Tough Chicken - an experiement
Discussion
Like many I believe that a significant cause or contributor to “tough meat” is overcooking and in terms of mouth feel, moisture loss due to this. A theory backed up by leading books on food science. There are other factors but all things being equal this is one of the areas in which the cook has significant control.
Armed with experience and what I understand of muscles and general anatomy I set about testing to see if my particularly fussy way of preparing meat, in this case chicken, is actually justified.
First off I selected 3 near identical chicken breasts and removed all but the main breast muscle. No fat, sinews etc.
Leaving one muscle whole I then sliced the remaining two ways. One with the grain of the meat, one across the grain. My theory being that sliced with the grain causes less cellular damage and therefore less water loss when cooked.
The sliced meat was weighed and vacuum packed, the third breast was placed in a brine (10% salt, 10% sugar).
After brining for 6 hours the whole muscle was weighed to determine the amount of water absorbed.
And the whole lot cooked sous vide at 75 degrees, 15 minutes for the whole muscle and 10 minutes for the cut pieces. Once cooked and allowed to cool a little each was unpacked and weighed again.
The results were not as I expected at all.
Almost identical water loss in percentage terms from raw weight, so close as to be discounted as a factor. As expected the meat cut cross grain flaked and had a different texture to that cut with the grain but both were identical in terms of “toughness” which was almost non-existent. As expected the brined meat had a softer texture that unbrined but surprisingly loss all the absorbed water during the cooking process.
So, basically do what you want and it’s all pretty much the same, just don't over cook it!
Armed with experience and what I understand of muscles and general anatomy I set about testing to see if my particularly fussy way of preparing meat, in this case chicken, is actually justified.
First off I selected 3 near identical chicken breasts and removed all but the main breast muscle. No fat, sinews etc.
Leaving one muscle whole I then sliced the remaining two ways. One with the grain of the meat, one across the grain. My theory being that sliced with the grain causes less cellular damage and therefore less water loss when cooked.
The sliced meat was weighed and vacuum packed, the third breast was placed in a brine (10% salt, 10% sugar).
After brining for 6 hours the whole muscle was weighed to determine the amount of water absorbed.
And the whole lot cooked sous vide at 75 degrees, 15 minutes for the whole muscle and 10 minutes for the cut pieces. Once cooked and allowed to cool a little each was unpacked and weighed again.
The results were not as I expected at all.
| With grain | Across grain | Whole | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raw weight | 100 | 99.7 | 116.5 |
| Brined weight | 121.5 | ||
| Cooked weight | 75.7 | 75.6 | 87.7 |
| % water loss (raw) | 24.30% | 24.17% | 24.72% |
| % water loss (brined) | 27.82% |
Almost identical water loss in percentage terms from raw weight, so close as to be discounted as a factor. As expected the meat cut cross grain flaked and had a different texture to that cut with the grain but both were identical in terms of “toughness” which was almost non-existent. As expected the brined meat had a softer texture that unbrined but surprisingly loss all the absorbed water during the cooking process.
So, basically do what you want and it’s all pretty much the same, just don't over cook it!
Edited by 21TonyK on Wednesday 4th October 15:57
One of the best kitchen gadgets I have owned in a long time. I bought a cheap one for a couple of quid but it took a ages to read temperature: https://www.amazon.co.uk/ETI-SuperFast-Thermapen-t...
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