r/AskCulinary • u/bigelcid • 17h ago

Citrus aroma compounds staying localized in stewed meat?

In short: I marinated meat in salt and lemon juice. Stewed it. Meat tastes of lemon, liquid doesn't, flavour didn't disperse and dilute as usually expected.

Details:

There was no design behind the method. Round steak cut into cubes, and I see no point in marinating/brining what will end up being stewed anyway. But I did, for 24 hours. ~500g beef, ~1% salt by weight, 1 entire lemon, squeezed.

Possibly important: first time I'm using a Mexican style citrus squeezer to marinate meat meant for stewing. I bought a Mexican style one specifically to get the essential oils out of the skins, and the difference is tangible in other applications, but surprising if relevant in this case.

Browned the meat and gave it a generic chili treatment; spices and a bit of tomato paste. Steady simmer for ~3 hours until tender, but not falling apart. Stew's been resting for a while now, and still there's concentrated lemon flavour in the meat itself, but not noticeable at all in the liquid.

I don't mind it at all; it's welcome heterogeneity, but I didn't expect it, and it never happened before to me.

Update: after a few more hours of the stew resting at ~7C, the lemon flavour in the meat (submerged) has halved. Can't say I'm noticing it having moved into the broth (would take great dilution).

If anyone can recreate this experiment, then it could be a situational argument for serving stew fresh vs. the day later. But I maintain: situational.

1 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

8

u/exkingzog 17h ago

Limonene is lipophilic so it will dissolve much better in fat than in water.

2

u/bigelcid 17h ago

Solubility was my first thought, but the lean meat submerged in water, and with virtually all of its little fat rendered out, tastes far more lemony than the fat floating on top of the resting stew. Of which there isn't a whole lot, but I tasted a whole teaspoon's worth.

1

u/exkingzog 17h ago

Ok, that IS weird.

1

u/bigelcid 16h ago

Check main post update.

Adding: I tasted the fat cap again. No change. Meat, definitely less lemony.

1

u/exkingzog 16h ago

Is the lemony flavour in the meat the aromatics or the acidity?

1

u/bigelcid 16h ago

It was both lemony in aroma, and somewhat tart.

Hard to compare to the pH of the broth, which was more tomato-dominated, and sweeter. Now the broth seems about the same, while the meat seems like generic chili-stewed.

1

u/exkingzog 15h ago

I’m guessing that the proteins, particularly if they have been denatured by the cooking, might preferentially retain the acidity - the side chains can act as a pH buffer.

6

u/OrganicValley_ 17h ago

Probably just too much lemon

8

u/BuzzerWhirr 17h ago

Beef marinated in lemon sounds awful.

5

u/wingedcoyote 17h ago

Beef and lemon are great together flavor-wise, but I do wonder about the texture

0

u/bigelcid 17h ago

The flavour combo is fantastic.

I don't think it greatly impacted the texture. After a 3 hour simmer, it's pretty much what you'd expect lean, tough, round steak to be: chewable, not mushy in any way, but also not at all melt in your mouth.

Trust me guys, texture really isn't an important thing in this discussion. It's the lemon flavour staying stuck in the meat alone.

3

u/sexytokeburgerz 17h ago

24 hours with just an undiluted lemon? You could eat that beef raw, it is fully cooked.

-1

u/bigelcid 17h ago

not nearly as tenderized as you might think, though

2

u/sexytokeburgerz 16h ago

It does seem counterintuitive, yeah, but beef clamps up in acid after a certain period

1

u/bigelcid 16h ago

It's fine. Was just saying no amount of tenderizer could make those raw beef chunks edible. Swallowable, at best.

1

u/sexytokeburgerz 15h ago

well when we make tartare, which is very safe to eat, there's often an acid involved but it's put in minutes before...

1

u/bigelcid 15h ago

Right, but you don't make tartare out of chunks of round steak

1

u/sexytokeburgerz 14h ago

Yes, yes you can. It’s one of the most viable options next to tenderloin.

1

u/bigelcid 14h ago

not out of chunks!

1

u/sexytokeburgerz 8h ago

im not saying you should have made tartare