Water being sold in chicken!!!!?

regi3457

rubadub wrote: »

You would have to get the same weight of chicken and cook in the exact same manner, cut to the same size etc. You had 3.5 fillets in that pan, that is quite a lot, you will notice far more liquid with large amounts of meat, be it chicken or mince meat etc. With smaller amounts on the same large pan there is far more surface area so the liquid readily boils off as it comes out. So I would expect to see far less than 1/2 the liquid in pan if cooking 1/2 the amount of chicken.

A more foolproof and repeatable test would be to get 10g of chicken of each type and cook it out for hours until bone dry and then weigh it. This still would not be clear evidence that water was added as they could have naturally had different water content to begin with, or one may have been dried out a little. It would tell you which has more "dry matter" in it which is what you might be more interested in anyway.

well a scientific result isn't necessary IMO. I got some fillets today from the store of the free-range variety. Paid top dollar for them. Going to repeat my pan-fry method and post the pic. I think it will be very clear if there is any difference without having to measure anything and just by looking at the pan

Forever21

regi3457 wrote: »

thanks for sharing, how much liquid came out of them? Also, it is hard comparing because with my pan-fry photo I posted I took it right after the chicken "leaked". Had I kept frying (or in my case boiling) the chicken a lot of the liquid would have evaporated so I guess it would be hard to say how yours differs

If you look at the post underneath it shows the chicken straight from the oven so it looks like the same amount as the one you put up . The liquid I put on mine was about 50ml I'd say . The children was approx €7 for 3 free range & Irish from co Monaghan with bord bia sticker but having said that they tasted a hell of a lot better than those little slimy ones from the butcher & seemed to have a nice grain when cutting.

VincePP

Forever21 wrote: »

If you look at the post underneath it shows the chicken straight from the oven so it looks like the same amount as the one you put up . The liquid I put on mine was about 50ml I'd say . The children was approx €7 for 3 free range & Irish from co Monaghan with bord bia sticker but having said that they tasted a hell of a lot better than those little slimy ones from the butcher & seemed to have a nice grain when cutting.

Organic will always taste better - especially when it comes to chicken. Less so beef as in Ireland they are mostly grass fed.

Whether its beef, chicken or fish (or children in a post above ) 70% is liquid. That's simply a fact.

After cooking, rest it for a few minutes and allow the liquid be soaked up back to the meat. - Its what every cook book / chef calls "resting".

Bobeagleburger

Best bet is go to a butcher. I've always found chicken breasts from the local butcher better than supermarket's and similar price if not cheaper

firestarter51

A_Sober_Paddy wrote: »

Love how people keep saying go to your local butcher, a lot of chicken in your butchers comes from the same place the tesco/Dunne's stuff comes from

My local butcher bought chickens from centra that were on special and doubled the price
Haven't been back since lol

Cash and carry for my chicken breasts 25 X 225g for €26 and very little water comes out

regi3457

Robert Orange Taffy wrote: »

regi3457 wrote: »

We reared our own organic hens for years and water still came out in slow coming.

did a test again with Tesco free-range chicken breasts and the same amount of water came out of them which means you are closer to being correct and I am closer to being more confused

will buy one more set of fillets this week from a different source and see if I can find fillets that dont leak

VincePP

regi3457 wrote: »

did a test again with Tesco free-range chicken breasts and the same amount of water came out of them which means you are closer to being correct and I am closer to being more confused

will buy one more set of fillets this week from a different source and see if I can find fillets that dont leak

I don't mean this badly, but maybe look at how you cook the chicken.

Cook at high heat for a minute to seal it and then lower the heat. You'll get a low moisture loss and far greater flavour - the liquid also contains the flavour

If using in a stirfry, cook breasts whole, allow cool and suck back the juices. Cut and add near the end of the stir fry process.

A lot of above posts shows poor knowledge of cooking chicken to retain moisture, texture and taste.

ThisRegard

RoboKlopp wrote: »

Best bet is go to a butcher. I've always found chicken breasts from the local butcher better than supermarket's and similar price if not cheaper

It's not though, there's only so many chicken places in the county. Butchers don't get all their stuff from the best of places, have you seen the prices they sell some of their stuff? They're that cheap for a reason.

regi3457

VincePP wrote: »

I don't mean this badly, but maybe look at how you cook the chicken.

Cook at high heat for a minute to seal it and then lower the heat. You'll get a low moisture loss and far greater flavour - the liquid also contains the flavour

If using in a stirfry, cook breasts whole, allow cool and suck back the juices. Cut and add near the end of the stir fry process.

A lot of above posts shows poor knowledge of cooking chicken to retain moisture, texture and taste.

cook at high heat? You mean preheat the pan on high temperature before putting the chicken in?

wow ok so just by looking at the photo you know I didn't do that?

VincePP

regi3457 wrote: »

cook at high heat? You mean preheat the pan on high temperature before putting the chicken in?

wow ok so just by looking at the photo you know I didn't do that?

Yes

Read my post fully.

Quite obvious from your photo that you did not cook the breast as a single piece because the photo shows its all chopped up. Hence all the moisture comes out leaving dry tastless chicken.

Hint - get a basic cook book.

regi3457

VincePP wrote: »

Yes

Read my post fully.

Quite obvious from your photo that you did not cook the breast as a single piece because the photo shows its all chopped up. Hence all the moisture comes out leaving dry tastless chicken.

Hint - get a basic cook book.

Sorry, I tried to read your post fully but it was not of any interest to me and seemed off topic

armabelle

VincePP wrote: »

Yes

Read my post fully.

Quite obvious from your photo that you did not cook the breast as a single piece because the photo shows its all chopped up. Hence all the moisture comes out leaving dry tastless chicken.

Hint - get a basic cook book.

Oh my gosh, where on earth did you learn to cook. You never cook the breast as a single unit and then chop it up. What are you talking about? Please don't tell me you studied culinary arts?

armabelle

ThisRegard wrote: »

It's not though, there's only so many chicken places in the county. Butchers don't get all their stuff from the best of places, have you seen the prices they sell some of their stuff? They're that cheap for a reason.

my butcher gets their fillets from the Netherlands and Tescos fillets are Irish. I prefer the Irish variety.

armabelle

VincePP wrote: »

I don't mean this badly, but maybe look at how you cook the chicken.

Cook at high heat for a minute to seal it and then lower the heat. You'll get a low moisture loss and far greater flavour - the liquid also contains the flavour

If using in a stirfry, cook breasts whole, allow cool and suck back the juices. Cut and add near the end of the stir fry process.

A lot of above posts shows poor knowledge of cooking chicken to retain moisture, texture and taste.

Please don't do this

Dodge

How is water in food a bad thing?

ThisRegard

If you're paying by weight and additional weight is purposely added to increase the weight, then it's obviously a bad thing.

Dodge

ThisRegard wrote: »

If you're paying by weight and additional weight is purposely added to increase the weight, then it's obviously a bad thing.

I get that, but I was querying the "disgusting" comments.

armabelle

Dodge wrote: »

I get that, but I was querying the "disgusting" comments.

I think they meant that that is disgusting

L1011

VincePP wrote: »

Cook at high heat for a minute to seal it

Inaccurate. This doesn't actually happen, despite being claimed in many old cookbooks.

gctest50

Dodge wrote: »

How is water in food a bad thing?

It's not just water they'd be using to plump up the chicken, otherwise it'd just "deflate" too much when you cook it and there would be complaints

they use waste from processing cows and pigs, all the stuff they can't use anywhere else, chop it up and break it down so much it won't even test as cow or pig anymore

Theo Hietbrink, of Prowico, told the programme that at least 12 companies were using this new brand of untraceable hydrolised proteins.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/3047159.stm