The Art of Browning: A Journey to Perfection

When it comes to cooking, one of the most essential techniques is browning. It's the process of creating a rich, caramelized crust on the surface of meat, poultry, or seafood. In this article, we'll explore the world of browning and how it can elevate your dishes from ordinary to extraordinary.

To begin with, let's talk about the importance of hot pans. A hot pan is essential for achieving that perfect brown color. It's crucial to heat up your pan before adding oil or food, as this allows you to achieve a nice crust on the surface of the ingredients. In our recipe today, we're using canola oil and will add it after the pan has reached a high temperature.

Now, let's talk about aromatics. Aromatics are the building blocks of flavor in any dish. They're the herbs, spices, onions, garlic, and other ingredients that add depth and complexity to our recipes. In our browning recipe today, we're using sugar, which may seem like an unusual ingredient, but trust us, it's a game-changer.

The secret to achieving that perfect brown color lies in understanding the Maillard reaction. The Maillard reaction is a chemical reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars that occurs when food is cooked, resulting in the formation of new flavor compounds and browning. By adding aromatics like sugar, onions, and garlic to our pan, we're creating an environment that encourages this reaction.

Now, let's talk about cooking techniques. When it comes to cooking with browning, technique is everything. It's essential to sear your ingredients quickly over high heat, which creates a crust on the surface of the food. This crust is what gives browned foods their characteristic flavor and texture. In our recipe today, we're using the skin side down first to achieve that perfect brown color.

As the ingredients start to brown, it's essential to remove them from the pan and set them aside. We want to cook the vegetables in the same pan, as they'll help release any remaining flavors and aromas into the dish. By cooking the vegetables until they're soft and caramelized, we're creating a rich, savory sauce that complements our browned ingredients.

Now, let's talk about seasoning. Seasoning is an art that requires patience and practice. It's essential to taste as you go and adjust your seasoning accordingly. In our recipe today, we're using salt, but feel free to add more or less depending on your personal preference.

Finally, let's talk about the importance of resting. After cooking, it's essential to let your ingredients rest before serving. This allows the juices to redistribute, making the food more tender and flavorful. By letting our browned chicken rest for 20-30 minutes, we're ensuring that it stays juicy and full of flavor.

And there you have it – a journey to perfection in the art of browning. With these techniques and tips, you'll be well on your way to creating dishes that are truly exceptional. So go ahead, get cooking, and remember, practice makes perfect!

The Final Touches: A Recipe for Perfection

Now that we've explored the world of browning, let's put our skills to the test with a recipe that showcases this technique at its best.

**Brown Stew Chicken**

Ingredients:

* 1 lb boneless chicken thighs

* 2 tbsp canola oil

* 1 tsp sugar

* 1 tsp salt

* 1/4 cup Heinz ketchup

* 1/4 cup chicken stock

* 2 cups mixed vegetables (such as carrots, potatoes, and green beans)

* 1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs (optional)

Instructions:

1. Heat the oil in a large pan over high heat.

2. Add the sugar and cook for 1-2 minutes, or until caramelized.

3. Add the chicken to the pan, skin side down, and sear for 2-3 minutes.

4. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.

5. Cook the vegetables in the same pan, stirring occasionally, until they're soft and caramelized.

6. Add the ketchup and stock to the pan, stirring to combine.

7. Return the chicken to the pan and simmer for 20-30 minutes, or until cooked through.

8. Season with salt and herbs (if using).

9. Serve hot, garnished with fresh herbs if desired.

**Tips and Variations**

* To make this recipe more spicy, add a few dashes of scotch bonnet chili to the pan along with the sugar.

* For a thicker sauce, reduce the amount of chicken stock or add a little cornstarch to thicken.

* Experiment with different aromatics, such as onions, garlic, and shallots, to create unique flavor profiles.

**The Verdict**

Our brown stew chicken recipe is a masterclass in technique and flavor. By following these steps and tips, you'll be well on your way to creating dishes that are truly exceptional. Remember, practice makes perfect, so don't be afraid to experiment and try new things. Happy cooking!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enand stuck at home you got a couple ingredients laying around I'm gonna show you how to make a really quick and easy chicken hey this is Kwame on Watchi the executive chef and creator of kith and kin in Washington DC one thing that I love and I grew up eating was brown stewed chicken brown stew chicken is a really really simple stewed dish that you can also replace with fish or pork or beef or whatever you want we're gonna start with the marinade so I have green onions about 2 bunches right here and I'm just gonna cut them into like 1-inch pieces this is a rough chop make sure you don't put these like little frilly parts in there you can say this for your stops and stuff like that and we're gonna take some Tomatoes I'm gonna do three tomato these are plum tomatoes and you can use whatever tomatoes are like sitting in your pantry this is a good time to get rid of all those cherry tomatoes that are probably going bad the bottom of your fridge and once again I'm just cutting them into rough cuts they're gonna break down and make this beautiful beautiful luscious sauce so I've cut up my tomatoes I have one scotch bonnet pepper so I'm just gonna cut in half you can leave that stem on there I have like a half a bunch of thyme I'm just gonna break up into here just like that I'm gonna take an onion one full whole yellow onion this this is super super simple and easy this marinade you can knock out in five minutes or less and then you can let it sit in your fridge I like to let it go for a day at least but three hours is fine we're gonna speed this process up and go right into it the good thing about this recipe is it gets better as it sits so if you make it today and eat it tomorrow or the next day it just continues developing flavor so I've cut my onion into large dice once again rustic cuts I'm not doing anything fancy here and now I'm moving to the garlic so I'm gonna use about a half a head of garlic in here you take each clove I'm just gonna press on it with your knife we're just chopping this up so you're gonna run your knife over it a couple times now I'm gonna peel this knob of ginger it's a small like one and a half inch knob and I'm gonna use a spoon to peel it that way I can get the maximum yield on the flesh of the ginger now this one you kind of want to slice a little bit more thin so that people aren't eating giant chunks of ginger it's not really very attractive something that I want so I'm gonna add that to my marination bowl I'm gonna take my chicken and I'm just gonna score it so that flavor goes all the way down to the bowl and I like to use dark meat for this dark meat tends to braise a lot better and your white meat counterpart you can use white meat if you prefer you can also use like duck you could use this to make short ribs this is just a great great very versatile marinade so brown stewed chicken is a very very homestyle stewed chicken dish from Jamaica it's something that pretty much every classic you know to make and cook knows how to make and it's usually everyone's favorite dish because you just reminds you of home it feels like a warm hug when you eat it and this is something that I grew up eating it was always my favorite dish so this is what it should look like you'll have all your aromatics here at the bottom now we're gonna add a couple seasonings to this so I have some allspice here and this is about a tablespoon I have some chicken bullion and the kind of bumps that flavor up a little bit I have some browning seasoning and this is what it's gonna give it the deep dark brown color and flavor as well this is about a tablespoon so I'm also gonna add kind of like a secret ingredient pick up pepper sauce now you probably can get this online but it's kind of like a overly seasoned or satire sauce and then I have sugar in the raw we're gonna add that to that for everyone that really loves food has this in there covered that's right this Heinz ketchup all right so we're gonna add that to the marinade now this is what it should look like right here so I have canola oil here it's a nice neutral oil my pan is already hot cop and I'm adding the oil after the pan is already hot because I don't want to burn the oil I left the pan to get hot add the oil the oil will quickly come up to temperature and we can get going on this so it's important to when you sear this you want to take all of the vegetables off of the chicken and we're gonna save those for later and that's why we let this marinate for its day so all of those aromatics can get in there how do you want to hear so exercise I want to do the skin side down first and this is gonna brown pretty quickly from all the sugars in there don't be afraid of that the darker the better for the Brown Street chicken and that's what's the that's where the stew is really gonna get its color from so this looks burn to most people but this is what the brown stew chicken stew looks like before it starts doing all right so as they start to brown properly we're just gonna place them to the side and we're gonna go into the same pot to cook our vegetables when it's time this is the time you just start thinking about how hot you like your food now if you want to take out the pepper at least one of them now's your chance there's no going back from there all right I'm gonna take out one and I'm gonna leave half in and then you can always add more spice at the ends you can't take it away I'm just gonna add the aromatics independence all that liquid is gonna help release that bond at the bottom or the normalize proteins that at the bottom of the pan so we want these vegetables to just sweat meaning like release some of their moisture breakdown get nice and soft I'm gonna season this with a little bit of salt right now kind of release all of that liquid from the vegetables and help this process out a little bit more see all the vegetables are broken down and like a sauce has developed at this point - so should look like this tomato should be really soft the green onions your onions your garlic this is beautiful beautiful it's very shiny because of all the sugars that are in there that have now caramelized at this point we're gonna add our chicken so I've also taken out the other scotch bonnet chili so while it was stewing in there and cooked it got more the flavor up so now I have both pieces out now you can leave it in it just depends on how spicy you like your food but I like to add it towards the end if I want more heat because then you can really taste where this is going so now it should be covered completely with this sauce I am going to add some chicken stock now there's two cups here you don't need two cups you just want it to cover the chicken I'm going to mix this up again I'm gonna let this go for about 20 to 30 minutes and I'll see you back then your Browns too chicken should be done by now and should smell amazing I'm gonna give this a little taste see where we're at seasoning why I see if we need to add more salt at this point that is very good needs a little bit more salt though so this should be sweet salty lots of aromatics going on then you have like a deep carmelization from the searing of the chicken initially and the Browning and we're done my friends so you can take this down a little bit more so the sauce is like even thicker but it just depends on what you want I'm gonna take you over here and play it up and we're just gonna bite into this because I can't keep stirring this I have to eat it now you got your bouncy chicken hopefully I've erased at the bottom of this I'm gonna add a couple pieces of this chicken right here it's probably the best part right here all this gravy this looks so good this is dripping all on the side of the bowl but it's amazing it doesn't matter I'm just gonna have one bite of this I'm actually gonna let this cool and sit in the liquid that's gonna soak up more of that flavor didn't taste like home this is actually amazing thank you all for tuning in thanks for coming into my home I have someone that wants to say hello she keeps hanging out over here this is bucatini thank you all for tuning in youand stuck at home you got a couple ingredients laying around I'm gonna show you how to make a really quick and easy chicken hey this is Kwame on Watchi the executive chef and creator of kith and kin in Washington DC one thing that I love and I grew up eating was brown stewed chicken brown stew chicken is a really really simple stewed dish that you can also replace with fish or pork or beef or whatever you want we're gonna start with the marinade so I have green onions about 2 bunches right here and I'm just gonna cut them into like 1-inch pieces this is a rough chop make sure you don't put these like little frilly parts in there you can say this for your stops and stuff like that and we're gonna take some Tomatoes I'm gonna do three tomato these are plum tomatoes and you can use whatever tomatoes are like sitting in your pantry this is a good time to get rid of all those cherry tomatoes that are probably going bad the bottom of your fridge and once again I'm just cutting them into rough cuts they're gonna break down and make this beautiful beautiful luscious sauce so I've cut up my tomatoes I have one scotch bonnet pepper so I'm just gonna cut in half you can leave that stem on there I have like a half a bunch of thyme I'm just gonna break up into here just like that I'm gonna take an onion one full whole yellow onion this this is super super simple and easy this marinade you can knock out in five minutes or less and then you can let it sit in your fridge I like to let it go for a day at least but three hours is fine we're gonna speed this process up and go right into it the good thing about this recipe is it gets better as it sits so if you make it today and eat it tomorrow or the next day it just continues developing flavor so I've cut my onion into large dice once again rustic cuts I'm not doing anything fancy here and now I'm moving to the garlic so I'm gonna use about a half a head of garlic in here you take each clove I'm just gonna press on it with your knife we're just chopping this up so you're gonna run your knife over it a couple times now I'm gonna peel this knob of ginger it's a small like one and a half inch knob and I'm gonna use a spoon to peel it that way I can get the maximum yield on the flesh of the ginger now this one you kind of want to slice a little bit more thin so that people aren't eating giant chunks of ginger it's not really very attractive something that I want so I'm gonna add that to my marination bowl I'm gonna take my chicken and I'm just gonna score it so that flavor goes all the way down to the bowl and I like to use dark meat for this dark meat tends to braise a lot better and your white meat counterpart you can use white meat if you prefer you can also use like duck you could use this to make short ribs this is just a great great very versatile marinade so brown stewed chicken is a very very homestyle stewed chicken dish from Jamaica it's something that pretty much every classic you know to make and cook knows how to make and it's usually everyone's favorite dish because you just reminds you of home it feels like a warm hug when you eat it and this is something that I grew up eating it was always my favorite dish so this is what it should look like you'll have all your aromatics here at the bottom now we're gonna add a couple seasonings to this so I have some allspice here and this is about a tablespoon I have some chicken bullion and the kind of bumps that flavor up a little bit I have some browning seasoning and this is what it's gonna give it the deep dark brown color and flavor as well this is about a tablespoon so I'm also gonna add kind of like a secret ingredient pick up pepper sauce now you probably can get this online but it's kind of like a overly seasoned or satire sauce and then I have sugar in the raw we're gonna add that to that for everyone that really loves food has this in there covered that's right this Heinz ketchup all right so we're gonna add that to the marinade now this is what it should look like right here so I have canola oil here it's a nice neutral oil my pan is already hot cop and I'm adding the oil after the pan is already hot because I don't want to burn the oil I left the pan to get hot add the oil the oil will quickly come up to temperature and we can get going on this so it's important to when you sear this you want to take all of the vegetables off of the chicken and we're gonna save those for later and that's why we let this marinate for its day so all of those aromatics can get in there how do you want to hear so exercise I want to do the skin side down first and this is gonna brown pretty quickly from all the sugars in there don't be afraid of that the darker the better for the Brown Street chicken and that's what's the that's where the stew is really gonna get its color from so this looks burn to most people but this is what the brown stew chicken stew looks like before it starts doing all right so as they start to brown properly we're just gonna place them to the side and we're gonna go into the same pot to cook our vegetables when it's time this is the time you just start thinking about how hot you like your food now if you want to take out the pepper at least one of them now's your chance there's no going back from there all right I'm gonna take out one and I'm gonna leave half in and then you can always add more spice at the ends you can't take it away I'm just gonna add the aromatics independence all that liquid is gonna help release that bond at the bottom or the normalize proteins that at the bottom of the pan so we want these vegetables to just sweat meaning like release some of their moisture breakdown get nice and soft I'm gonna season this with a little bit of salt right now kind of release all of that liquid from the vegetables and help this process out a little bit more see all the vegetables are broken down and like a sauce has developed at this point - so should look like this tomato should be really soft the green onions your onions your garlic this is beautiful beautiful it's very shiny because of all the sugars that are in there that have now caramelized at this point we're gonna add our chicken so I've also taken out the other scotch bonnet chili so while it was stewing in there and cooked it got more the flavor up so now I have both pieces out now you can leave it in it just depends on how spicy you like your food but I like to add it towards the end if I want more heat because then you can really taste where this is going so now it should be covered completely with this sauce I am going to add some chicken stock now there's two cups here you don't need two cups you just want it to cover the chicken I'm going to mix this up again I'm gonna let this go for about 20 to 30 minutes and I'll see you back then your Browns too chicken should be done by now and should smell amazing I'm gonna give this a little taste see where we're at seasoning why I see if we need to add more salt at this point that is very good needs a little bit more salt though so this should be sweet salty lots of aromatics going on then you have like a deep carmelization from the searing of the chicken initially and the Browning and we're done my friends so you can take this down a little bit more so the sauce is like even thicker but it just depends on what you want I'm gonna take you over here and play it up and we're just gonna bite into this because I can't keep stirring this I have to eat it now you got your bouncy chicken hopefully I've erased at the bottom of this I'm gonna add a couple pieces of this chicken right here it's probably the best part right here all this gravy this looks so good this is dripping all on the side of the bowl but it's amazing it doesn't matter I'm just gonna have one bite of this I'm actually gonna let this cool and sit in the liquid that's gonna soak up more of that flavor didn't taste like home this is actually amazing thank you all for tuning in thanks for coming into my home I have someone that wants to say hello she keeps hanging out over here this is bucatini thank you all for tuning in you\n"