If the meat sticks to the pan, it's not ready to turn. The meat will release from the pan when it's browned enough.

Also, your meat has to be dry not wet in order to brown properly.

Also make sure your oil is hot enough before the meat goes into the pan.

Hot HOT pan.....very little oil...in fact Ijust rub some on the meat. When you put themeat in the pan it should sizzle and steam....when it's browned, as khandi says, it will releastandturn it 1/2aturnand repeat.
In fact...if your pan is hot enough, you won't even need any oil. Hard to believe....but it's true.
Linda C

Have the meat at room temperature.

Brush the oil on the meat and sprinkle lightly with kosher salt.

Have the pan ROCKET hot.

If the meat won't unstick from the bottom of the pan, WAIT. When it unsticks, that means that you have a golden brown and delicious sear/crust on that side and it's ready to go to the next side.

I prefer a little oil on the meat because on lean meat especially it helps add a bit more flavor and it also helps heat move into the meat more evenly.

Thanks for all the help on this! I remembered I hadn't followed up this thread when I went to make pork tenderloin last night. Pretty much I was doing everything wrong-too much oil and the tenderloin was dripping wet from the marinade. So I corrected those things and voila-perfect browning. You guys are the best!

Tracey

Sort of on the same subject...

Why do so many recipes for stews etc call for dousing the meat in flour before browning? I find that I get much better color and flavor without it. In fact, in a pan hot enough to brown the meat properly, the flour tends to burn.

How about you folks, flour or no flour??

No flour, HOT pan, a couple drops oil either on the meat or in the pan.

HOT pan goes for pancakes, too, or anything you want to brown and turn.

The flour thickens your broth.

No flour here just a little oil, hot pan and meat. I sometimes cheat and put paprika on the meat along with kosher salt and ground pepper.

Dry the meat well with paper towels. No flour.

Sprinkle the HOT pan with salt. No oil.

Sear the meat.

This is a variation on several of the previous suggestions. It's based on a method from James Beard, my "mentor".

I normally do not like marinades. They cause the meat to stew instead of brown. There are exceptions.

Jim

I Flour.....Flour can be a carrier for lots of spices, which stay in the pan become part of the fond and also thicken thegravy...
Pretty much, if it will be having a thickened gravy, I flour, if not I just slap 'er into the hot pan.
Linda C

Linda, I love the way you just slap that food around. It's very professional. Nothing tentative or timid about it. Just slap 'er here and slap 'er there. I'll try to emulate that. I bet you can flip a large skillet full of home fries without flinching and without losing a single fry. It's not something I can do, and I admire those who can. LOL!

To clarify, I do use coatings on meat for various purposes. For just getting a brown surface though, directly on the meat, I don't. And I frequently do use oil. But now we're talking about frying, which is a different story.

Jim

Adding a roux later will thicken the broth, and spices can be cooked into the roux to bring out their flavor. I prefer this method, because I can get well browned meat with lots of rich, browned bits in the pan to add flavor to the stock without risking a burnt taste from the flour.

Of course, it is another step, making the roux. But I love the smell of a good roux cooking from blonde to brown to chocolate (depending what I'm making). Anyway, half the time the flour on the meat didn't thicken the stock enough and I had to make a roux anyway.

the only time a flour is when making something like beef bouguionne or a stroganoff.

I find the meat browns just fine and the flout thickens the broth nicely. I don't want to fiddle with a roux when I have a pot full of meat, veggies etc. Also flour for certain fish and veal diahes when it is specific to the recipe.

Other than that I don't flour first.

This article says it better than I could:

Why food sticks to stainless steel pans?

Food that sticks is caused by chemical bonds that form between the food and the material of the pan - almost always a metal. Protein-rich foods are particularly prone to sticking because the proteins can form complexes with metal atoms, such as iron, in the pan.

How to prevent sticking or why hot oil prevents sticking?

The oil, being liquid, fills in the valleys and caves of the pan surface. Hot oil is more viscous than cold oil and will immediately flow filling the gaps.

When oil in the pan gets hot enough a steam effect begins to occur ---

"A small amount of oil added to a very hot pan almost instantly becomes very hot oil. The oil quickly sears the outside of the food and causes water to be released from the food. This layer of water vapor ("steam") lifts the food atop the oil film and keeps it from touching the hot pan surface. If the oil is not hot enough, the steam effect will not occur and the food will fuse to the (too) cool pan surface." Source: Ask a Scientist, Newton BBC

In addition very hot oil will react with the metal atoms of the pan and form a coating called a patina. This leaves few free metal atoms to react with the food. This coating can easily be removed by detergents, however, so it has to be reapplied before each use of the pan. In the case of cast-iron pans the patina becomes more permanent. It has been suggested that the patina could form by a sequence of cracking followed by polymerization. Source: Kitchen Chemistry, RSC

Actually hot oil is less viscous than cold oil.
If it's metal ions that react forming a chemical bond with the food, why does the same thing occur with glass cookware?
I wish you had posted a link to your source rather than quoting.
Linda C

I only flour the meat if I am going to braise it in liquid. I agree with lindac that the flour carries the spices and becomes part of the food, for instance, a lamb stew. I might add herbs and spices to flour, put it in a zip top bag, add the chunks of meat and shake it until all the chunks are well coated. Then I add the chunks to a hot pan to sear before adding the braising liquid. But for meats that are to be seared then broiled or grilled, I would never add flour or oil to the pan. I might use coarse salt if I were doing burgers in a pan. I wait for the meat to release as has been stated in several other posts. I don't know what that article quoted above was suggesting. It was way to "silly science" for me. Oh well.

Sorry about that, here's the link.

Here is a link that might be useful: Why Food Sticks