[August off-topic]Until Neo decides

On August 13 2013 04:34 ticklishmusic wrote:
On the other hand, chicken is hard to cook well. It's healthy and flexible, but it gets dry very easily and is kind of flavorless-- remember, when people say something tastes like chicken, they actually mean "oh it doesn't taste like shit, actually it doesn't taste like much of anything, meh".

I find a problem with a lot of meats these days, especially chicken, is how producers/whoever like to add water to it. It makes the meat look juicier, and also makes it weigh more. That meat you got for like $1.99/lb? I'd say maybe 1/4 of that price is actually water. So keep an eye out of the "water added" label. There's a lot of all-natural, no preservatives, never frozen stuff now, but added water is kind of an issue.

The added water causes another problem. First, it excretes a ton of water when you pull it out and let it defrost or sit. Also when you cook meats (apart from boiling) what you WANT to be doing is cooking it in its own fat and oil, which sounds delicious (but totally unhealthy). When you cook a meat that has added water, it means that you're basically boiling it. Doesn't matter if you're frying or grilling chicken breast on a pan or grill, if there's high water content you're basically steaming it. And it will come out not delicious and tender and grilled, but it will taste like slightly burnt boiled chicken.

For example, this is how steaks work. You buy a steak, slap it on the grill. It's pretty good, but doesn't taste like restaurant quality. Now, if you bought yourself a nice Angus whatever whatever at the grocery, your meat is actually probably better than the steak at like Outback or something. Why does it not taste as good? Well, because it wasn't aged. Aging is a process by which the water content is removed from the beef-- if you look at aged beef, that's why it looks like an Egyptian mummy. The steak you cooked yourself is basically half boiled in water, which is why its tough.

You can get around this problem pretty easily. First, use Kosher or sea salt (or something pretty coarse) and liberally salt the steak. You can add other spices here as well. For every inch of thickness of the steak, you need to leave it out for an hour. After the time has passed, take the steak and pour of the juice (there should be a decent amount of it), wash off the salt and other crap and then pat it dry. Then cook your steak. It will taste much better.

The above process works alright for pork. Chicken breast takes a little longer because it already has really low fat/oil content (usually you want to brine it). I've only ever marinated and baked thighs.

Marinating basically does the same thing to meat. It's basically all based on concentration gradients (yay high school chemistry). The salt and other stuff in the marinade generally does the same thing to get rid of some of the water, and it also helps "relax" the meat.