To avoid wasting meat I’ve been doing this for years. So far it has worked and now I wonder about the science behind it:
If for whatever reason I end up with a piece of raw meat that starts smelling a bit strong I cut the piece into small chunks, press the chunks to remove as much liquid as possible, put the meat in a pan, cover the meat with water, let the pan uncovered, boil it and wait till the water completely evaporates. At this point, meat looks brownish or darker depending on the meat I use and it doesn’t smell as strong. I cook it then as I see fit.
I believe by boiling the meat, convection currents take (at least?) some of the bacteria away and this is a safe way not to waste meat. Is this right? Meat always smells better after ‘washing’ it this way.
What you just described is called cooking.
Bacteria are living organisms and like humans they (most of them) cannot survive high temperatures, their proteins denaturate and their cell structure disintegrates. On the other hand, often it is not the organism itself that is dangerous but the toxins they excrete, which could be much more stable. Imagine food that is all covered by mold - you can probably cook or “wash” it as long as you want, you will end up with serious food poisoning.
I can only recommend to anybody reading this, do not ingest meat that smells suspicious, you can seriously harm your health. And also maybe you’d like to try out a vegetarian diet, just because you read this until the end?
It doesn’t matter how you cook it, cooking it thoroughly will kill the bacteria. However, some bacteria leave toxins behind and cooking won’t get rid of those. Basically don’t eat rotten meat, the best way to tell if it’s rotten is looking for discolouration and it smelling really bad, although this can also be a good thing in some aged meats like game or beef. BTW, beef turning brown when the packet is opened is normal. Supermarkets fill the packets with inert gas to artificially keep the meat looking red.
Bacteria are likely all dead but the toxins that bacteria produce may remain. This is why they can’t treat Botulism with antibiotics as it is caused by a toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum.
The water doesn’t make a difference. What’s killing the bacteria is the heat. The water just changes the method of heat transfer. But as others have already said, killing the bacteria may not necessarily make it safe
Not entirely true. While the heat is doing the real heavy lifting, the water as a medium does transfer stuff out of the meat. That’s why boiled meat tastes like shit.
Boiled meat tastes bad because you’re not adding oil/butter. You’re also not applying enough direct heat (plus keeping it too moist) to create the maillard reaction that is needed for a crust to form
