Introduction: In today's Jiyang Kitchen, we are ready to share with you a few cooking tips and explain the principles.
We will explain the reasons for "dry firewood", and then start from the three aspects of "heat, cutting, and pickling", and finally find another way to introduce a "black technology" of many chefs, hoping that everyone will be more comfortable and comfortable when cooking meat.
Cook meat
For a lot of friends who are just starting to cook
The biggest difficulty is
"How to avoid dry firewood"
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="225" > where does "dry firewood" come from? </h1>
The taste of dried meat usually comes from two reasons:
Overheating, leading to excessive muscle contraction and water loss;
Some of the harder parts to chew (such as collagen in tendons) are not cooked adequately.
Therefore, in order to avoid dry firewood, it is necessary to start from two aspects:
Avoid overcooking and prevent water loss in meat;
Cook well the harder parts.
It sounds contradictory
How to avoid "overcooking" at the same time
What about "cooking to the fullest"?
Let's take a closer look
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="39" > fire and cutting</h1>
During the cooking process, meat goes through different stages. In general, if the meat continues to heat after it is cut off, the muscle fibers and other tissues (such as fascia and tendons) further contract, squeezing the water out of the meat and making it difficult to chew. Therefore, avoiding overcooking while cooking is crucial for taste.
However, cooking may be unevenly heated. When the surface of the meat is overcooked, the inside is still raw. Especially for some meats with low fat content (such as chicken breast, pork tenderloin, etc.) cut into large pieces and stewed for a long time, it is easy to dry firewood, but if it is cut into thin slices or filaments, it will be easy to chew if it is fried on high heat. Seafood such as fish and shrimp, under the premise of ensuring safety, the cooking time should be as short as possible.
So, how are large pieces of meat cooked? There are two cases that can be divided here: dry cooking and wet cooking.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="226" > dry cooking</h1>
Dry cooking, as the name suggests, means that no water is required during the cooking process. The temperature of dry cooking is very high, which will make the surface of the food quickly heat up, such as frying, frying, frying, roasting, etc. If the food is cut smaller (such as the previously mentioned flakes or filaments), then the food will be heated quickly and evenly. For the cooking of large pieces of meat, such as a 3 cm thick steak, we usually use the method of "putting it back to room temperature, frying it first and then roasting, sitting and then cutting", which is explained as follows:
Re-firing room temperature >>>
In order to heat the steak more evenly inside, the steak should first be placed at room temperature.
Fry first and bake >>>
Fried at high temperatures, a hard shell can be quickly formed on the surface. This hard shell protects the muscles inside and prevents the loss of gravy. Using a cast iron pot, a pot with a high specific heat capacity and strong heat storage capacity, it is possible to quickly form a hard shell on the surface of the meat piece. The next step is to use the oven to bake, which is not as hot as frying, which is conducive to the even spread of heat, and the "fully enclosed" dry heat environment allows the inside of the steak to be fully cooked.
Let stand and cut >>>
The steak that has just come out of the pan, due to the uneven heating inside, the squeezing between the muscle fibers is more obvious (similar to wringing out the towel [1]), if cut immediately, it will lose more gravy, making the taste dry. After 5-10 minutes, the residual heat will be evenly spread, at this time the tension of the muscle fibers will be eased, and the gravy will not be easily lost when it is cut again.
So, even with "dry cooking," our goal is to protect the moisture in the meat while giving the whole piece of meat a chance to heat it evenly. This method is very similar to when extinguishing a mountain fire, you can use the "fire to attack the fire" method to burn a firewall. We form a shell with dry heat on the surface of the meat, not to make the meat dry wood, but to better lock the gravy inside, "sacrificing the small self, achieving the big self" .
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="227" > wet cooking</h1>
"Wet" refers to the need for water to participate in the cooking process, including steaming, boiling, stewing, braising, etc. Since the boiling temperature of the water is around 100 degrees Celsius, the temperature of wet cooking is much lower than that of dry cooking. Of course, wet cooking under high pressure can increase the cooking temperature to a certain extent and speed up the cooking process.
As we mentioned earlier, an important reason for dried meat is the loss of moisture, and some wet cooking, especially slow simmering and high-pressure stewing, can solve this problem very well. In addition to preventing water loss, wet cooking gives some of the hard parts of the meat plenty of time and opportunity to come into contact with water. For example, the common beef brisket pot, pig's trotter pot, etc., the fascia and tendons in it need to be fully cooked in a humid environment before they can become soft and rotten.
Meats with more tendons and more complex tissues, if dry cooking cannot achieve the desired effect, can be cooked wet with slow simmering or high-pressure stew. This approach gives each of the tissues in a piece of meat sufficient time to complete its "mission": those who run fast and so on run slowly; those who run slowly have enough time to keep up with the pace of the large troops.
Suitable for sliced or shredded, fast-cooking meats:
Chicken breasts, duck breasts, beef tenderloin, pork loin, beef rump, white fish, shrimp and other parts with little fat and very little fascial connective tissue.
Meats suitable for long wet cooking:
Shoulder meat, pig's trotters, sheep's hooves, oxtails, briskets and other parts of the fascia connective tissue are more abundant.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="228" > pickled</h1>
In addition to "retaining water", pickling also gives meat a certain taste. Although there are many varieties of marinades on the market, in the final analysis, most of the ingredients that play a role in "tendering and retaining water" are only the salt (sodium chloride) in the marinade, and that's it. When curing meat, adding brine (or soy sauce + water, or other salty spices + water, the essence is still a mixture of salt and water) can play the following roles [2]:
Recombinant protein molecules in meat, creating gaps between molecules so that the water is filled, making the meat more juicy. At the same time, the muscle fibers are more relaxed and easy to chew.
Dissolves part of the muscle fibers, absorbs and retains moisture in the muscles like a sponge.
The flavoring effect makes the meat more delicious.
Osmosis allows more water to enter the meat.
Other marinades, such as egg whites, starch, etc., form a water-rich "water retention layer" on the surface of the meat during the cooking process to prevent the loss of water inside the meat.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="229" > "Black Tech" Sous Vide</h1>
The Sous Vide Fattening Method is a very popular cooking method in recent years, cooking ingredients at low temperatures in a sous-vide environment. Its advantage lies in the precise control of the temperature, so that people who do not have much cooking experience can also cook the ingredients just right. Its most obvious drawback is that it is time-consuming.
Although it looks like a "black technology", in fact, its principle is very simple. The three basic components of a fertilizer machine are:
Heating device to provide thermal energy;
Temperature sensing device, after reaching the set temperature can stop heating;
Water circulation device to make the cooking temperature more uniform.
▲ Image source network
Similar to stewing in wet cooking, the long and slow cooking of the Shu Fat Method gives the different parts of the ingredients plenty of time to complete their mission. What is different from stewing is that the cooking temperature of the Shu fat method is much lower, and it can preserve the characteristics of some ingredients. Commercially available fertilizer machines usually give suggestions for cooking temperature and cooking time for different ingredients, and everyone can try them according to their own preferences.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="230" > extreme dietary review</h1>
The development of social productivity has led to more meat coming to our table. For people who are gradually enriched in their material lives, the excessive proportion of meat in the diet has caused an excessive burden on the body. Reducing the proportion of meat eaten in the diet and increasing the proportion of plant-derived foods can play a role in promoting health for many people. Mastering the cooking methods of meat and allowing meat dishes to convey more satisfaction can help us better achieve this goal.
The article |
Li Zhe
BS, Chef
Chef at Yaourti Café
Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering
Leafy
PhD
Mugaritz admits chefs
Doctor of Nutritional Sciences
Design | Fay
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Reference
[1] The Editors at America’s Test Kitchen, Guy Crosby. Resting Meat Maximizes Juiciness. The Science of Good Cooking (pp. 36-41). America’s Test Kitchen.
[2] The Editors at America’s Test Kitchen, Guy Crosby. Salty Marinades Work Best. The Science of Good Cooking (pp. 120-135). America’s Test Kitchen.