Poll of the Day > Does meat taste better fresh? Like fish does

(+) Yeah! (+)

Or does it make not much difference

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IDK go to Subway. They eat fresh all the time.

Yeah it does it just doesnt spoil and lose flavor as rapidly as fish does

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Depends what you mean. Some meat is better fresh like chicken. Then some is dry aged for a long time like pork and taste better then. The salt and flavour is intensified. It's way more expensive though. You have fancy aged ham and bacon that taste way better than normal fresh version.

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Oh nah what I meant like is freshly slaughtered lamb or beef really tasty like a freshly caught salmon or trout or something.

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FatalAccident posted...

Oh nah what I meant like is freshly slaughtered lamb or beef really tasty like a freshly caught salmon or trout or something.

yes

fresh venison or uncured bacon is amazing

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Mead posted...

uncured bacon

This sounds pretty nice

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Unless you can eat the whole cow in less than 8 hours after slaughter (under optimal conditions), rigor mortis will set in, and that's not good eats. Aging allows rigor to resolve, which takes about 24 to 36 hours.

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captpackrat posted...

Unless you can eat the whole cow in less than 8 hours after slaughter

You probably could if it was like a party or something...
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Uncured bacon is just pork belly, you may be able to find it.

LinkPizza posted...

You probably could if it was like a party or something...

Or grind it into mince or turn it into sausage

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Everything tastes better when is fresher.

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shadowsword87 posted...

Uncured bacon is just pork belly, you may be able to find it.

most commercially available pork belly is still cured, in the US at least

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You can get cheap pork bellies at Costco.

You take a knife and criss-cross the fat layer with a knife. Then give them a rub made of paprika, oregano, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, turmeric, cayenne pepper, salt, and black pepper. Roast in a 450F oven until the fat begins to brown, then reduce the heat to 350 and continue roasting until the fat is crispy.

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There's many different things you can do with meat. Yes, fresh will be great. There's also things like dry-aging.

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SunWuKung420 posted...

Everything tastes better when it is fresher.

Wine.

Anyways, it depends on what you mean by 'fresh'. However, with meat it depends far more on the cut of meat and method of cooking. Did you use an open flame or stove-top? If an open flame what was your fuel source? Did you include any sauces or spices and, if so, how much? Was it salted or not? Did you include any tenderizing thing like vinegar or pineapple? Those things matter much more than how 'fresh' it is usually.

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Unbridled9 posted...

Wine.

Well, not all wine ages well. Some just rots from the bacteria leftover. It's generally created to be aged.

shadowsword87 posted...

Well, not all wine ages well. Some just rots from the bacteria leftover. It's generally created to be aged.

It depends a lot on the wine. Pretty much every wine (and other alcoholic beverage) benefits from some aging (usually at least a few weeks), as certain flavour molecules take some time to fully form, but a lot of those molecules are relatively unstable and will spontaneously break down over time. Some wines hit that sweet spot relatively early, and it's all downhill from there. Others take longer to get there. Others are quite stable and don't really change much with age until you start looking at a really long time scale. The whole "wine gets better with age thing" doesn't actually work as a blanket statement.

SunWuKung420 posted...

Everything tastes better when it is fresher.

Aside from the already-mentioned example of alcoholic beverages, many meats and (especially) cheeses benefit from at least some aging, sometimes months' or years' worth. Flour needs to be aged for about a month after it's milled (unless you bleach it to accelerate the process, which I doubt you're advocating for) to improve the flavour and gluten-forming ability. Many fruits benefit from ripening for a while after being picked (though others will only ripen on the tree/vine). Even bread - as much as it's often hailed as the pinnacle of fresh food - should be allowed to rest after baking to give the residual alcohol a chance to evaporate, otherwise all that escaping gas can cause feelings of bloating.

Generally, yes, fresher food is going to be better, but there are plenty of significant exceptions out there. Making blanket statements like "everything tastes better when it's fresher" doesn't make you sound at all informed about food, it makes you sound like whoever came up with the slogans for Subway and Tim Hortons. That, or some teenage instagram influencer who thinks they're a nutritional guru because they read this one blog post once.

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adjl posted...

It depends a lot on the wine. Pretty much every wine (and other alcoholic beverage) benefits from some aging (usually at least a few weeks), as certain flavour molecules take some time to fully form, but a lot of those molecules are relatively unstable and will spontaneously break down over time. Some wines hit that sweet spot relatively early, and it's all downhill from there. Others take longer to get there. Others are quite stable and don't really change much with age until you start looking at a really long time scale. The whole "wine gets better with age thing" doesn't actually work as a blanket statement.

Aside from the already-mentioned example of alcoholic beverages, many meats and (especially) cheeses benefit from at least some aging, sometimes months' or years' worth. Flour needs to be aged for about a month after it's milled (unless you bleach it to accelerate the process, which I doubt you're advocating for) to improve the flavour and gluten-forming ability. Many fruits benefit from ripening for a while after being picked (though others will only ripen on the tree/vine). Even bread - as much as it's often hailed as the pinnacle of fresh food - should be allowed to rest after baking to give the residual alcohol a chance to evaporate, otherwise all that escaping gas can cause feelings of bloating.

Generally, yes, fresher food is going to be better, but there are plenty of significant exceptions out there. Making blanket statements like "everything tastes better when it's fresher" doesn't make you sound at all informed about food, it makes you sound like whoever came up with the slogans for Subway and Tim Hortons. That, or some teenage instagram influencer who thinks they're a nutritional guru because they read this one blog post once.

Ill have you know Sunny can make pizzas.

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A lot of people dry age their steaks before grilling or pan-frying

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It cooks better for sure. If its ground, Id be surprised if you could taste a difference.

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SunWuKung420 posted...

Everything tastes better when it is fresher.

This is always my mentality too. Save for some alcohol.

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I prefer unripe fruit and veggies, along with fresh, raw meat.

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Metalsonic66 posted...

A lot of people dry age their steaks before grilling or pan-frying

yeah best steak I have ever had was 90 days aged

45 days aged is also amazing. I think going further than that might be dependent on personal tastes.

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I read this isekai where they bled a boar while it was still alive so the meat would taste better. Because the heart has to pump out the blood while the animal is still living and it was too big to dangle from a tree.

But now that I think about it, I think the lactic acid and adrenaline would affect the meat. I heard something about that when it came to fish and deer.

SunWuKung420 posted...

I prefer unripe fruit and veggies, along with fresh, raw meat.

You know for the banta I give you Sunny I feel we are mostly cut from the same cloth. Going to follow you.

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NeoSioType posted...

I read this isekai where they bled a boar while it was still alive so the meat would taste better. Because the heart has to pump out the blood while the animal is still living and it was too big to dangle from a tree.

But now that I think about it, I think the lactic acid and adrenaline would affect the meat. I heard something about that when it came to fish and deer.

Ive heard something similar about lactic acid, cant remember what it was. Think it was the lactic acid spoiling something from the animal being stressed or something?

also @adjl you a chef or just know a bit about foodz

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He's a baker!
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Metalsonic66 posted...

A lot of people dry age their steaks before grilling or pan-frying

I dont think many people age meats in their homes though do they? I think its mostly restaurants cause it have to be in specific conditions where they can control the temp/humidity/airflow

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LinkPizza posted...

He's a baker!

Is he really?

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Mead posted...

I dont think many people age meats in their homes though do they?

You can.

Personally I heavily salt the steaks and put them on a wire rack in the fridge for just a couple hours before cooking

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FatalAccident posted...

Is he really?

Yeah.
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Yeah he butters my muffin all the time.

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Ive got pork belly slices in the fridge. How should I prepare it before cooking it tonight? I want maximum flaverz

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Cover it in cheeto dust and microwave it for 3:16.

Metalsonic66 posted...

You can.

Personally I heavily salt the steaks and put them on a wire rack in the fridge for just a couple hours before cooking

oh I do something similar, didnt realize that was considered aging

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Maaan

i grinded lots of sea salt over it and let it sit for half an hour. Then rubbed it with some spice mix.

its in the oven now but all I can smell is fucking salt lmao

this is gonna taste shit

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FatalAccident posted...

Maaan

i grinded lots of sea salt over it and let it sit for half an hour. Then rubbed it with some spice mix.

its in the oven now but all I can smell is fucking salt lmao

this is gonna taste shit

it might be ok, a lot of spice mixes are mostly salt, but sometimes a steak can still be really good if the outside is very salty since the saltiness only permeates into the meat a small amount

If you really did overdo it then you could probably scrape some of it off lightly with a butterknife, just be careful not to lose any of the seared meat on the exterior since thats a source of a ton of flavor

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Mead posted...

I dont think many people age meats in their homes though do they? I think its mostly restaurants cause it has to be in specific conditions where they can control the temp/humidity/airflow

This guy does a great job at home! But yes, you need a lot of control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGaVzrCIDB4

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FatalAccident posted...

Maaan

i grinded lots of sea salt over it and let it sit for half an hour. Then rubbed it with some spice mix.

its in the oven now but all I can smell is fucking salt lmao

this is gonna taste shit

You gotta be generous with the salt to get that nice crusty sear

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Mead posted...

I dont think many people age meats in their homes though do they? I think its mostly restaurants cause it has to be in specific conditions where they can control the temp/humidity/airflow

You can rig up your own system using a mini fridge, if you want. It's not perfect, and you'll want nothing but the meat in there, but it's possible to dry age your own meat. Just be prepared for it to smell pretty funky (or so I've heard. I've never actually tried it myself).

Metalsonic66 posted...

Personally I heavily salt the steaks and put them on a wire rack in the fridge for just a couple hours before cooking

That's more brining than dry aging. "Dry aging" refers specifically to letting the fat in the meat undergo a series of oxidation reactions. It's actually very similar to aging cheese, chemically speaking, and longer ages will yield a similar funk as what you get from really stinky cheeses. What you're talking about falls more under the umbrella of marinating.

FatalAccident posted...

i grinded lots of sea salt over it and let it sit for half an hour.

Again, I haven't tried this myself, but apparently the optimal approach to that is to salt it either immediately before cooking, or at least an hour beforehand. Anything between those two extremes will result in a subpar product. When you salt meat, it starts to draw moisture out of it. That moisture creates a super-concentrated brine that breaks down the surface-level connective tissue, eventually allowing that moisture - and the salt it now contains - to be absorbed back into the meat. If you cook it before it reabsorbs the liquid, though, you end up cooking off the meat's juices and ending up with a bunch of salt right on the surface, leaving dry meat that just tastes like salt. Wait long enough, and the meat stays juicy and has the salt distributed through it.

Alternatively, cook it immediately after salting, and the meat still has its juices, but the salt will be more superficial.

FatalAccident posted...

also @adjl you a chef or just know a bit about foodz

Bit of both. I completed a 2-year pastry school program and spent a year working in a bakery before I moved and went back to the office job I had before I left this city (mostly because it pays twice as well as a bakery job would), but I also know a lot just from having an interest in the underlying theories and science behind everything (especially baking) and doing my own research to figure out how it all works. If you're curious about such things, I can heartily recommend The Food Lab (https://www.amazon.ca/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087). I haven't read all of it yet, but it goes into exquisite detail regarding the underlying science of cooking (it's where I learned the above explanation of brining) and debunking common myths (i.e.: searing steaks doesn't keep moisture in). It's pretty nifty.

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