why does pan searing meat make it tough after a long time on the pan, but simmering makes meat more tender the longer its done?
In: Chemistry
It depends on the meat.
Meat that is mostly muscle fibers doesn’t need a lot of cooking and is traditionally cooked with high heat. You don’t need to cook the center very much but do want a nice crust on the outside, so throwing it in a hot pan for a short time works well. Cooking these cuts for longer, whether in a pan or in water, will make them dry and tough.
Meat with a lot of connective tissue needs a lot of cooking to gelatinize the connective tissue, so it’s traditionally cooked with low heat. This can be in a low oven or a smoker, but it’s often in some kind of wet environment. This is because liquid water can’t get hotter than its boiling point, so the cooking temperature of simmering water is remarkably constant without much need for fiddling (just keep replenishing the liquid before it all boils away).
All of this is to say, if you cut up a ribeye and put it in a stew, it will come out quite tough. If you put a brisket in a hot pan, it will remain quite tough after a normal amount of cooking and burn to ashes before actually tenderizing.
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