Daube de cochon (Provence pork stew, why we say “braisé”)

The daube (Provence’s stew) is more often done with beef, or lamb. Well I made it with pork this time.
Daube de porc. Daube de cochon. Pork Daube.

That’s delicious but the main ingredient is time. You nearly need one week :

Day 1 :
Short ribs of pork as the meat. They are marinated in red wine, with carrots, lots of onions, a bit of orange peel (mikan today), a bouquet garni, a few spices…
24 hours.
Then garlic is added, and tomato.

Day 2, Day 3… After searing the flour coated meat in olive oil, I used the rice-cooker as a crock pot. I did one cycle (2 hours + stay hot about 6 hours). Skimmed the fat after cooling. Another cycle the next day.

ENERGY, WATER, EFFICIENCY

You may know, or not that we live in time of “setsuden” (energy cutting campaign) in Japan. Due to some issues with power plants after the disasters last year, we try to reduce energy consumption. I have an energy-saving induction rice-cooker, so this method is the most ecological for long simmering, compared to stove-top or oven. In old times, in Provence, they were saving differently. The dish was simmered in a daubière, a pot designed for daube. Some models were in copper, but the most traditional was pottery, like this :

daubiere Source (read this article in English) in this English language blog about French culinary history.

Why we say braisé ?

With that you have to “braise” as on high heat the pot would explode… In French, “braise” means “ember”. The origin was to put the pot on embers. The lid of a daubière forms a sort of bowl. And one of my cast iron pots has the same shape because it is a braisière. So, they could place embers on the lid, and that would cook from both directions, bottom and top. Convenient in Winter.
But that’s not so efficient as anyway the heat goes up. The second way is to fill it with cold water. That seems weird ? When you simmer your food, some steam goes up and slowly escapes as the lid is not totally hermetic, even with a good lid, you have condensation. And after a while, your stew dries, so you add more water. Well you need to check, to be here. When you cover the lid with water, the lid stays slightly cooler, the steam hitting the lid instantly gets back into liquid and falls back into your stew : it does not get dry.