Page 32 - March2022 Barbecue News Magazine

White meats, like chicken breasts, are mostly “fast twitch” mus- cles, which are better suited to brief bursts of energy, and they have less myoglobin. Chicken legs are slow twitch, and even though they are not red, they are darker than breasts. When cooked, the slow twitch muscles in dark meat have more moisture and fat and are more flavorful than white meat. White meats con- tains less moisture and fat, and they dry out more easily when cooked. Poultry gets more exercise standing and walking than fly- ing, so the legs and thighs have lots of slow-twitch muscles, more pigment, more juice, more fat, and more flavor. They are also slightly more forgiving when cooked. Modern chickens and turkeys have been bred for large breasts because white meat is more popular in this country (and we can’t understand why). We’ll take tough and flavorful over tender and mild any day.
Ducks and geese excel at flying and swimming, and they get more exercise than chickens and turkeys, so these birds have more dark meat. Duck and goose breasts are deep purple, almost the same color as lamb or beef.
When the conventional wisdom was that dietary fat could cause heart and arterial problems, domestic pigs were bred to have less intramuscular fat. The modern pig does not get much exercise due to its transmogrification into “the other white meat.” In recent years, research has questioned the relationship between dietary fat and health, and many experts now extol fat’s benefits.
Beef is all pretty much the same color, but slow twitch muscles like flank steak have bigger, richer flavor than some of the lesser used muscles like tenderloin.
Fish live in a practically weightless environment, so their muscles are very different. Fish muscles have very little connective tissue, and that’s one reason why fish never gets as tough as pork when cooked. But fish can dry out because there is not much collagen to
moisturize the mus- cle fibers. The color and texture of fish varies depending on the life it leads. Small fish that swim with quick darting motions have mostly fast-twitch muscles and white meat, while flounder, which lives on the sea floor, has deli- cate flaky flesh. Tor- pedos like tuna and swordfish swim long distances with slow steady tail move- ments, so they have have firmer, darker, sometimes even red flesh. For these rea- sons and others, fish can spoil within days of being caught, while red meats keep much longer.
Brown is beautiful, black is bad
As meat cooks, the most magical transformation that occurs is the Maillard reaction. It is named for a French scientist who discov- ered the phenomenon in the early 1900s. The surface turns brown and crunchy and gets ambrosial in aroma. Who doesn’t love the crispy exterior of a slice of roast beef, the browned crust on freshly baked bread? We don’t think twice about it, but that brown color on the surface is the mark of hundreds of compounds cre- ated when heat starts changing the shape and chemical structure of the amino acids, carbohydrates, and sugars on the surface of the meat. If there is sugar in the rub or marinade it can undergo a flavorful transformation called caramelization. Click here to learn more about the Maillard reaction and caramelization.
What you don’t want is black meat. Let it go too far and it turns to carbon. Carbonized meat may be unhealthy.
Pretty in pink
There’s another color you may notice in cooked meat: Pink. Many smoked meats turn bright pink just under the surface. Some peo- ple think that pink color means that meat is raw, but not in this case. If the meat were undercooked, the pink would be in the cen- ter, not just below the surface. Pink meat near the surface is a common phenomenon called the smoke ring and it is caused by gases in smoke
preserving the color of myo- globin. Some people think the smoke ring improves taste. That’s a myth too. Click here to read more about the smoke ring and what causes it.
Meathead is the barbecue whisperer who founded AmazingRibs.com, by far the world's most popular outdoor cooking website. He is the author of "Meathead, The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling," a New York Times Best Seller that was also named one of the "100 Best Cookbooks of All Time" by Southern Living magazine. This article was excerpted and modified from his book and website. For 2,000+ free pages of great barbecue and grilling info, visit AmazingRibs.com and take a free trial in the Pitmaster Club.
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