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look at that that's a thing of beauty
soft melt-in-your-mouth meat and thick
gorgeous gravy the perfect casserole but
when I try and make this at home it just
doesn't cut the mustard consience
tell me what I'm doing wrong and help me
get it right in search of tips to ensure
my casseroles are more hit than miss I'm
heading to London Metropolitan
University to meet food scientists dr.
sue Bailey so can you teach me the art
of making the perfect casserole I'd be
delighted to first choose the correct
cut of meat what is the best cut of meat
for a casserole well the best cut of
meat actually is the cheaper cuts of
meat that's good news it's very good
news yes I was something like this for
example which is brisket so where is the
brisket from
it's from part of the shoulder of the
animal so quite muscley
so quite muscley so anything that's been
working very hard and has got a lot of
connective tissue in it why do you want
connective tissue that just doesn't
sound yummy at all well the connective
tissue when you cook it breaks down and
then makes you a nice thick casserole
that is so interesting because in the
past when I've got rid of these bits
because they just don't look very tasty
next up brown the meat in order to
actually get a really well flavored
casserole
you must brown your meat now a lot of
people think that's to sort of sear and
feel the outside of the meat yes lock in
the juicer
lock in the juices well actually no
that's not what it's there for what you
actually need to do is start off a
reaction called the my yard reaction
we've got a small amount of sugars in
the meat reacting with the protein in
the meat and then creating a whole load
of new taste molecules row-three add the
correct amount of stock you need to add
enough water to just cover the meat it
would dry out on
Yeah right that's about right now choose
the right dish what is most important is
that you have a lid so it doesn't really
matter what you use as long as there is
a lid and it fits tightly what you want
is no steam to escape during the cooking
process you want to retain all the
flavors in your casserole dish finally
it's the all-important cooking time now
I've always believed cooking for longer
equals a better casserole and this time
instead of telling me what's best dr.
Seuss devised an experiment so we can
measure the differences accurately we're
cooking three identical casseroles all
at a relatively low temperature check
the temperature okay one will be cooked
for an hour and a half one for four
hours and one for eight hours which will
come out best you have to get to this
sort of magic zone within a casserole
and that is where you get the connective
tissue beginning to break down turning
into gelatin and then giving a really
nice mouthfeel okay we take the meat to
the lab for scientific testing a
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compression test is done with a texture
analyzer which measures the meats
tenderness a vacuum oven analyzes
moisture content now the moment of truth
so this is the 90 minutes so that's 58%
moisture this is the four hours cooking
time with 61% moisture so you can see
that the moisture level has gone up but
in fact for the eight-hour cook it's
gone down quite a lot it's clear that
our for our casserole has the most
moisture meaning it's the most succulent
and the for our bake also results in the
most tender meat why does cooking time
affects the meat so much what's actually
happened in the casserole has only been
cooked for an hour and a half is that
there's not enough time for the
connective tissue to break down into the
lovely silky gelatin in there yes it's
still very hard this one however there's
been cooked for eight hours there's not
much gravy everything is quite burn what
you've had here is the secondary
breakdown of the proteins the muscle
fibers have actually broken apart I've
always thought the longer you cook a
casserole for the better and better it
gets no that's not true so this one that
was cooked for four hours is pretty much
perfect the meat falls apart really
easily the flavor is delicious
the vegetables are still intact I mean
it's bang on exactly
they say that you can't rush a good
casserole but it turns out longer isn't
always better finally I have the secret
to making the perfect casserole
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