acids don’t tenderize meat, enzymes do. unless your marinade has, say, pineapple juice (which contains an enzyme called bromelain) it won’t tenderize meat. Brines appear to do so because brined meat retains more moisture through cooking.
I’m not suggesting that marinades without enzymes tenderize in the sense that enzymes do. I was talking about the retention of water. I’m IANA biochemist, so I can’t tell you what the acids are doing. Breakdown is probably the wrong term. But they do something (besides the right ones tasting good).
Okay, found acite. So salt works by osmosis to dissolve proteins and increase the water content in cells. Acid denatures meat, which is doing something to the proteins and the cell walls. IA still NA biochemist, so I don’t know what it is. Both of these techniques provide a form of ‘tenderizing’ that is different from enzyme action.
Hey, I just noticed your user name. The video shows a guy putting chicken strips into a bottle then pressurizing with CO[sub]2[/sub]. I imagine that would also tend to carbonate the chicken (that’s how they make Pop Rocks, and the carbonated grapes I had once in a D.C. restaurant). Given that your join date is this month, you are MrFizz, and you awoke a zombie thread to post a video link, are you the guy in the video trying to drum up some more views?
You’re basically right and we’ve been saying a lot of the same stuff. Salty water (either from a brine, marinade, or already present juices) is able to penetrate meats much more deeply than anything else because of osmosis. Acids (and spices, sugars, other flavorings) have a hard time penetrating much beyond the surface, so any contribution towards tenderizing (proper) is minimum except for thin cuts (e.g., chicken cutlets). Tenderizing proper is the breakdown of the muscle fibers connecting tissues. When a meat is very moist, it’s self lubricating as you chew, giving the impression that the meat is much more tender.
We’re probably all saying the same thing here, but choosing different definitions of some of the terms.
Yeah, I was only making the point initially that marinade has a purpose other than adding flavor. Oil also has an effect, I forget what, it might have been in my cite, but I assumed it dissolved fats in the meat.
As to the proper use of terms, the taste of the food is what counts, and I can’t enunciate proper terminology while I’m eating.