This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Searing is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
Searing (or pan searing) is a technique used in grilling, roasting, braising, sautéing, etc. that cooks the surface of the food (usually meat, poultry or fish) at high temperature so that a caramelized crust forms. A similar technique, browning, is typically used to sear or brown all sides of a particular piece of meat, fish, poultry, etc. before finishing it in the oven. To obtain the desired brown crust, the meat surface must exceed 300 °F (150 °C), so searing requires the meat surface be free of water, which boils at around 212 °F (100 °C).1
Even though some people believed that searing locks in the moisture or "seals in the juices" of the food, it has been scientifically shown2 that searing results in a greater net loss of moisture versus cooking to the same internal temperature without first searing. Nonetheless it remains an essential technique in cooking meat for several reasons:
- The browning creates desirable flavors through caramelization and the Maillard reaction.
- The appearance of the food is usually improved with a well-browned crust.
- The contrast in taste and texture between the crust and the interior makes the food more interesting to the palate.
Typically in grilling the food will be seared over very high heat and then moved to a lower-temperature area of the grill. In braising, the seared surface acts to flavor, color and otherwise enrich the liquid in which the food is being cooked.
Sealing in the juices
The belief that searing meat "seals in the juices" is widespread and still often repeated. This theory was first put forth by Justus von Liebig,2 a German chemist and food scientist, around 1850. The notion was embraced by contemporary cooks and authors including Auguste Escoffier.
Simple experimentation can test the theory: cook two similar cuts of meat, searing one first and not the other. Weigh the end results to see which loses more moisture. (The Food Network program Good Eats carried out such a test in episode EA1H22, Myth Smashers.) As early as the 1930s, such experiments were carried out; the seared roasts lost the same amount of moisture or more. (Generally more, since searing exposes the meat to higher temperatures.)
Moisture in liquid and vapor form can and does continue to escape from a seared piece of meat. For this reason, searing is sometimes done at the end of the cooking process to gain the flavor benefits of the caramelization as well as the benefits of cooking for a greater duration with more moisture.
Notes
- ^ Separate the myth from the facts
- ^ a b McGee, Harold (2004). On Food and Cooking (Revised Edition). Scribner. ISBN 0-684-80001-2. Page 161, "The Searing Question".
External links
|
|||||||||||||||||
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 1 October 2008, at 03:12.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Searing".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.