Whenever you prepare dinner steak over the grill, it turns into firmer, turns brown and begins to offer off an attractive scent. However precisely what is occurring to the meat because it’s being cooked?
“There’s plenty of processes that go on,” Wes Osburn, an affiliate professor of meat science at Texas A&M College, informed Reside Science. “It goes by a fairly complicated collection of chemical reactions.”
Certainly one of these processes is named protein gelation. Proteins are structurally necessary in meats. They play a key function in holding water and in altering the feel of meat because it will get cooked. Meat proteins are divided into three foremost teams: myofibrils, that are essentially the most plentiful; sarcoplasmic proteins; and connective tissues, together with collagen. When meat is heated, bonds inside proteins are damaged in a course of referred to as protein denaturation, which causes proteins to unfold and lose their form.
Myofibrillar proteins start to denature at round 104 to 158 levels Fahrenheit (40 to 70 levels Celsius). As warmth continues to be utilized, these proteins refold and type a “gel” — a 3D protein community that traps water and causes a slab of meat to agency up. The method is much like constructing a construction with Tinkertoy dowels and spools, Osburn stated.
“The extra sticks that I can put into the wheel, and that is put into one other wheel, the stronger, the firmer the feel is,” he defined.
Associated: When did people begin cooking meals?
If heated an excessive amount of, meat turns into too robust and dry, however continued heating will break down extra proteins and trigger the meat to turn out to be tender once more. When heated above round 160 F (71 C) for a protracted interval, collagens additionally type a gel, giving slow-cooked meat its silky texture.
However what helps give cooked meat its signature savory, caramelized taste is a collection of chemical reactions collectively often called the Maillard response, which happens when amino acids work together with sugars at temperatures above about 285 F (141 C). The Maillard response provides rise to lots of of latest taste and aroma compounds. By way of aroma alone, researchers have recognized greater than 880 compounds in cooked beef.
In one other collection of reactions, purple meat adjustments shade based mostly on the transformation of a protein referred to as myoglobin. Myoglobin stays partially intact when meat is cooked at decrease levels of doneness, giving it a pink or purple shade. However at round 170 F (77 C), the protein denatures utterly, which turns the meat brown.
The speed and extent of chemical reactions that happen in meat change based mostly on the cooking methodology, cooking size and temperature, Saleh Al-Ghamdi, an assistant professor and head of the Division of Agricultural Engineering at King Saud College in Saudi Arabia, informed Reside Science in an e mail. Dry-heat cooking strategies — reminiscent of searing, roasting or grilling — improve the Maillard response. Moist-heat cooking strategies, like braising or stewing, are likely to sluggish or cease the response. Taste additionally adjustments based mostly on a wide range of different elements, together with the ​​breed, intercourse, food plan and age Al-Ghamdi stated. Meat growing older, or the follow of ready to chop raw meat, and stress of the animal at demise can have an effect on the flavour and tenderness too.
“Quite a lot of it simply relies upon upon the composition of the meat,” Osburn stated. “How a lot fats, water, protein is there? How a lot connective tissue is there? What is the pH? After which, how do you prepare dinner the product?”
Understanding which chemical reactions happen might help cooks decide which cooking methodology is finest for sure cuts of meat. Beef chuck, for instance, could be finest cooked “low and sluggish” with a moist-heat cooking methodology. Chuck comes from a cow’s shoulder and has plenty of collagen as a result of it has been closely used all through the animal’s life. Tenderloin, an extended and lean muscle from the cow’s again, could be finest cooked extra rapidly with a dry-heat methodology to facilitate the Maillard response.