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New or unusual cooking techniques.

Started by Dave, August 11, 2018, 05:35:57 PM

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Dave

If I can find a clean jar, with a lid, the right size I now have an experiment to try. I have a small vacuum pump and will try to see if I can use it to infuse marinade deep into a piece of chicken. The marinade will be garlic and red food colouring - the latter to see how deep the marinade has got into the meat when I slice it whilst still raw!

Place the chicken and marinade in the jar, fit the lid (which has a pinprick hole in it) place the rubber sucker attached to the pump over that hole and suck the air out. Leave for a while, the marinade should replace any air, or fluid, sucked out of the chicken, then let the air back in.

Keeping notes and photographs of course. If it looks promising will try at different times under vacuum.

The hand vacuum pump is the type used to bleed car brake systems. Since it also pumps things up I may try pressure infusion - then vacuum followed by pressure. That's if I can find a safe pressure vessel with an opening big enough to get the chicken pieces in. Don't fancy trying to hand pressurise, or depresurise, the 5ltr pressure cooker with a 25cc hand pump. Even with a good quantity of water in it as well as the jar - amazing amount of gas gets dissolved in tap water!

Hey, if I can find a big enough 12V power supply I can use the electric tyre inflator!

Might be eating a lot of coloured chicken in the next couple of weeks!

Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Tank

If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

hermes2015

That sounds like a good idea. I don't think different times under vacuum will make a big difference, because I'm guessing that the marinade will only migrate into the meat when air is allowed back into the chamber. When you evacuate the air out of the chamber, the meat will degas. It's only when the pressure returns to normal that the liquid will be pushed into the meat by the air pressure. Perhaps the meat will stay more compact, and therefore less tender than before.

I look forward to see what happens.
"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames

Dave

#3
Setup in use.



I cut the piece of chicken on two, (1) 90g and (2) 70g.

Marinade 1/4 tsp garlic granules, 1 tsp food colour (1) 2tsp volour (2) in small amount of warm water for five minutes to hydrate garlic.

Chicken piece (1) added, water added to cover. Lid on, air sucked out to -0.5bar

Small amount of fine froth.

Left for 10minutes.

Result: not much penetration of colour. When two halves fried in olive oil until browned nice and tender and garlic flavour well noticeable. Funny colour on cooking, some parts bluish.



Piece (2): another tsp colour added to original marinade (yeah, should have made new one . . .)

No new froth, suggests first was water and garlic degassing.

1 hour at 0.5b. (Afraid to go to 1bar without tested vessel, and gets bloody hard work pumping the more you pump out - memory says amount extracted per stroke is exponentially inverse to the "hardness" of the vacuum. Thus many more strokes per 0.1bar drop at 0.9bar compared to 0.5bar. I will have a grip like a gorilla if I do this every day for a week!)

And, later, I realised that I had changed two  variables - naughty! Must write out spec and methodology and do it again! Good thing I like chicken.

More colour in (2) obviously, but no more penetration than before, suggesting you were right, Hermes.



When fried colours well, that might be a function of the food colour. Not easy to see here but the striations of the mucle fibres are "picked out". Garlic taste stronger but that might be because marinade was "aging" and 6x longer time in marinade! I cannot remember the garlic taste surviving frying this well before.

Will do controls with same marinade and times but no vacuum. Considering similar trials with pears in red wine, cheese in port (oh, dear, I will need to buy a bottle of port, what a shame) And fish in something. And punching holes into chicken . . .

Heston Blumenthal would be proud of me!


Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Dave

OK, method should be:
Make marinade, divide into two containers, one being the vacuum vessel.
Cut subject material into two equal sized pieces, A and B.
Place one piece in each vessel.
Evacuate vacuum vessel.
Give both samples same time.
Cut both in half to check for penetration.
If appropriate cook all samples in same manner.
Compare samples by eating a small piece of A followed by a small piece of B.
Repeat above cleansing the pallet before and between.

Repeat with longer time.
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Icarus

Dave is herewith nominated to be the chief researcher for the sciences of odd ball culinary projects.  Who knows? we may have a pioneer in our midst.   I do suspect that some of the more inquisitive commercial  microbiologists have addressed this kind of thinking. Only god knows whatever kind of stuff those wizards at Nestle, ConAgra, Campbell, and others have dreamed up.

In any case, Dave is our guy and his experiments are to be respected as legitimate research.

Dave

Quote from: Icarus on August 12, 2018, 01:55:57 AM
Dave is herewith nominated to be the chief researcher for the sciences of odd ball culinary projects.  Who knows? we may have a pioneer in our midst.   I do suspect that some of the more inquisitive commercial  microbiologists have addressed this kind of thinking. Only god knows whatever kind of stuff those wizards at Nestle, ConAgra, Campbell, and others have dreamed up.

In any case, Dave is our guy and his experiments are to be respected as legitimate research.

Why, thank you, Icarus. We each do our thing. My thing just seems to gets out of its box occasionaly. The method is almost certainly not unique, it's just the touch of madness that gives it the edge!
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Bluenose

I would have thought that positive pressure would be more likely to increase the penetration of the marinade than a vacuum.  However, I think this is an interesting experiment.  And if unexpected results occur, then so much the better!
+++ Divide by cucumber error: please reinstall universe and reboot.  +++

GNU Terry Pratchett


hermes2015

Very interesting work so far, Dave. Your setup looks well thought out and quite scientific!

I was also thinking that you should try piercing two chicken pieces all the way through, many times, and evenly spaced, with a long sewing needle. Use one as a control (no vacuuming).

The problem with the port is: what to do with any unused port after the experiment?
"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames

Dave

Quote from: Bluenose on August 12, 2018, 04:24:52 AM
I would have thought that positive pressure would be more likely to increase the penetration of the marinade than a vacuum.  However, I think this is an interesting experiment.  And if unexpected results occur, then so much the better!

My thinking was, based on testing equipment enclosure seals and impregnating equipment with adhesive or silicon at work, if you apply pressure you tend to close cavities, preventing the whatever getting in. Evacuation de-gasses the whole thing, item and medium, allowing full penetration on the reapplication of atmospheric pressure.

With pressure cooking it is slightly different, like squeezing a sponge held under water, then relaxing it. Now, "pressure" cooking whilst under vacuum . . .
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Dave

Quote from: hermes2015 on August 12, 2018, 05:08:42 AM
Very interesting work so far, Dave. Your setup looks well thought out and quite scientific!

I was also thinking that you should try piercing two chicken pieces all the way through, many times, and evenly spaced, with a long sewing needle. Use one as a control (no vacuuming).

The problem with the port is: what to do with any unused port after the experiment?

I did think of sharpening the end of a thin wall plated 4mm OD brass tube I have to make open "tunnels" through the meat.

And yes, the left over port is going to present a problem that needs sober (if not for very long) consideration.
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Dave

New entries, at numbers 3 and seven, in methodology:

Make marinade, divide into two containers, one being the vacuum vessel.
Cut subject material into two equal sized pieces, A and B.
Weigh each piece.
Place one piece in each vessel.
Evacuate vacuum vessel.
Give both samples same time.
Reweigh each piece to check for weight gsin,
Cut both in half to check for penetration.
If appropriate cook all samples in same manner.
Compare samples by eating a small piece of A followed by a small piece of B.
Repeat above cleansing the pallet before and between.
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

hermes2015

Quote from: hermes2015 on August 12, 2018, 05:08:42 AM
I was also thinking that you should try piercing two chicken pieces all the way through, many times, and evenly spaced, with a long sewing needle. Use one as a control (no vacuuming).

This roller would make the job of pricking it very easy.

"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames

Dave

#13
QuoteNow, "pressure" cooking whilst under vacuum . . .

Just realised the problem there, low air pressure reduces the boiling point of water - maybe it will never cook! But, if one had a vessel with a seal that could stand  high temp - like one made out of the 250C silicon rubber roasting sheet I have - a sort of combined "pot-roast/steam-cook under vacuum" might be achieved.

OTOH there is an enigma here: the water boiling at less than atmopheric will cause some re-presurisation in the sealed cooking vessel. But that should increase the water's boiling point so will an equilibrum be acheived?

I know that cooking involves the application of science and its principles but this is getting . . . Something!

I need a glass pressure cooker with pressure/vacuum spigots.
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

jumbojak

If you vacuum bag the chicken with the marinade and par cook it before a final sear you may get the result you want.

"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz