Braising awesome veal foreshanks in a thin pot on vacation, not a thick dutch oven, advice?
I'm on vacation and want to braise some beautiful veal shanks I have. The only pot I have here with no plastic handles is like an enamelled aluminum I'm guessing, and not very thick at all. It's not terribly thin, but it's no dutch oven.
So I guess I just have to check often that I'm at a bare simmer, and turn more often? I got some help on this in another thread, but I was assuming I'd be cooking on the stove top due to no suitable oven vessel. Now that I've found something I can put in the oven, I'm thinking I'm better off doing that.
I could buy a thicker pot at Sam`s Club here, but it`s still aluminum, it`s a tomato based sauce, and it`s $50 for one meal.
Also I have way too much meat to `braise` I think as my meat to pot to liquid ratio is going to be off. I can break it up into 3 pots... Am I better off doing that than crowding one pot and submerging a lot of the meat? I'd have to go stove top, but maybe it's better that way.
I have ten of these to cook: http://a2.img.mobypicture.com/d63972d...
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paulj
May 19, 2012 09:34 PM
In the oven the thickness of the pot is not particularly important. The oven itself is applying heat to all sides of the pot.
If you want to braise the shanks in a single layer, and only partially submerged, you might even use several disposable 'hotel pans' with foil covers.
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GretchenS
May 19, 2012 08:47 PM
Don't buy anything. Those veal shanks are GORGEOUS!!! I would do oven, not worry about crowding the pot, go ahead and submerge, cook at no more than 300 oven and rearrange the meat a few times so the middle pieces get redistributed. And use lots of garlic. But that is me. Please report back with pictures!!!!!
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re: GretchenS
Aren't they though? :) You can always buy them here in the Mercado San Juan in Mexico City. You'll cry when I tell you how much too.. Works out to about $2.20 each in US dollars. I'm making Molly Stevens recipe here: http://www.cookstr.com/recipes/osso-b...
I've made it at home before with shanks like in the link above. Should work even better I think with these, with more bone marrow to melt into the sauce.
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Hank Hanover
May 19, 2012 08:44 PM
You could buy a tramontina enameled cast iron dutch oven at Walmart so I assume you could buy one at Sam's Club. It is 6.5 quarts for $49.95. If you don't want to do that or bring a crockpot, you will have to use the thin pot on the stove and keep checking it to keep it at a simmer.
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re: Hank Hanover
I wish you were right Hank! We tried Sams Club and Walmart today here in Mexico, and walmart only had super thin cheap aluminum crap, and other cheap crap with plastic handles. One time here I tried to buy a meat thermometer, and tried many stores, with no luck. I went home to a Walmart (or Canadian Tire? can't remember) and they practically had a wall of the things, maybe 20 or 30 different choices. Here they were like what's a meat thermometer, and why would anyone ever want one of those? A.... A.... a what?
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re: paulj
Yeah, the one I have is old and light blue, but not speckled, and is enamelled something or other. I have two smaller, heavier and thicker enamelled pots I can use too, but they have plastic handles. I'm not in Mexico City right now, in a smaller town, so less choice. I just raided the two houses they have here and picked the best of what they had.
Cooking inside an oven is pretty rare here, and of all the ovens I've seen here they just use them for storage of flat items, usually serving platters and pot lids. If they do use the oven it's for heating up pre-cooked frozen stuff like chicken nuggets etc. At least in the houses I've been in.
I did find out that cast iron is called "hierro fundido" here, but asking for that has just got me puzzled looks so far. They'll have it at the nicer places in Mexico City, and in speciality stores. It's like everything has its own store there, and there's whole areas with lots of the same kind of store. Like the "lighting" district, etc.
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