RSS
Home
What is meat glue?
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
Imitation crab: one application of transglutaminase.
Meat glue: It sounds utterly repellent; like some pre-industrial, rustic adhesive made out of horse hooves that smells of old fish and burnt hair, but it's actually a fine, tasteless powder that looks like icing sugar and is one of the more clever things to come out of molecular gastronomy. Produced as Activa by Japan's Ajinomoto Company, it's scientific name is”transglutaminase” and its an enzymes that catalyzes covalent bonds between free amine groups and gamma-caroxminid groups of protein or peptide bond gluatamine. In English, that means it makes meat and other proteins stick together like super glue. If you've ever eaten a chicken nugget or had imitation crab in your salad, you've come across meat glue. The perfectly formed chicken nugget or chunk or ersatz crab isn't a result of careful carving, but rather from, in the case of the former, taking chicken or, in the case of the latter, taking white fish, and reducing it into tiny shreds until it forms a slurry. This slurry is then mixed with transglutaminase so the shreds stick together and then the food scientists can reform the slurry into any size or shape they like with any characteristics they desire. Want your imitation crab to be soft and tender? No problem. Your nuggets to be a bit more chewy? There you go. Sausages a bit too flabby? We've got it covered. Or maybe you'd like to form off cuts into new steaks or make sure all the portions of meat you serve are exactly the same size. Simple.
This sort of thing has been a boon to the food industry, which can now treat all sorts of proteins like meat or fish as just another material to be processed, but in the hands of molecular gastronomists it's become a way to manipulate food in a way that would have been previously impossible. It's possible, for example, it's possible to make tenderloin rolls wrapped in bacon that hold together perfectly without the need for twine or toothpicks. Or fine slices of different fish can be fused together to produce cuts that combine all manner of tastes and colors. But perhaps its most famous use is by chef Wylie Dufresne of New York City's WD-50 restaurant, who uses meat glue to produce shrimp pasta. That's not shrimp-flavored pasta, it's pasta made out of shrimp. It's not only quite the novelty and zero carbs, but it's also the tip of the ice berg for this newest addition to the cook's arsenal.
Related Articles:
Comments
