Ok, now you get to see why I'm called Chief Longwind. A student of biology, or physiology of animals learns that muscle tissue is formed of a cells. These cells have semi-permeable outer, and inner membranes that allow oxygen, nutrients and minerals to pass into and out of the cells. The cells are filled with salt water, proteins, and a host of chemicals (vitamins) and minerals that allow them to reproduce, and to do work. from an Online Dictionary: Myoglobin is an iron-containing protein in muscle, similar to hemoglobin, that receives oxygen from the red blood cells (hemoglobin) and transports it to the mitochondria of muscle cells,
Myoglobin is the primary pink to red liquid that seeps out of meat when it is heated. Of course there is blood as well. It is responsible for carrying oxygen from the lungs to the capillaries where the oxygen is handed off to the hemoglobin and into the muscle cells. Myoglopin is lighter in weight than is blood, and is much more efficient at capturing and carrying oxygen.
For Sidevalve; Next time you cook a steak, pay attention to the food. Sear your steak in a pan, under a broiler, on a grill, it doesn't matter, with high heat. Watch the myoglobin start seeping from the top side of the meat. Flip it when it's seared to you liking. Watch the top side again. You will see the pink juices again oozing from the meat surface. Those seeping juices are still escaping the meat. If you are roasting the meat, it appears that the high heat required for searing has sealed the juices in, but that is because that same high heat causes the water part of the myoglobin to evaporate, and the proteins to tighten and brown.
Why is it more difficult to cook meat well-done, and still keep it juicy and tender? When long strings of meat fiber are exposed to heat, they contract upon themselves and sort of tangle together. As they contract, they squeeze out the juices from the cells. Thus, the meat becomes both tough and dry. So you might ask, how come a beef roat in a slow cooker is moist and tender when cooked well done? The answer has a couple of reasons.. First, cuts reserved for the slow cooker usually have a significant amount of both fat and connecting tissue marbled through the roast. The meat, at first, acts like leaner cuts. But as it is from a well exercised portion of the animal, it is more dense, which when the heat is applied in a sufficient amount, starts to toughen and dry the meat. This starts to occur at about 150' F. As it heats to about 170 through 185' F., the meat becomes very tough and dry. There is lots of liquid in the slow cooker that used to be in the meat cells. But at 190'F, the muscle protiens begin to break down, but not entirely. Lean meat cooked to that temperature can still be chewy. But a in the right kind of roast, the connecting tissue, made up mostly of collagen, a cousin to protein, and what gelatin is made of, will break down and add its silky, moist texture to the meat. The fat will do the same. The meat fibers will be lubricated by both the fat and collagen, making them separate much easier.
In order to get that tender quality you are looking for though, you will still need to slice the meat against the natural lay of the meat fibers, the grain. This creates short strands of meat fiber that easily separate, making the chewing process much easier. To prove this, take a small chunk of your slow-cooked roast and cut it with the grain into a two inch long, 1/2 inch thick piece. Grip this with your fingers, and try to bite through the meat, pulling to cause it to break into smaller portions. You will find that the individual muscle fibers, or strands, are still fairly tough, though much juicer the a lean cut of meat would be.
Another thing, if you leave that well-done roast in the hot liquid, simmering away, it will become as dry as sawdust, and very tough, even though it is immersed in liquid. Yeh, I found that out the hard way.
If any have issues or corrections to what I have posted, please try the procedures that I have stated, and find out if they are true for yourself before answering from memory, or from what someone has told you.
Our memories, including my own, are very plastic, and will change to help us protect our own egos, and there is not much we can do about this phenomenon of the human brain. .Base your knowledge on provable facts.
A young girl once said to her mother, who was preparing to bake a ham;
"Mom, why do you cut the end off of the ham?"
"Because that's the way your grandma did it."
The girl went to her grandmother and asked the same question. The grandmother replied; "Because that's the way my mother did it."
The girl went to her great grandmother; "Why do you cut the end off of the ham before bakingn it?"
The great grandmother replied; "Because that's the only way I could get it to fit in the pan."
Moral of the story, just because someone has told you, or shown you something, it doesn't always mean they know what they are doing. So why am I confident about this subject of searing meat, and why meat reacts to different temperatures? It's because I took the time to experiment, and watch what was going on, plus a lot of research.
Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind
There is no success outside the home that justifies failure within.
May your hot foods be served hot, your cold foods be served cold, and your cheddar aged, then served at room temperature.
My brain is not coping with this. I used to be good at physics at school. So how does the microwave fit in - that jiggles things about, doesn't it?