The presentation was very informative
The presentation was extremely informative. Mushrooms are really different from all the other produce in your fridge; for starters, they aren’t even plants biologically speaking. What sets them apart from the rest of your fruits and veggies also affects how they hold up to cooking. A mushroom-based dish can make even the most novice chef look like a culinary genius because you can’t really overcook a mushroom no matter how hard you try.
In an experiment to see how different kinds of foods change texture as they cook, America’s Test Kitchen compared zucchini, beef tenderloin, and portobello mushrooms’ ability to stand up to the heat. After five minutes of steaming, all three were very similar in texture and all were deemed tender by taste testers, but that quickly changed after just five more minutes. The beef started to toughen up and the zucchini got mushy, yet the mushroom remained perfectly tender. After 40 minutes of steaming, the mushroom reigned supreme, retaining roughly the same texture and tenderness rating, whereas the beef had turned to leather and the zucchini to goo.
So why did these three foods react so differently to long-term cooking? Well, the science behind overcooking boils down to the food item’s biology. Let’s start with meat; we cook meat in order to make it safe to eat because the heat kills off any unsafe bacteria that are hanging around in there. Cooking also has the added benefit of making meat both tender and delicious, as long as you don’t overdo it. Anyone who’s overcooked a steak knows that it only takes a few minutes to take it from delicious to practically inedible.
Now structurally, meat is made up of mostly proteins, long chains of amino acids that are all folded up due to strong hydrogen bonds connecting the chains to themselves. When you add heat, it breaks these bonds causing them to unfold through a process called denaturing. Applying the right amount of heat creates very tender meat because of what happens as the proteins denature. Take the proteins myosin and actin for example; these are proteins responsible for trapping water in the meat, and they’re some of the first to denature when meat is heated. As they change shape, they release some of the water they’re hanging onto, which makes the meat juicier.
Plant matter is made up of mostly polysaccharides like starches and cellulose, which gives those leafy greens or celery stalks their rigid structure. Polysaccharides are polymers that are made up of hundreds or thousands of glucose molecules, all bound together in long chains. Hydrogen bonds then make these chains into bundles forming fibers, and it’s these fibers that give polysaccharides their strength and stability. But when you add heat to polysaccharides like those starches and cellulose fibers, the bonds weaken and break, which releases that glucose. This is why carrots are crunchy when they’re raw and roasting them makes them softer but also sweeter. But if you overdo it on roasting those carrots, too much of that cellulose breaks down, since that’s the main structural component. Mushrooms are truly unique - both biologically and culinarily. Their composition sets them apart from other vegetables, making them easy to cook while also impressing dinner guests. If you’re just starting out on your culinary adventures, consider mushrooms as one of the first foods you try. However, be warned that you can still burn them!
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