Do "working" muscles have more flavor?

[rotuts]

[HOST'S NOTE: This discussion was moved from the Sous vide meat tender and just right, but flavors are missing... topic.]

 

 

 

 

 

""  if a high grade quality beef is used and there is fat marbelling within the tenderloin fillet ""

 

tenderloin here, high or low grade as very very little fat in it.  fat does indeed melt and add flavor.

 

but that flavor does not compare w a muscle that had to work for a living.  those muscle can be 'fatted out' in the feed lot w corn

 

but beef flavor mostly comes from work.  melt in your mouth flavor comes from added fat, from corn.''

 

my view if your SV, dont Jaccard.  its like having someone else have a 'pre-chew'

Edited March 17, 2014 by Chris Hennes
Added host's note. (log)

[paulraphael]

I don't know if flavor = work holds up universally. Hanger steak has more flavor than most others but it's just diaphragm muscle. Rib steak / roast is both tender and flavorful.

 

It's certainly accurate to say work = collagen = toughness with fast cooking = gelatin and tenderness with slow cooking.

[weedy]

  She's proposing to SV generally at 130F (54.5C) for only about one hour (varies shoewhat by meat cut).  She offers well-researched evidence for it.

 

I certainly do "nicer" cuts, or for that matter hamburgers, that long.

 

but some cuts simply benefit from longer cooking times.

 

for me, a large part of the total 'flavour' profile comes from searing (with whatever crusting) and saucing.

 

what sous vide allows is to keep the whole thing perfectly med-rare and juicy, and to not lose flavour to the outside world

Edited March 14, 2014 by weedy (log)

[Simon Lewinson]

I don't know if flavor = work holds up universally. Hanger steak has more flavor than most others but it's just diaphragm muscle. Rib steak / roast is both tender and flavorful.

 

It's certainly accurate to say work = collagen = toughness with fast cooking = gelatin and tenderness with slow cooking.

Diaphragm muscle is used 24/7 to breathe and never rests until the beast is slaughtered.

Simon

[paulraphael]

Diaphragm muscle is used 24/7 to breathe and never rests until the beast is slaughtered.

Simon

You could similarly say the loin cuts (lumbar muscles) are used 24/7 to support the spine, just like ours. This isn't the same kind of heavy work that's performed by the legs/shoulders.

 

This is why the hanger is a steak cut that's tender enough to eat after brief, high-heat cooking, unlike the traditional braising cuts. But it's no less flavorful.

Edited March 15, 2014 by paulraphael (log)

[nickrey]

Hanger steak has is the diaphragm muscle. Not sure how this is a relaxed piece of meat like the bits sitting to the side of the backbone, etc. Just because it is not supporting the weight of the animal doesn't mean that it doesn't do heavy work. The heart is the hardest working muscle on the body; by the logic referred to, perhaps it should be one of the most tender. I've eaten heart and it's as tough as old boots if not cooked correctly but damn it is flavourful.

[Mjx]

You could similarly say the loin cuts (lumbar muscles) are used 24/7 to support the spine, just like ours. This isn't the same kind of heavy work that's performed by the legs/shoulders.

 

This is why the hanger is a steak cut that's tender enough to eat after brief, high-heat cooking, unlike the traditional braising cuts. But it's no less flavorful.

 

Actually, unless the cattle are cavorting heraldically on their back legs most of the time, the paraspinal muscle groups do nowhere near the work that humans' do; that's the reason these cuts are so tender. Cooked sous vide, I've found these cuts to be virtually flavourless, unless they're also seared/seasoned.

[rotuts]

here is hanger steak:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanger_steak

 

it is indeed tender if cooked correctly and rare.

 

another interesting and very flavorful cut is the skirt.  inside skirt is the better one, I think:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skirt_steak

 

of note:  heart is not skeletal muscle.   nor is skirt.  don't know on hanger.  skirt is smooth muscle.

 

cant say if smooth muscle 'tastes' different than skeletal, it probably close.  heart is completely different in structure, and taste.

 

also of note in skeletal muscle is the degree of myoglobin:  go to a place that sells whole pork loins.  big suckers.

 

look at the ends.  one end has some darker muscle.  maybe toward the head of the animal.  if not toward the tale (   )

 

those dark bits are very tender and packed w flavor.  you some times see this meat in chops.

 

not much of it, but delicious.   Ive always thought this is due to more myoglobin.  but Ive pretty much made that up

 

for completeness sake.  

 

anyone notice this 'dark meat' on the light meat pig ?   ideas about it ?

Edited March 16, 2014 by rotuts (log)

[Mjx]

. . . . of note:  heart is not skeletal muscle.   nor is skirt.  don't know on hanger.  skirt is smooth muscle. . . .

 

Both skirt and hanger are skeletal muscle (the diaphragm is skeletal muscle, check any physio. textbook, and skirt steak is from the belly), and although the heart isn't composed of skeletal muscle, it's still striated muscle, and may be treated pretty much the same way (cookingwise; i.e. it won't turn to mush). Tripe is an example of of something with smooth muscle, and I have a hunch that sous vide cooking is not the way to go with it, I doubt the flavour of smooth muscle benefits positively from this approach (and any whiff of the former contents would probably be brought out by cooking it for a long time in a sealed container).

[KennethT]

I've also noticed the bit of "dark meat" on  a pork chop - you're talking pork rib chop, right?.  Whenever I ate it, it always reminded me of the strip of meat on the outside of a beef prime rib that is very different from the center cut meat.

 

Back when I had more time and was cooking more often, I would make a flank steak pretty regularly. 24h at 131 plus pre-jaccard... very flavorful cut but needed extra time to get that "steak-like" texture.

[rotuts]

i stand corrected.  thanks.

[rotuts]

PS  Maybe I wasnt wrong after all:

 

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0073031216/student_view0/exercise42/muscles.html

 

i do recall that diafragm viewed under the microscope ( H&E ) is easily distinguished from skeletal muscle.

 

ive done this many times.

 

so its a bit unusual.   can that be tasted ?  hard to say.

[rotuts]

it has to be a bit more complicated that work = flavor.

 

beef 'leg' meat isnt particularly tasty:   think the Round top, bottom, and eye.

 

really really old 'tail' is very tasty.  but impossible to find:  "Ox" tail

[Smithy]

it has to be a bit more complicated that work = flavor.

 

beef 'leg' meat isnt particularly tasty:   think the Round top, bottom, and eye.

 

really really old 'tail' is very tasty.  but impossible to find:  "Ox" tail

I keep hearing about the tastiness of ox tail, but being disappointed. We can find it in our butcher shops. It seems to go stringy all too quickly, without contributing much flavor.

[gfweb]

The lengthy time and method to cook a tough piece of "working muscle" may be what adds the flavor to these cuts.

 

Perhaps not the muscle, but the method.

 

I love short ribs. I think they taste a lot better after a 2.5 hour braise w red wine, cinnamon and aromatic veg than they do after a SV cook with nothing in the bag. Both are tender, one tastes richer.

[haresfur]

I suppose I'm one of the few around here who likes the flavour of tender meat cuts.  I think it brings out more subtle aspects of the taste not as being bland.

[radtek]

A couple days ago I made Civet de Mouton with a weird cut off the spine. It was the cheapest meat I could find and lamb to boot. Surprising amount of meat it was the chine off the sacrum or base of the tail (I think). 

 

Braising versus quick cooking such as grilling. No way am I gonna ruin a tender cut by braising it. And why cover up all that flavor? I'm a salt and pepper guy when it comes to grilling steaks and the like.

[dcarch]

The same blood goes thru all muscles. Perhaps the difference tastes are because:

 

1. Texture of the meat which gives different mouth feel.

 

2. Composition of fat contain, which gives different taste and mouth feel.

 

3. Density of texture which absorbs seasonings at different rates.

 

dcarch 

[paulraphael]

The Modernist Cuisine crew believes working muscles in general have more flavor ...

 

 

Fat is plentiful in many inherently tough cuts of

meat. That's obvious to the naked eye . But there is

a more elusive reason that tough cuts tend to be the

most flavorful : their bigger and stronger muscle

fibers contain a lot more of the molecular condiments

that excite our taste buds. Dissolved salts,

sugars, and, crucially, savory protein fragments and

nucleotides from these big muscles become

dissolved in the meat juices during cooking, with

potent flavor-enhancing effects. With so much

more of all these substances to contribute, tougher

cuts create more intense flavors that keep our saliva

flowing and the meat succulent to the end.

 

I wonder how they'd address the apparent exceptions to this (I think rib-eye is at least as flavorful as chuck, and hanger is at least as flavorful as brisket, for example).

[gfweb]

The same blood goes thru all muscles. Perhaps the difference tastes are because:

 

1. Texture of the meat which gives different mouth feel.

 

2. Composition of fat contain, which gives different taste and mouth feel.

 

3. Density of texture which absorbs seasonings at different rates.

 

dcarch 

Same blood goes thru the liver too. Not sure that that is a relevant point.

[rotuts]

perhaps different muscles extract different things from the blood based on their design and use.

 

would love to see what M.C. folks think of the darker meat thats on the full pork loin, probably the nose end.

 

if you see lots of pork chops lined up some will have this darker meat.  give it a taste and compare it to the 'blond' meat.

[gfweb]

In birds, dark meat is the working muscle and it clearly has a different flavor than the whitemeat.

[dcarch]

Same blood goes thru the liver too. Not sure that that is a relevant point.

 

Only comparing muscles.

 

dcarch

[rotuts]

well   there are fast twitch and slow twitch.  dont recall their colors.

 

peek at the Pork Loin and do a taste test.

[gfweb]

Only comparing muscles.

 

dcarch

Very relevant.

Its what the tissue does with the blood, not the blood itself that determines taste.

Liver and muscle get the same blood, yet taste completely different.

So its not the blood.