Cooking shortening and the toughening of beef

Summary The relationship between cold-shortening and toughness has been determined for the sternomandibularis muscles of young ox cooked at both 60 and 80°C, and therefore taken through the recently established first and second stages of cooking toughness development respectively. At both cooking temperatures, toughness increases approximately three-fold on shortening to 35-40%, and declines steeply at higher shortenings. At a given shortening, the toughness of meat taken through the first cooking stage is only half that of meat taken through both stages. The pronounced cooking shortening accompanying the second stage contributes to toughness to virtually the same degree as cold-shortening in pre-rigor muscle. On the basis of this observation toughness has been related in general terms to muscle structure and function. The mechanics of cleaving cooked meat across the grain and of how shearing force increases with shortening are also discussed.