Searing or pan searing is a technique used in grilling, baking, braising, roasting, sautéing, and the like, in which the surface of the food (usually meat such as beef, poultry, pork, or seafood) is
/ref> so searing requires the meat surface be free of water, which boils at around .
Although often said to "lock in the moisture" or "seal in the juices", in fact, searing results in a greater loss of moisture than cooking to the same internal temperature without searing.
Page 161, "The Searing Question". Nonetheless, it remains an essential technique in cooking meat for several reasons:
Searing does not cause caramelization, which affects only sugars, or simple carbohydrates; the Maillard reaction involves reactions between amino acids and some sugars.
Typically in grilling, the food will be seared over very high heat and then moved to a lower-temperature area of the grill to finish cooking. In braising, the seared surface flavors and colors the cooking liquid.
Experiments to test the theory were carried out as early as the 1930s and found that the seared roasts lost the same amount of moisture or more. Generally more liquid is lost, since searing exposes the meat to higher temperatures that destroy more cells, in turn releasing more liquid.
Moisture in liquid and vapor form continues to escape from a seared piece of meat. For this reason, searing is sometimes done at the end of the cooking process to gain the flavor benefits of the Maillard reaction, as well as the benefits of cooking for a greater duration with more moistness.
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