Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

Moist Meat Theories, Do They Hold Water?


dcarch

Recommended Posts

There is a thread on how to make ribs moist. It got me thinking.

What are we talking about?

We all have heard plenty times, do this and do that, dip the meat in marinate, spray water on the meat, brush oil on the meat ------- and you can help made the meat moist and juicy. What in fact is going on?

It seems to me that unless you burn the hell out of meat to evaporate the water in meat, there is not much you can do to change the water and protein composition. Of course, I am not talking about brining, pickling, or using tenderizer type of cooking methods.

Aren’t we really talking about textural changes mostly? If you weight the meat before and after, can you actually increase the water in meat to make it more moist and juicier?

If that’s in fact what we are talking about, wouldn’t it be true that it is mostly about temperature control and not what you put on the meat that would make the biggest difference?

dcarch

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is a lot written about this, and the sensation of moistness is very complex. See the many treatments of this subject by Harold McGee, Herve This, etc. Mostly you are trying to keep meat from drying out but some of the reactions from various treatment create moisture as collagen dissolves. Also, a lot of the sensation of "moistness" is not from water but from fat.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the primary thing you can control is the amount of moisture lost to evaporation. Cooking in liquid or braising and cooking covered or foiled will both help to curb evaporation. Certainly interested in other opinions here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unsurprisingly, Modernist Cuisine considers the subject in some depth. As inductioncook mentions above, "moistness" is a very complex sensation that is not driven purely by the quantity of water in the meat. It has a great deal to do with the way that moisture is actually released into your tongue when you chew the food (and the same goes for fat, not just water).

I think that when you mist meat so that its surface is always wet during cooking, what you are really doing is changing the temperature the meat is cooking at to ensure that it is always at the wet bulb temperature. So you are effectively cooking at a lower temperature, helps prevent overcooking.

Chris Hennes
Director of Operations
chennes@egullet.org

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think over cooking is indeed the culprit, especially with lean meat. You can boil shrimp or poach fish completely submerged in liquid and it can be dry and over cooked. If you over- grill a steak it will be dry and chewy.

However some meat is tough and fatty and needs a long slow cooking time. Temperature alone is not enough to ensure both tenderness and juiciness, like a brisket for instance. It has collagen that needs to break down either by a braise or BBQ smoking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I find Sous vide Short ribs cooked at 48 hours at 60c to be dry. I mean they come out very tender, but when you cut into it, it even looks dry with very little juice.

I find that pan searing the short ribs instead comes out juicier, although chewier. Anyone else have this experience?

And yes I did use very high quality short ribs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I find Sous vide Short ribs cooked at 48 hours at 60c to be dry. I mean they come out very tender, but when you cut into it, it even looks dry with very little juice.

I find that pan searing the short ribs instead comes out juicier, although chewier. Anyone else have this experience?

And yes I did use very high quality short ribs.

I usually find some juice in the bag after doing short ribs sous-vide, and there isn't a lot of run-off when cut into. But the feel of the meat is the mouth is one of succulence. There is a sort of popping feeling when biting through, as if the flesh is still inflated.

I do them longer, 72 hrs, and at temperatures from 56 to 60 C. These are ribs with bones, and there is a fair amount of gelatin evident in the meat.

I have never pan seared short ribs, although I did grill some that were de-boned. Yes, they were a little chewy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Aren’t we really talking about textural changes mostly? If you weight the meat before and after, can you actually increase the water in meat to make it more moist and juicier?

I do have very similar curiosity also. Not exactly your question but similar.

I kept thinking that, most of the time, when we cook something, if we actually weight up the food before cooking, then weight it up again after it's cooked. It's very clear. It has lost weight. And usually, some water or liquid content is gone.

I always think that, to compensate the water / juices being lost, if we could marinate the food in liquids, brines, juices, water to actually gain weight. Then cook. And the overall would be juicier than without marinating. But I still haven't experimented if there;s actually any weight gain by marinating.

***

On a side note, I went to a Korean BBQ once and asked my friend who also likes cooking and he's Korean. I asked him what's the difference between marinated meat and a non-marinated meat, given same type and same piece of meat. He said marinated will be juicier.

At least my mouth sensation agrees with what he said especially at the Korean BBQ meat we ate. I would imagine if the meat is not marinated and just grilled, more meat flavour, but less juices (some of these juices could be the marinated stuff?)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Marinades and brines may or may not add moisture. I owned a Korean restaurant along with my wife. Her mother was the head cook. I have access to recipes used in marinades and I suspect that the Korean BBQ friend was cooking short ribs. If so he probably used an enzymatic ingredient to his marinade and that can make a meat juicier. Other marinades can add flavor and some can tenderize but I suspect your Korean friend used an enzyme to break down the tough spare ribs because the grill time is so short.

See this article about marinades. It is by Shirley Corrhier.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...