Topic: Meat - Weight by Water

[Bob-A-Job]

A question for those who deal with this on a regular basis...

I often find that the meat I use (mainly chicken), Halal or not, seems to contain a great deal of water when cooking it.  Sometimes 'stir frying', is not so much but more of 'boil off the water' and it a) makes the chicken tough b) causes pre-cooked red meat to lose flavour.

I am sure you all have a solution for this which I would really appreciate it if you could share.

Thanks
BAJ

[jalfreziT]

I don't live in the UK.

Some of the chicken breast fillets for sale here contain a "light salting marinade", which is shown in the small print. Of course this is just a way to sell you water rather than chicken.

So the first thing is to closely check the ingredient label of the stuff you are buying.

Also, if you are buying cheap stuff, at the bottom end of the price scale, then it's quite possible the water has been added (either through injection or tumbling in a large machine), and they just haven't declared it to the customer. It is cheap for a reason.

With 8 years experience in the chicken industry, here is my assessment of the market:

Expensive - Fresh chilled fillets in retail packaging, from higher end supermarkets. This meat will be from an established supply chain with partner suppliers. Quality checks and auditing are at an excellent level. Their traceability is so good, that from the code on the retail pack, they can trace back to the actual shed on a particular farm, where the bird was reared. And tell you what it ate and when, how many hours of sunlight the birds were given per day, etc, etc.

Mid price - Cheaper supermarkets fresh and frozen. Still traceable to supplier, but possible that "cost reduction" has been applied somewhere.

Cheap - Raw material will likely have been spot-purchased on international markets. The buyer picks up his phone and calls contacts, asking, "what do you have available at what price?". Traceability non-existent. You have little idea what you are buying.

[mickyp]

I buy my chicken fillets at bookers in 5kg packs, im sure they a coated in a brine solution which appears to improve their appearance, Julian Voight refers to this when he says wash the chicken and it will change colour, it does, also the surface tension seems to change as well, the surface appears to become more floppy if that makes sense.
I will be buying another pack later so i will check any labels on it.

[Unclefrank]

I get my chicken from my local butcher, which i use for orders and use the packed chicken 10kg, 15kg, 20kg, for making chicken tikka which helps because of the water content, helping the chicken stay moist while cooking in the Tandoori.

[mickyp]

just checked on the Booker website, the chicken is packed in the uk so i suppose the origin could be elsewhere, but it states no added water

[Ghoulie]

I noticed quite some time back that chicken bought from M&S and a few other places - the texture was not meaty / strand-like and low on flavour - almost rubberlike - then spotted a TV programme on processing of chicken in Holland I think for supply to major supermarkets where the chicken was injected in multiple points and tumbled in water to increase the weight.  Thereafter, we stucl to buying fresh chicken from local butchers only - far superior in flavour and texture back to how you would expect it to be.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/06/chicken-tumbling-water-industrial-practice-additives

[Naga]

Poaching your pre-cook chicken eliminates the water problem altogether.

[mickyp]

Poaching your pre-cook chicken eliminates the water problem altogether.

Most animals wet themselves when they spot a Poacher

[bhamcurry]

it might help the sog problem if you leave the chicken in the fridge for 24 hours, uncovered - the fridge mechanism should help to dry out some of the excess water?

[Peripatetic Phil]

Unwittingly, I did just that with some pork skins that I had salted prior to towel-trying