There is a very useful trick to ensure that the meat retains its juice and strength during cooking. Read on and learn how!
The key to cooking a delicious piece of juicy meat is to make sure it doesn’t lose all its juices. In this way, the meat remains juicy and retains all its flavour. It won’t be dry or hard.
Loss of juices can cause the meat to shrink to almost half its original size! In this article, you can learn how to cook juicy meat that is full of flavour.
Why does the meat lose its juice during cooking?
You have probably heard many times that the human body consists of approx. 70% water. The meat you use for cooking has, like all meat from mammals, a similar water content.
Naturally, all types of meat do not contain the same amount of water, and meat from younger animals contains more water than meat from older animals. Therefore, meat from younger animals is often juicier and more appreciated in the kitchen.
When it comes to cooking meat, there are some precautions you need to take to prevent it from losing the water content from the muscle and protein fibres, which is the greyish-brown liquid you see in cooked meat.
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When you place the meat on a heated pan it should not be cold, as the temperature of the pan will drop to maintain a thermal equilibrium with the meat.
When the meat is heated, the muscle fibres begin to contract, like if you squeeze a wet sponge, and the water begins to seep out. If your pan is not able to maintain a high enough temperature for this liquid to evaporate immediately, the liquid will accumulate in the pan.
The temperature of this liquid will remain high, near the boiling point, and the temperature will not rise until all the water has evaporated. At the same time, the meat will continue to lose liquid as it roasts until it eventually becomes completely dry.
At the same time, if you wait for all the water to evaporate, the temperature will rise again. Although the meat will have a delicious golden appearance, it will be tough to chew. Read on and learn how to cook juicy meat.
How to cook juicy meat
Now that you know the dangers, it is fortunately easy to take certain precautions to prevent the meat from losing liquid during cooking. These include:
- Whenever possible, try to take the meat out of the fridge a little earlier. Just a few minutes will be sufficient in the summer, while it can take up to an hour in the winter . If you do this the temperature difference will be as small as possible when you add the meat to a hot pan.
- Dry the meat well with absorbent paper before cooking and never rinse it under the cold tap.
- When cooking fillets or other smaller pieces of meat, never salt them first. Salt causes the meat to release its juices beforehand because it has a drying effect. This is precisely the reason why salt has traditionally been used to preserve food.
Use the right utensils when cooking
Make sure you have a large pan and plenty of heat during cooking, which will help you keep the temperature high enough. Of course, this advice can turn out to be wasted if you simply take a large frying pan and fill it with several pieces of meat!
The thicker the bottom of the pan, the better it retains heat. This means that a thick pan is more effective at evaporating away the meat juices. Your meat will brown on the outside and stop releasing all that water once the surface is sealed.
These simple tips will help you cook meat more efficiently without it losing its juices and ruining your dinner. Prepared in the right way, your meat will achieve the perfect texture and taste, and everyone at the table will love it.