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Rules for par-boiling meat

Sarah Apr 23, 2007 05:18 PM

Do you start with cold water or plunk the meat into already-boiling water? Salt or not? After skimming the froth & foam, cover or not? I know to simmer, not hard-boil, but that's all I'm sure of...

  1. Sam Fujisaka Apr 24, 2007 06:54 AM

    A quick par-boil of rough ground beef and pork is the only cooking used when I make Lao/NE Thai laap.

    1. purple goddess Apr 23, 2007 06:40 PM

      I par boil thick sausages, particulalry our favourite gourmet ones, bullboars, as they are very VERY think and it's hard to get a nice smokey and crispy skin AND get them cooked all the way thru. I add the sausages to cold water.. no salt and bring the water to a gradual simmer. I heat for about 10 mins, skimming as I go.. until the sausages are firm to the squeeze.

      This ensures I get a lovely cooked-thru snag, with a crusty BBQ smoked skin.

      4 Replies
      1. re: purple goddess
        paulj Apr 23, 2007 06:56 PM

        Some recipes call for simmering sausages briefly to 'stiffen' them prior to other use (toad-in-the-hole comes to mind).


        1. re: paulj
          woodburner Apr 23, 2007 07:13 PM

          I'm with you Paul on the chicken rub, with some low and slow indirect fire, and finishing sauce if you like.

          Try this with sausages: instead of grilling, or boiling then grilling, just put the sausages on with indirect heat, covered, for about an hour (turn at 30 min.) Use some wood with the coals. You will get a smoked sausage that is fabulous, with crisped skin. You can use regular italian sausage and people will go crazy. Remember that when you slice it open, the pink ring near the exterior is from smoke -- it is fully cooked. If it was undercooked, the pink would be at the center, not the edge. It is a whole different taste. Ah gaaaa-roooon-teeee!

          1. re: woodburner
            purple goddess Apr 23, 2007 10:56 PM

            Woody, I shall pass that on to Mr Goddess who is DA KING of the smoke and grill BBQ in out house...


        2. re: purple goddess
          mojoeater Apr 23, 2007 11:04 PM

          I had the hardest time with brats the last time I tried to grill them. I wanted to just cook them fast and skipped the boiling in beer. Bad idea.

        3. woodburner Apr 23, 2007 05:22 PM

          The rule is: Don't do that. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but I can't understand why anyone would want to do that. It turns any piece of meat into a tasteless mass. Then you add sauce or whatever and it becomes cardboard with that sauce on top. What are you going to cook? Let's talk about cooking it without the pot of water...

          10 Replies
          1. re: woodburner
            Louise Apr 23, 2007 05:28 PM

            Actually, it's a common Chinese technique when making broth. You blanch the meat, throw that water away, rinse it, then reboil.

            Sorry, can't add any fine details as I have never actually done it that way, just read about it.

            1. re: Louise
              mingerspice Apr 23, 2007 06:15 PM

              My various relatives would start pork or chicken in cold water, then, as soon as the water comes to a boil, drain the pot. Start with cold water again. It does make for much clearer broths.

            2. re: woodburner
              paulj Apr 23, 2007 05:44 PM

              Par-boiling, as the other poster wrote, is not cooking it to death. It is a brief boiling, prior to further cooking, such as a longer simmer.

              One reason is to remove the scum and offensive flavors and odors, producing a clearer broth during the main cooking step. I've done this with tripe and tongue. Par-boiling is not long enough to extract much flavor from the meat (unless cut very small or thin), nor should it toughen it. I wouldn't do it for a fine piece of steak.

              Where it more controversial is whether to do this with ribs. Some view it as a way of removing excess fat, others think it extracts all the flavor from the meat. I suspect a true, brief par-boil does neither.

              Simmering meat till it is nearly tender, and finishing it in some way that develops a crust and browning is a different thing. One of the ways of making Mexican carnitas does this - simmer the meat till the liquid is gone, then fry in the rendered fat. Yes, flavor is extracted from the meat while simmering, but it remains in the dish.

              Boiled dinners are yet another thing. There are classic French and Spanish dishes that involve simmering a good flavorful piece of meat. But they use the broth as well as the meat.


              1. re: paulj
                woodburner Apr 23, 2007 06:01 PM

                Thanks, Paul. At least it starts to make some sense for me. Still, I'll hold my ground in relation to any BBQ effort.

                1. re: woodburner
                  NYchowcook Apr 23, 2007 06:18 PM

                  Yup, I'm w/ you woodburner. For a while I was parboiling chicken pieces before making barbecued chicken. Perhaps a caterer's shortcut. A bad idea. The flavor is in the (discarded) water, and the meat turns out rubbery.

                  Better technique I've discovered is to use a spice rub in advance, barbecue over low heat (the side of the grilll w/o the charcoal) and add bbq sauce just at the very end (it tends to burn w/ sugar in it)

                  1. re: NYchowcook
                    paulj Apr 23, 2007 09:00 PM

                    I've frequently read of 'flavor in the discarded water'. I assume that most of this flavor is the juices that have been expelled from the meat as it cooks. I know that when ever I braise meat in a reasonably well sealed container (pot with lid, or foil package) that I end up with more liquid than I started with. What happens to this flavor when your roast, grill, or BBQ meat? Is less juice expelled? This could be tested by weighing meat, much as several people have done when they tested the myth about searing sealing in juices. Or do the juices evaporate, leaving flavor components on the surface of the meat? What about the juices and fat that drip on to the coals?

                    In a Mexcian barbacoa, the meat juices and fat are caught in a pan under the meat, and are served as broth.

                    Another possibility is that the simmering water actually leaches flavor components out of meat. That must happen with long simmering, such as when making stock. I'm less certain that happens when meat is cooked just long enough to be tender.


                    1. re: paulj
                      woodburner Apr 24, 2007 07:27 AM

                      All I can tell you is that when I've seen ribs parboiled, they come out of the water literally gray (blech!) and flavorless. Then the sauce is added and they are grilled for a few minutes. Still blech! I want a dry rub on the meat, with smoke and low heat to melt the fat and let the seasonings, smoke and fat flavor that meat. I'm learning here that there are certain styles and dishes where the meat can benefit from a QUICK boil before full cooking... but it ain't for me.

                2. re: paulj
                  mingerspice Apr 23, 2007 06:14 PM

                  I've also very briefly parboiled duck prior to roasting to remove some fat and ensure the meat stays moist while the skin crisps later. I cooled the duck after parboiling.

                  1. re: mingerspice
                    NYchowcook Apr 23, 2007 06:20 PM

                    You don't need to parboil a duck if you use the amazing five-hour roast duck technique!

                    1. re: NYchowcook
                      paulj Apr 23, 2007 06:49 PM

                      Alton Brown did a duck episode, in which he steamed the duck (45 min?) before roasting.

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