Help Your Cooked Proteins Retain Moisture

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Category: Food & Drink

Created on Monday, 25 January 2021 11:56

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Ground Meat

You Should Add Baking Soda to Your Ground Meat

Aesthetically speaking, ground meat is not the most pleasing of animal proteins. When raw, it is all squishy and speckled, and more often than not, cooking it just transforms the pink, soft stuff into grey, nubby stuff.

This can be mitigated by leaving it alone and letting the meat develop a nice sear before breaking it up into little bits, but even that doesn’t help lessen the loss of moisture one usually sees when cooking ground beef. (If you’ve ever cooked a mass of meat for a sauce or chili, you know the pool of liquid I am referring to.)

Luckily, there is a handy little chemical that solves both of these issues. It’s called “sodium bicarbonate,” but is known to most as “baking soda,” and adding it to your ground beef helps keep it tender while also speeding up the browning process.

This is not a “new” hack or recent discovery, so I’m not sure how I missed it all these years, but I’m glad it’s finally made its way into my brain.

Last night, I finally tried it with a little over a pound of ground meat I needed to use up. I sprinkled about a third of a teaspoon of baking soda over the meat, gave it a toss, left it alone for 15 minutes, then cooked it in a pan over medium-high heat.

I am not used to being floored by ground beef, but I was just that—floored. Even after somewhat excessive fiddling and stirring, the beef bits developed a deep, brown crust, and the usual pool of liquid was reduced to a mere puddle. It was also much more tender. There was no rubbery bounce, no unpleasant chew—just beautifully browned pieces of beefy tasting meat.

Why does this work? The baking soda (which is very basic) raises the pH of the meat, preventing the proteins from bonding excessively (and thus squeezing water out); this keeps everything nice and tender, and prevents that pool of liquid from forming. The drier your pan, the faster your food will brown but, according to ATK, alkaline environments are also far more favorable for the Maillard reaction—the “chemical between amino acids and reducing sugars” that gives browned food its look and flavor.

You can add baking soda to cuts of meat as well. Ratio-wise, ATK recommends 1/4 teaspoon for every 12 ounces of ground meat, and a whole teaspoon for every 12 ounces of sliced meat. Mixing the baking soda with a tablespoon or two of water can help evenly distribute it (especially if you’re dealing with sliced stuff), but I found the “sprinkle and go” method to be quite effective with the ground stuff. Toss the raw meat with the bicarb (I just broke it up with a wooden spoon and pushed it around), wait 15 minutes (more time won’t amplify the baking soda’s effects), then cook via your normal method.

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Shrimp

Brine Shrimp Before Cooking to Keep Them Firm and Juicy

A quick brine before you cook shrimp can make sure they’re plump and juicy, no matter how you plan to cook them. You only need to let the shrimp sit in the brine for as little as fifteen minutes and you’ll lock in moisture, add a little flavor, and preserve a firm texture.

Even if you’re working with frozen shrimp, you should still brine them. Serious Eats explains what the brining process does to your shrimp:

"Before we dive into the details, there’s one technique that we’ve found improves all shrimp, regardless of cooking method: a quick brine of salt and baking soda. It may sound minor, but the combination works wonders: the salt helps keep the shrimp nice and moist as they cook, while alkaline baking soda delivers a crisp, firm texture."

Mix together one teaspoon of kosher salt and one quarter teaspoon of baking soda for every pound of shrimp you want to brine. Toss the shrimp and brine together, then let the shrimp rest in the fridge for fifteen minutes to an hour. Then, cook them however you like. It’s a simple tip that can apply to any of your favorite shrimp dishes.

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https://lifehacker.com/brine-shrimp-before-cooking-to-keep-them-firm-and-juic-1739939532