“To Braise” means browning in fat and cooking covered in a small amount of liquid. It’s a method used to tenderize and intensify flavors in meat or vegetables. Usually inexpensive cuts of meat are best suited for this style of cooking, so it’s an affordable gourmet meal with little fuss.

Listed below are the 4 basic steps to braising meat, and an example chart for different meats and their cooking times, followed by a recipe for: Braised Ginger Beef with Pomegranate Sauce.

1st Start by choosing a cut of meat. Lamb or beef shank, pork or beef shoulder roast, top blade steak, brisket, chuck roast, and short or back ribs are the most common beef, lamb and pork braising choices. Most are tougher cuts of meat with high levels of protein known as collagen. Collagen cooked at low temperatures for long period’s converts to gelatin in the braising process which in turn tenderizes the meat and creates a rich thick sauce. So don’t think you need to buy a tender cut of meat to end up with a good meal. In the end tougher cuts of meat are better for creating the richest flavor and thicker sauce. The secret is in the gentle slow cooking. Chicken and fish are also great choices, however, chicken should not be skinless and bone in is best, preferably legs and thighs, and for fish, shark and swordfish cuts will hold up better than others.

2nd Then brown in fat. Depending on your recipe, most meats are browned first in a small amount of fat for color and flavor enhancing. Using a Dutch Oven or large heavy pot with a tight fitting lid, add your fat, heat to a hot temperature, add the meat and brown on all sides. Usually browning takes 10-20 minutes and is a process that does not cook the meat all the way through, it’s a surface cooking called browning or searing to lock in flavor. Most commonly meat is left whole for braising, but if meats are cut, remember same size portions are the best for even cooking.

Tips: For successful browning, foods must be dry and free of moisture or steaming not browning will result. Also not crowding your pan will allow moisture to escape during the browning process and give you a properly browned item.

3rd Then add your liquid. Liquids can include, wine, apple juice, water, broth or etc. Liquids, however, should not cover the meat. Usually no more than a ¼ – 1 cup is needed and sometimes no liquid is added depending on the recipe. Also at this point other items can be added, onions, garlic, spices, vegetables and etc.

4th Cover and cook on a very low heat, over a stove top, in a slow cooker or in the oven usually for 1 to 4 or more hours, depending on the recipe. Oven cooking is most effective, due to even heat from all sides which offers the best flavor and tenderizing results, along with a less fussy project. ( braising temperatures are 145-300 degrees, inexperienced cooks, however, should not cook below 185-200 without proper equipment for temperature control, meat can spoil if improperly cooked on to low a heat, if there is a simmer (small bubbling) going on in the pot you know your temp is not to low)

Example Cooking Times:

Lamb Shank, four to six shanks each one pound, 2 ½ hours

Shoulder roast 3-4 pound, 3½ – 4 hours

Top blade steaks, 2 ½ to 3 pound, 1 ½ inch thick, 1 ½ to 2 hours

Brisket, 3½ to 5 pound, 1 ½ inch thick, 3-4 hours

Back ribs, 3-4 pounds, 2x2x4 inches, 1 ½ to 2 ½ hours

Short ribs, 3-5 pounds, 2 ½ to 4 hours

Boneless chuck roast, 2½ -3 pounds, 2½ hours

Chicken, bone in, 1 hour

Swordfish, 2-4 pounds, 1 inch thick, ½ to 1 hour

Ginger Beef with Pomegranate Sauce

3 – 4 pound Brisket or Shoulder Roast

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

3 inches of fresh ginger, sliced ¼ inch thick

15 large garlic cloves, pealed and left whole

1/3 cup soy sauce

1/3 cup pomegranate syrup (most stores carry this)

1/3 cup brown sugar

Wash the brisket and dry excess moisture from the surface of the meat.

In a heavy pot with tight fitting lid or Dutch oven, heat the oil and brown the brisket and onions together for about 7-10 minutes. Turn the brisket to evenly brown on all sides.
Add the remaining ingredients, cook for about 3-5 minutes until sugar is melted and sauce becomes hot, stir well, cover and bake in a 300o oven for about 3-4 hours, stirring once or twice to baste the meat. (a slow cooker can also be used and will require no stirring, however I like to stir and baste once just because I enjoy checking the progress)

For stove top cooking, cover and keep flame low, and sauce at a slow simmer, stirring about every 30-45 minutes. Cook the brisket for about 3-4 hours, or until meat is tender and sauce has thickened.

If sauce has not thickened to desired thickness when the brisket is ready; remove meat and lid, then reduce for a couple minutes.

Slice meat and arrange on a large platter, pour the sauce over the top and garnish with cherry tomatoes and or parsley.

By: Efrona Mor

About the Author:

Mark Snare asked:

Do you need a juicer or blender or both? Well two great tools for today’s healthy kitchen, let’s start by telling you what each machine does. A blender is a standard piece of kitchen mixing equipment, for the raw food fan this is what you use to make delicious meal-in-a-glass smoothies!

A blender is simply a mixing jug with a rotary blade at the bottom; whatever you put in the top gets liquidized and turned into a drink! So for example you may throw in a banana, some soy milk, some strawberries and a few ice cubes and you’ll have a delicious and easy to digest fruit smoothie, no waste, and no fuss and just swill out the blender jug when you are done. Simple!

The beauty of smoothie making is that there is no waste product, everything is used up in the drink, your ingredients are liquidized and made very easy to digest, just think of those lazy summer days with a tall banana smoothie in your hand and the sun’s rays on your face perfect!!

Blenders also make short work of adding super foods and other drink enhancers to your smoothie; you could whip in barley grass powder, protein powder, ginseng, or any other healthy liquid or powdered supplement!

With a decent blender you can make super easy to digest nutritious smoothies every day!

Ingredients suitable for blending:

1) Banana, Mango, Strawberry, Raspberry soft pulpy fruits!
2) Juice from your juicer
3) Nuts
4) Seeds
5) Kiwi fruit (peeled), Berries, Star fruit, passion fruit, avocado, grapes,
6) Orange and other citrus (peeled of course)
7) Super food
Greens complexes, powdered barley grass etc.
9) Protein powder! Go beefcake!
10) Seed oil, essential fats etc
11) Ice, ice baby – let’s face it you want your smoothie cool, after all anything less than the best is a felony!
12) Leafy greens – I often make a point of chucking in a handful of spinach

Juicer! Get in! This is what we are all about! Now your juicer is like a key!! It’s a key for taking all of Mother Nature’s natural fare and unlocking the raw liquid goodness from within! Grab a carrot! Now look at that carrot and imagine inside it is charged with all the stuff you need, vitamins, minerals, enzymes and live Nutrients for life!

Now your juicer allows you to take a handful of nature’s finest foods and separate the rough, tough, and hard to break down body of the fruit or veg from the pure liquid gold nutrient content within! If you were to take that carrot now and run it through a juicer now you would have two things, one, a small mound of bland dry pulp, and two, a glass of nutritional LIQUID GOLD! This is what the juicer does! It unlocks the natural raw power of fruits and veggies and gives them to you in a way that your body can fully and easily absorb!

If you haven’t tried quinoa yet, you owe it to yourself and your family to cook and serve some tonight.

This cereal-like food was eaten for thousands of years by the Incas of South America, who worshipped it as sacred. And no wonder. It is one of the most nutritional foods in the world, higher in essential amino acids than wheat. Yet unlike wheat, quinoa is gluten free.

Although some natives of the Andes region where it originated also eat its leaves, most people eat quinoa in its seed or “grain” form. Happily, it’s easy to prepare and cook in this form.

Quinoa is showing up on more supermarket shelves in the United States, Canada and Europe, but—depending on where you live—you might have to seek it out in a specialty or organic grocery store. Try to find a package containing seeds that have had their waxy outer coatings removed through rinsing or some other process.

If you buy quinoa with its coating still on, you must rinse it vigorously in a strainer, then soak it for several hours in water, then rinse it again. If you leave behind any of the coating, which is full of a bitter substance called saponin, your quinoa will taste terrible.

Fortunately, most commercially marketed quinoa sold in North America and Europe today has been pre-processed to remove the coating.

The easiest way to prepare quinoa is to cook it much as you would rice. Just put a cup of the de-coated grain in a saucepan and pour two cups of water over it. Bring the pan to a boil, cover, and turn down the heat to a low simmer. Let it cook for about 15 minutes, then remove from heat.

Your cooked quinoa should be light and fluffy, much like cooked rice; in fact, you can use it in almost any dish where you would normally use rice. Add your favorite vegetables, meats or seasonings and enjoy. My south Louisiana heritage is showing here, but I have to say that my own favorite way to make quinoa is in a jambalaya with shrimp and sausage.

If you would like to try baking with it, look for quinoa flour form in the store. You will probably need to combine it with something else such as sorghum flour or tapioca starch to get a good baking mix. Some cooks recommend a mix of 2 parts quinoa flour, 2 parts sorghum flour and 1 part tapioca starch.

Is there a gluten allergy sufferer in your life? Try making some special treats using such a quinoa-based mix and see how easy it is to bring baked joy back to the table.

By: Sarah Sandori

About the Author:

Mark Snare asked:




I bang on about juicers enough, but here’s our thought on our other favorite tool of choice, the blender. A decent blender in your kitchen is a brilliant tool for healthy drinks no mess, no waste and great easy to digest drinks! The blenders I recommend are all tough with plenty of power offering easy liquidizing of fruits and veggies, we think when you adopt a raw and fruity life you’ll need equipment you can depend on.

What to look our for when you buy a blender

POWER, at least 900 watts but the more the merrier, a really powerful blender will make smoother smoothies quicker than a low power machine. QUALITY particularly in the power socket, a cheap blender will ALWAYS break where the drive from the motor meets the blade driver. JUG SIZE again, if you are making drinks for the family, the bigger the better, and allow for the drink sloshing around. CONTROL speed control is an advantage, at low speed you can fold oils and powders into your drinks at high speed you can mill nuts and seeds.
EASY to clean, look for wipe clean surfaces, and simple to clean contours.

Keep things interesting too, if like me you can be a little lazy, equip yourself with a decent recipe book so you’ve always got new things to try. This keeps me primed with new mixes to try and knowledge of the effects of natural additives such as spirulina! There are TONNES of hip books out there, they’re a great help in keeping things fresh!

When you’ve got the time double up the juicer and blender for max nutrition, juice some carrots, ginger and tender stem, throw that juice in the blender and add some pears, pineapple, half an avocado and a couple of scoops of essential food and KAPOW, there you have broad spectrum natural nutrients in a glass!

Remember, the point of consuming smoothies as well as them tasting really good is that liquidized food is easier to digest than food you chomp up, this means it takes less energy to digest and is more thoroughly digested.

If you are new to this fresh and juicy lifestyle here is some help deciding if you need a juicer and a blender and what each tool is for.

So here are a few of our favorite things to chuck in the blender

pineapple: just slice it up trim the skin and lob it in avocado: a total favorite total food here at JP towers you can’t go wrong with avocado in the mix banana: a smoothie staple, too fleshy to juice so in the blender it goes Berries: blue, straw, black, you name it berries are good for you and add great taste to a smoothie. Kiwi fruits: rammed full of vitamin C slice them, scoop them and throw it in the blender, the seeds crush up nicely and add protein. Oranges: buy seedless oranges peel them and blend them great and no waste! Apples: peel and core they blend well in a powerful machine. Melon: high water content, great for thinning out a drink so it will go up a straw OK! Peach: stone out then blend and great taste and texture to any drink Nuts and seeds: add protein and more to your smoothies with a handful of nuts and seeds

So easy to do and really worth while for health and nutrition smoothie making gives you the all important raw or live aspect to your diet.