I can’t count how often I’ve seen people dig into leftover beef stew and say “Stew is always better the next day” They say the same thing in India about curry, in Finland about soup, and so on.
They also say it about certain other foods, but today I’m mostly interested in soups.
You see, Yesterday I made a nice beef stew for someone, but they couldn’t make it over, I had some for dinner, and we had it together today. Bizarrely, for once, it wasn’t better. It wasn’t worse, either. As far as I can tell, it was pretty much the same.
Don’t get me wrong, it was a fine stew, and we enjoyed it, but it got me thinking about the topic. Some reasons may be personal, but I think there must be underlying physicochemical bases.
Two factors I have thought of:
I like the texture of the stew potato better after they’ve rested in the fridge.
On the day you make a good stew, its aroma permeates the house, so your olfactory sensors, responsible for much of the sensation of taste, are saturated.
Any other factors? Esterification? Ectopic binding of amino-acid fragments broken ny the cooking process? Evil Demons?
I think it might be in part because sitting time gives the flavors more time to diffuse through the food, much like a marinade. I know when I make cole slaw, it’s always better after it’s sat in the fridge overnight.
I traditionally have left my beef stew out at room temperature overnight (ditto with chili) (n.b. I always inform potential eaters of the stew or chili of this fact). I find this leads to a better flavor than refrigerating it. Perhaps bacterial activity has something to do with it, similar to how letting meat sit out till it goes a bit off can make it taste better.
I’ve always assumed it’s because it gives times for the flavors to penetrate the broth better. For example, when you’re making chicken or beef stocks, the secret to extracting the maximum amount of flavor is to simmer your meat, bones, veggies, and herbs (bouquet garni or whatnot) just below boil…a nice simmer. Flame tamers will do nicely. This extracts all the flavors into the broth…I usually take at least 3 hours for a stock, up to 8.
This is also why slow-cooker stews tend to taste so good. Also, as long as you use the right cuts of meat (stewing meat), it takes time for the meat to become tender. An hour or so of cooking, and the meat is still fairly tough. Let it simmer for two to three hours and the meat reaches the proper texture for stews.
This answer is not definitive, but it’s been what I’ve always been taught and read about cooking.
Leaving a stew out at room temperature would accelerate most reactions without the need for any bacterial action [as approximated by Arrhenius’ Law: for every 10C rise in temperature, the reaction rate doubles)
I know what you mean about room temp storage. When I was young, I’d sometimes cook a huge pot of soup, and keep it in the well-sealed pot on the stove for lack of any better storage. I’d bring it to a covered boil once or twice a day to sterilize it until it was all consumed. Man those were some great soups.
I’m not that brave anymore. However, room storage soup storage for a day or two is a hoary tradition in almost every culture. Mankind had to do something before it invented refrigeration. (Alas, “die” does qualify as “doing something”, and was such a popular option, that virtually 100% of people born before the 20th century did it.)
I doubt diffusion explains the overnight phenomenon (though it probably plays some role). Diffusion is indeed a slow process (much slower than stirring, as we all know from our morning coffee), but my stews are simmered (and stirred) for hours when I make them, and diffusion increases with temperature. One hour near boiling causes more diffusion than overnight storage in a refrigerator - also the stew thickens as cools, which would slow diffusion.
If the soup is salty, diffusion across the cell wall might push salt into the cells (and water/spice flavor would follow by osmotic pressure) Maybe it’s a post-cooking equivalent of brining?
I find that the viscosity of many stews increases when it’s reheated after overnight refrigeration, and the relative volume of the broth decreases (probably due to the effect in the paragraph above). I’m facing that problem right now. It was a lovely heart stew, and now I wish there were more broth!
Hmm, texture is important. Dissolved starch and fats may be involved, since they often take some time to organize to their final solid state after initial cooling and hardening. You may encounter this when refrigerating and reheating rice or potatoes.
starches in foods like potatoes turn into sugars when cold. Atleast thats the explaination i’ve been given as to why you need to chill potato salad before serving. If you’ve ever made it, it seems to be true; it tastes OK before leaving it in the fridge for hours, and if you try and sweeten it before you chill it, it comes out much sweeter than you thought it would be.
here’s a link about cold pizza which talks about fat and more specifically, curry. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/scotland/692122.stm