Velveting Meat
Chowhound Jed Kolko is a Chinese-food autodidact. He’s taught himself to “velvet” his meat for a stir-fry using this marinade, sealing in moisture and keeping the meat soft as it cooks.
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French technique reigns supreme - just confit the meat until cooked through, store in the fat, then stir fry when ready to serve. I agree with the other posters that the idea of "sealing" a piece of meat is a fallacy, but also argue that internal temp does NOT positively correlate to tenderness. It depends on the musculature.
The sealing is incorrect. Harold McGee addresses this clearly in his "Keys to Good Cooking." The juiciness of meat is 100% determined by the internal temperature of the meat. Based on what I see here, the perception of or the actual juiciness is actually contributed by:
1. The oil sticking to the starch
2. The fast cooking is actually keeping the overall temperature down.
I call BS on the idea of "sealing". I strongly suspect that no such thing occurs, but that there's some other phenomenon going on with the starch in the marinade.
I have never heard of "velveting" with water. Authentic Chinese technique poaches the meat in large quantity of oil. Not in water. To keep the meat from getting too oily use very high heat and only poach for very short period of time. The meat should only be cooked till about 3/4 done. That is the classic technique!
I started velveting my meat (for Thai dishes) about a year ago (using oil, not water) and now there's no way I'd ever go back. It makes a huge difference in flavour and texture and is worth the little extra work.
I'm lazy and usually just marinate my chicken for a stir fry in a little vinegar, soy sauce, and corn starch while i prep the veggies. Works great--the chicken does not get dried out when cooking.
I have an old authentic chinese cookbook from the 60's that has a whole chapter on velveting different types of meat, it includes pork, chicken and shrimp. It has something to do with the texture, can't recall right now.
DARRELLL, i've never heard of this either, never seen it, nothing.
I learned this technique many years ago, but never using water. That just seems strange. Oh, @darrelll: Have you never had 'velvet chicken' at a Chinese restaurant? Most of them do serve it.
pinogirl, if you click on 'marinade' in the intro, it'll take you to the measurements.
Could this technique be used with larger pieces of chicken, such as skinless,boneless chicken breast halves, that could then be baked in some sort of a sauce or glaze?
Whaaaat? I've never seen or heard of this technique used by Chinese chefs/cooks.
I can't wait to try it - but the video didn't provide measurements.
Oil does result in a more lush texture. Using water is less messy and yields a different texture: some find it inferior to using oil, other just find it different.
there is minimal (if any) nutritional loss ..... the corn starch and egg white will effectively seal in the juices ( and nutrition ) of the chicken. as shown in the video, water will work but using oil (275*F) results in a more lush texture. and the oil can be used over again if strained of any impurities. ( I would use it sooner than later though)
great tip,
i hope that the water bath does not water out the nutrients :-P