Meat Sous Vide

This chapter takes us on a journey that will help us understand the nature of meat.

Meat is made up of three main components: muscle fibre, collagen or connective tissue, and fat. The long, delicate muscle fibre strands are full of the sweet flavoursome juices. They are held together in bundles by different types of collagen or connective tissue, with collagen providing more than a quarter of the protein in meat. Most important of all is the flavoursome fat, found either in a marbling effect through the meat or on the surface in an often thick white layer. Fat provides essential moisture as meat cooks, and the flavour of all meat is enhanced by retaining a small amount of its natural fat to give it richness—a small amount is delicious, but excess is cloying and unpleasant. Trim meat of any thick fat before cooking.