cooking at home and collagen

It's been awhile since I talked about cooking at home...

Actually, I was happy to find a source of beef tendon here in south Florida.  It was frozen in a Vietnamese market... same way I bought it in New Orleans.

The last time I cooked it, it took hours in a crock pot.  I wanted to do it faster, and I thought of the pressure cooker (my stovetop model at home).  I also thought about cutting it up ahead of time... cutting the cooking time tremendously.  Actually, it was shortned too tremendously.  I ended up with a pot full of overcooked sliced beef tendon.  This was all cool but in retrospect, but next time I would leave bigger pieces to get cleaner cuts after cooking and to maintain a little of the structure.

But that's not the point.  It got me thinking of something that had popped into my head the other day.  Why don't we use collagen (or tendon stock) for thickening sauces and getting cool textures in the kitchen.  Now I know that gelatin is mainly collagen, but it seems like more of a puristic practice to extract it directly from connective tissue instead of from bones... which give you more of a gelatinized stock in the classic way.  It would certainly lend great flavor and umami to sauces on a more subtler level.  Unless I am wrong, tendon is made up of mainly collagen (which is a source of gelatin along with bones and hooves).  Anyway, I now have a bowl of thick syrupy (at room temp... in south Florida) beef collagen that tastes and feels a bit starchier than processed gelatin.  So now for a demi-thick sauce that is not as overpowering as demi-glace, why not include a significant amount of tendon in with the bones to get the viscosity?  Tendon has a great flavor also, quite different from the meat of beef.  Have you ever eaten those Vietnamese meatballs that have tendon in them?  They have great flavor and you could almost bounce them off the floor like Steven Chow in 'God of Cookery.'  Anyway, what else am I going to do now with a big bowl of tendon gelatin?

And speaking of umami, we utilized left-overs and things in the pantry for dinner. 

Aside from rice and some tempura chrysanthemum, I made truffled butter lobster with baby corn, chive blossom, and maitake and Ming made some pidan (century egg) cooked with kimchee, tofu, and katsuo flake.  This led me to another discovery that should have been obvious... century egg and truffle go incredibly great together.  It's like funk on funk... like Bootsy Collins and George Porter Jr. on the same bass line.  I will definitely utilize this cross-cultural combination in the future.

Comments

[Chris]

Regarding the hundred year eggs, what's the best way for one to get into them (in Miami?) My mother was an army brat and lived in Asia for a while while she was growing up, so she told me about eating them when she was younger and i've always wanted to try.

[Orges]

Gelatin is denatured collagen. Collagen is in bones, tendons, fasciae, skin, muscle, everywhere. But not all the collagen has the same features (for example, that from fish denatured at a lower temperature and give rise to a smoother gelatin).

As you know, I'm also really interested in gelatin. I am thinking about doing snacks by using gelatin from skin collagen, but that from tendons could also work. Here in Spain the fried skins from pork are a traditional snack. I am thinking about revisiting the recipe by denaturing the skin collagen in a pressure cooker and then siphon the skin gelatin into hot oil to make a nto so crunchy snack (still I haven't try, if you want to try first with your tendon gelatin, feel free to do it; I am not sure it will work).

Cheers

[Roberto N.]

Back in Les Elysées we used to make huge pots of veal feet gelatin and use that to thicken almost every sauce on the meat station and our lobster sauce.

[chadzilla]

Thanks for adding some 'clarification' to my gelatin, Jorges. Although in simplicity, it is only gelatin it did have a mouthfeel like no powder or leaf gelatin has ever delivered before. It really was almost 'starchy' in feel. We also have fried pork skin all over America. Latino's call them chicharrones. Cajuns call them gratons. My grandpa used to fry them in a wood-fired cast iron vat filled with lard in his backyard.
It's funny you mention frying the gelatin, because I was thinking a great snack would be to cook down some tendon until really soft, cut it into cubes, bread it and fry it. As much as I love tendon, this sounds really good. I also just received a fresh bag of transglutanimase, and I am thinking about fusing the tendon to other meats.
... as far as where to buy the pidan in Miami... try some of the Asian markets out on 163rd St like Vinh An (more Vietnamese) or Chung Hing (more Chinese) or our recent favorite hot spots, the Korean markets out on Hollywood Blvd and 441. Sorry, don't know any in the heart of Miami as I never venture there unless required to.

[Orges]

It's funny we are thinking in so similar things. Your cubes sound really interesting. Only a potential problem: if the bread layer is too thick, then the water lost from the gelatin would be somehow impaired, and then (perhaps) the foamy structure of the fried gelatin (which is what I'm trying to develop) will be less evident. It's only an hypothesis. Keep me informed (I'll will also)

[Hank]

I am fascinated by your use of chemicals; molecular gastronomy (or whatever it is called now) is something I've yet to try, but I do make use of gelatin in my wild game stocks, most notably waterfowl.

I always throw some chopped skin and (cleaned!) feet of ducks and geese into my broths and stocks - I find they set up better and are "bigger" tasting than those without.

I think I will experiement using tendons from the venison I bring home. Thanks for the tip!