Hello again you Wookiee Pups,
Back in #3: 1st topic – 10 mistakes, I talked ever so briefly about seasoning meats. Let’s go into a bit more depth there.
First to clarify the terminology. Often the term “Season” or “Seasoning” will be used as a verb and refers to the act of adding seasonings or flavors to your meats, and is sometimes called “Pre-Seasoning”. I’m guilty of this myself. This leads to some ambiguity as many people then consider everything you might add to a meat to be seasonings.
The subtle difference between “Seasoning” and “Flavoring”, as nouns, is the effect that it has on food. “Seasoning” brings out the natural taste of food, enhancing what is already there. “Flavoring”, on the other hand, is meant to alter the taste by introducing a new flavor. Confusing this distinction even more comes when the difference for some ingredients is in the amount that is used.
I’m going to talk in more detail about seasoning and flavoring next time. Right now, lets just focus on the meat and keep it simple with two of the most common seasonings: Salt and Pepper.
I think that we can all agree that, with few exceptions (dried out chicken or pork? maybe?), meat tastes great. The purpose of seasoning meat is to improve your experience by either enhancing the natural goodness of the meat or by adding flavoring. Pre-seasoning also gives the benefit of tenderizing the meat which can give you that awesome melt in your mouth quality.
I know some folks might be more interested in the what-to-do and not as interested in the why-it-works. For those folks, here’s my warning… HERE COMES THE SCIENCE…
Meat is a muscle. Muscles are made up of fibrous striated cells and the connective membrane that hold the cells together. When meat is heated, the cells constrict and release much of the moisture from the cells. As the meat rests after cooking, the cells re expand and reabsorb some of the lost moisture. The longer the meat is cooked, the less ability it has to reabsorb that moisture. This is why meat that is cooked to a more well done state is generally tougher or drier than meat that is rarer.
Now we get to the major controversy about pre-seasoning meat. Some chefs and cooks believe that if you season meat with salt and pepper in advance of cooking, the salt will dry the meat out and produce poor quality. These folks generally say that you should only season meat immediately before applying to heat. Here comes that science again…
Salt by its nature absorbs water and causes the retention of water in the body and muscles. So, both of the above arguments are correct. It’s a matter of timing. When salt is first applied to the surface of meat, the process of osmosis draws the moisture out of the cellular structures of the meat. With time, the salt and moisture mix then begins to break down the protein structures of the meat and the moisture begins to be reabsorbed by the process of reverse osmosis. Eventually, almost all of the moisture has been reabsorbed. The reabsorbed moisture brings the salt deep into the muscle fibers of the meat. The longer the meat sits in this state, the deeper the absorption of the salt will be, creating a fabulous built in seasoning.
As the salt absorbs deep into the meat, it affects the proteins in a process called denaturization. Proteins, which are normally very tightly wound and bonded molecules, begin to unwind. This denaturing results in immensely tender meat. The process of cooking these denatured proteins then traps liquefied fat and moisture, thus intensifying the flavor.
Mr J. Kenji Lopez-Alt of The Food Lab at seriouseats.com did an experiment on the effect of seasoning meat. The basis of what he found was that if you have 40 minutes before you are planning on cooking the meat, season away. If you don’t have 40 minutes, then you should just wait until right before cooking to season.
The time break down is like this. Cooking immediately after seasoning, the seasoning is still on the surface and hasn’t started to draw out the moisture yet. You’ll get a good, crisp sear with a lot of flavor right now.
At about 3 – 4 minutes, the process of osmosis begins. Moisture is beading up and pooling on the surface. All of this moisture would quickly drop the temperature of the pan or grill. You wont get the nice crisp sear, and the extra moisture will result in steaming the meat and producing a kind of bland gray hunk as opposed to the nice seared brown flavor.
At approximately 10 – 15 minutes the breakdown of the protein structures that I mentioned starts to happen. There is still a lot of moisture on the surface and will have similar results as the previous note.
By the time 40 minutes is reached, re absorption and a small bit of evaporation has taken care of most of the moisture. Beyond 40 minutes is when the deep absorption and denaturization occurs.
So there it is, a breakdown of how and why to season your meat. Next time we’ll touch on the differences between seasoning and flavoring, as well as introducing some of each and how they might affect your cooking.
As always, Thanks for stopping by and being part of this. I hope you enjoyed. Comments, questions, praise, and feedback are always welcome.
Until next time, May the Food Be With You.