using tongs. It may not all fit at once; don't over-crowd the pan.

This is your first opportunity to practice caramelization. You need to adjust the temperature in the pan so that the meat is sizzling, not boiling in it's own juices, but at the same time, cooking slowly enough to brown evenly and render out some of the fat. This will take some time. Periodically turn the pieces of meat so that each side is slowly browned. When caramelized on all sides, remove the meat to a deep roasting dish which is just large enough to hold all the meat, and repeat if you were unable to cook all the meat at once.

When all of the tail segments have been browned, have a look at the bottom of your pan. You should see a bit of oil/fat and bits of meat and cooked meat juices – the “glaze” - stuck to the bottom. This glaze is tasty and we want it in our braise. The next step uses the vegetables to remove it from the bottom of the pan.

Keeping the pan on the same heat, pour off all but about 3 tablespoons of the fat. Toss in your veggies and stir with a wooden spoon. This is your second chance to practice. The carrots, onions, celery, and garlic have a high water content. As they start to cook, this water comes out, boils away, and in the process removes the glaze from the bottom of the pan. Take extra care during this step to keep the temperature high enough to cook, but not to burn; burnt is bitter.

Cooking the vegetables will take longer than it did to brown the meat, so be patient. Eventually the celery will begin to break down a bit, the onions will fall apart and become soft, and the carrots will take on a a dark, orange-brown color, but will not soften completely. The mixture may start to stick to the bottom again as the vegetables cook, so frequent stirring and scraping are required to prevent any burning. When they are done, the veggies will have a very sweet, rich, roasted aroma.



At this point you can add the thyme and bay and cook for a minuet or so more. Next, pour the red wine over the vegetables, bring it to a boil and let it reduce by at least half. As the wine boils, scrape the bottom of the pan with your wooden spoon to loosen any remaining bits of the glaze. Transfer the contents of the pot to the baking dish with the ox tail.

Fill the remaining space in the baking dish with stock, cover with foil or a tight-fitting lid and cook in a slow oven (160ºC) for 3-4 hours. When the meat is ready it will come away from the bone easily when pulled with tongs.

Remove the braise from the oven and let cool. When it is cool enough to touch, remove all the meat from the sauce and pick the meat from the bones, making sure not to include any of the sinew (of which there is a great deal). Strain the liquid into a pot, bring it to a boil, and reduce it by at least half, until it is a thick and sticky jus.

Pick through the solids you have strained out for any extra bits of meat. Remove the carrots, crush or chop them, and fold them into the meat mixture. Ladle a bit of the reduced sauce into the meat mixture so that it is moist, but not wet, and then season to taste. Cool.

To make the cannelloni, bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Cook the cannelloni for half the time suggested on the box and then drain and cool immediately in cold water. Using a spoon or a piping bag, fill the pasta tubes with the meat mixture. Wrap bundles of two or three cannelloni (depending on how many you want in a portion) in several layers of cling film, making sure you form a tight seal. The cannelloni will keep like this for several days in the refrigerator.

To serve, fill a steamer with water and steam the packets for 10 minuets. Alternatively, if you don't have a steamer, you can set the cannelloni in a colander over boiling water, covered with a lid, for the same amount of time. Gently unwrap and place on top of parsnip purée (see below) and top with a ladle of the hot, reduced jus. Garnish with parsnip chips (below, optional).

Parsnip Purée

2 parsnips, peeled
50 g butter

Remove the top from the parsnips and cut into roughly 2 cm chunks. Cover with lightly salted water and simmer until soft, about 10 – 15 minuets. Drain, reserving the liquid, and place in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth, adding enough of the reserved water to form a thick purée. With the blender on high, drop in small cubes of the butter one at a time, allowing each to be incorporated before adding the next.

This is where you get to try out one more method of drawing out sweetness which I have not yet mentioned. Taste the parsnip purée. Now, add a bit of salt and taste again. Sweeter? It's like magic.

Parsnip Chips (These are optional, but add a nice crunch to the meal.)

1 small parsnip, peeled

Using a vegetable peeler, create long strands of parsnip until all that is left is it's core. Deep fry these strips at 180ºC for no more than a minuet. They should be golden and will crisp upon cooling. Drain on paper towels and salt lightly.