Perform Mise'en Place

• French Knife or Chef's knife - for general purposes chopping, slicing, and dicing.
• Utility knife - used for carving roast chicken and duck.
• Boning knife - used for boning raw meats and poultry
• Slicer - used for carving and slicing cooked meats.
• Butcher knife - used for cutting, sectioning and trimming raw meats in the butcher shop
• Scimitar or steak knife - used for accurate cutting of steak
• Cleaver - used for cutting through bones
• Composition of Meat

  1. Water - 70% of muscle tissue
• Protein - 20% of muscle tissue. Coagulates when it is heated.
• Fat - 5% of the muscle tissue.
• Juciness - mabling is fat that is deposited within the muscle tissue.
• Tenderness - marbling separates muscle fibers, making meat easier to chew.
• Fat - the main source of flavor in meat.
• Carbohydrates - plays a necesssary part in the complex reaction, called maillard reaction.
• Maillard reaction - takes place when meat are browned by roasting, broiling or sauteing.
• Fine - grained meat is composed of small fibers bound in sall fibers
• Course - textured meat has large fibers
• Connective tisue - these are network of proteins that bind the muscle fibers together.
• Collagen & Elastin - two types of connective tissue
• Collagen - white connective tissue that disolves or breaks down by long, slow cooing with liquid.
• Elastin - yellow connective tissue and is not broken down in cooking.
• Skinning - most of meat you dealt with has been already skinned by the supplier.
• Dicing - it is cut into cubes for various types of casseroles, steams, curries, and dishes such as steak, kidney pie and pudding.
• Trimming - improve the appearance of the cut or joint. leave as much as meat intact
• Slicing - it is cutting of meat by determining the direction of the grain and cut across the grain.
• Seasoning - it is the addition of salt and white or black pepper to improve the flavor of food
• Flour & bread crumbs - two basic coatings
• Flour - coat the meat before cooking, otherwise the flour becoms sticky and unpleasant.
• Bread crumbs - coat the meat in flour, then egg wash
• Pork - meat from domesticated pigs, typicaly high in fat, commonly slaughtered one year or less of age to ensure tender cuts.
• Beef - meat from cattle over one year old.
• Lamb - meats of domesticated sheep.
• Carabeef - meat from carabao.
• Chevon - meat from deer/goat.
• Veal - flesh of a young calf, 4-5 months old