Understanding Meat Muscle
Meat is made up of muscle, whether it is a cow, pig, lamb, or chicken. Knowing how each component of an animal's muscle works will always yield a better meal.
Understanding the four elements of an animal’s muscle are key to your ability to select the best method of cooking to control tenderness, flavor, and juiciness.
Fat
There are two types of fat in most animals - the thick layer of fat that surrounds the muscles and the thin filaments that run through the muscles. The thick layer is generally removed during butchering. The thin filaments are called marbling and are key to flavor and perceived juiciness.
The Takeaway: Identifying greater marbling in meat tells you that a cut can stay moist at higher temperatures or quicker cooking times.
Water
Muscle fibers are saturated with water molecules. Lean meat has a high water content and is often a tender cut. (Most cuts contain about 75 percent water.) Most of the water is contained inside a muscle fiber, within the myofibrils that make up a single muscle cell. The remaining water is found in the spaces between individual muscle fibers. This water is especially prone to being lost when meat is cooked.
The Takeaway: Understanding this is vital for retaining moisture and preventing meat from drying out, particularly with leaner cuts.
Muscle Fiber
Each muscle contains thousands and thousands of individual muscle fibers that are thinner than a human hair and often several inches long. Individual fibers are bundled together and wrapped in connective tissue - these are the thin strands visible as the grain in many cuts of meat.
The Takeaway: Understanding muscle fibers helps you identify the direction in which they run along a cut of meat so you can cut perpendicular to them, making the meat easier to chew.
Connective Tissue
Connective tissue is the “wrapping” that encases bundles of long muscle fibers and holds them together creating stability in mammals. It also acts as the link between muscles and bones in the form of tendons enabling muscle action to produce motion. The parts involved with motion, such as legs, rump, and shoulders, therefore have more connective tissue to help reinforce the muscles required for strenuous movement. Connective tissue is very tough, so the parts of an animal that are used for motion are tougher cuts of meat than the parts used for maintaining posture, like the belly, back, and ribs.
The Takeaway: Strong, tough connective tissue needs low-and-slow cooking to break down collagen into gelatin for a tender, succulent texture.
