"aem" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>
> Dave Smith wrote:
>> Default User wrote:
>> >
>> > Alton Brown, host of the "Good Eats" Food Network show. He did an
>> > episode devoted to kitchen myths. Mushrooms don't absorb water! Searing
>> > meat doesn't seal in juices (no matter what Emeril says)!
>> >
>>
>> I will buy the deal about mushrooms not absorbing water, but when I cook
>> steaks or chops I slap them on a hot pan or grill pan to sear and then
>> turn
>> the heat down, and they turn out tender and juicy.
>
> Yes, that's a good way to cook steaks but that doesn't mean that
> searing has sealed in juices. You give them high heat at first to
> create more flavor (the Maillard reaction, I think). Think about it:
> every bite you take you can feel that the outside surface is firmer and
> drier than the inside. That doesn't mean you trapped juices inside a
> shell, it just means you dried out the surface. The tenderest steak
> would be cooked over very low heat, but it wouldn't taste as good
> because of no char/fond creation and it wouldn't have that contrast of
> textures that you enjoy without even noticing. -aem
>

Our local paper carried a story about this a couple of years ago. Some food
scientist from Cornell did a simple experiment: He cooked a bunch of steaks
various ways, and weighed them carefully afterward. The "seal in the juices"
method was, in fact, bullshit. More weight was lost with that method due to
lost liquid, and the opposite came from cooking over very low heat. But, it
doesn't matter. People like what they like, and they will also do whatever
their parents told them to do because there are so few traditions that are
easy to hang onto. I had a neighbor who used to warm up his 1990 Chevy
pickup for 45 minutes every day because "Poppy said it was the best thing to
do", even in summer.