The quality of chicken meat is largely attributed to flavor and texture. Flavor wise, juiciness is the important parameters and texture wise, tenderness is studied.
The tenderness factor.
The tenderness factor.
Meat is muscle tissue, made up of water, protein, fat and carbohydrate. Muscle consists of muscle fibers held together in bundle by connective tissue. Tenderness of poultry meat depends upon the rate and extent of the chemical and physical changes occurring in the muscle as it becomes meat. When an animal dies, blood circulation stops, hence, there is no new supply of oxygen or nutrients to the muscles. This depletion causes muscles to run out of energy, and they contract and become stiff. This stiffening is called rigor mortis. Eventually, muscles become soft again, which means that they are tender when cooked (Maltin et al, 2003).
To understand rigor mortis in detail and how it affects tenderness of meat, you may click here.
0 chicky comments:
Post a Comment