Tenderness is a quality of meat gauging how easily it is chewed or cut. Tenderness is a desirable quality, as tender meat is softer, easier to chew, and generally more palatable than harder meat. Consequently, tender cuts of meat typically command higher prices. The tenderness depends on a number of factors including the meat grain, the amount of connective tissue, and the amount of fat. Tenderness can be increased by a number of processing techniques, generally referred to as tenderizing or tenderization.
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👉 Meat tenderness in the context of Brining
Brining is treating food with brine or coarse salt which preserves and seasons the food while enhancing tenderness. Flavor can be further developed with additions such as herbs, spices, sugar, caramel or vinegar. Meat and fish are typically brined for less than twenty-four hours while vegetables, cheeses and fruit are brined in a much longer process known as pickling. Brining is similar to marination, except that a marinade usually includes a significant amount of acid, such as vinegar or citrus juice. Brining is also similar to curing, which usually involves significantly drying the food, and is done over a much longer time period.
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Meat tenderness in the context of Wagyu
Wagyu (Japanese: 和牛, Hepburn: wagyū, lit. 'Japanese cattle') is the collective name for the four principal Japanese breeds of beef cattle. All wagyū cattle originate from early twentieth-century cross-breeding between native Japanese cattle and imported stock, mostly from Europe.
Wagyu beef is among the most expensive meats in the world. It features marbling, meaning that streaks of fat exist within the red meat that make it tender and moist, while adding flavor. Wagyu beef is often known by different names depending on its place of origin. In several Japanese prefectures, Wagyu beef is shipped with an area name; examples include Matsusaka beef, Kobe beef from the Tajima cattle, Yonezawa beef and Ōmi beef. In recent years, Wagyu beef has increased in fat percentage due to a decrease in grazing and an increase in the use of feed, resulting in larger, fattier cattle.
Meat tenderness in the context of Belgian Blue
The Belgian Blue (French: 'Blanc-Bleu Belge', Dutch: 'Belgisch Witblauw', both literally meaning "Belgian White-Blue") is a breed of beef cattle from Belgium. It may also be known as the Race de la Moyenne et Haute Belgique, or dikbil (literally "fat buttocks" in Dutch). Alternative names for this breed include Belgian Blue-White; Belgian White and Blue Pied; Belgian White Blue; Blue; and Blue Belgian. The Belgian Blue's extremely lean, hyper-sculpted, ultra-muscular physique is termed "double-muscling". The double-muscling phenotype is a heritable condition caused by a deletion in the myostatin gene, resulting in an increased number of muscle fibres (hyperplasia), instead of the (normal) enlargement of individual muscle fibres (hypertrophy).
This particular trait is shared with another breed of cattle known as Piedmontese. Both of these breeds have an increased ability to convert feed into lean muscle, which causes these particular breeds' meat to have a reduced fat content and increased tenderness. The Belgian Blue is named after its typically blue-grey mottled hair colour; however, its actual colour can vary from white to black.