Physico-chemical, textural and structural characteristics of sous-vide cooked pork
cheeks as affected by vacuum, cooking temperature, and cooking time
José Sánchez del Pulgar
a
, Antonio Gázquez
b
, Jorge Ruiz-Carrascal
a,
⁎
a
Food Science, School of Veterinary Sciences, University of Extremadura, Tecnología de Alimentos, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de Extremadura, Avda. Universidad s/n,
10071 Caceres, Spain
b
Histology, School of Veterinary Sciences, University of Extremadura, Tecnología de Alimentos, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de Extremadura, Avda. Universidad s/n,
10071 Caceres, Spain
abstractarticle info
Article history:
Received 3 June 2011
Received in revised form 4 November 2011
Accepted 7 November 2011
Keywords:
Pork
Sous-vide
Vacuum
Texture profile analysis
Instrumental colour
Collagen solubilization
This paper describes the influence of different factors on sous-vide cooked pork. Pork cheeks were cooked at
different combinations of temperature (60 °C or 80 °C), time (5 or 12 h) and vacuum (vacuum or air pack-
aged). Weight losses were lower and moisture content higher in samples cooked for a shorter time
(P=0.054) and at a lower temperature (P b 0.001). Samples cooked at 60 °C showed more lightness (L*)
and redness (a*)(Pb0.001). Lipid oxidation showed an interaction between cooking time and temperature
(P=0.007), with higher TBARs values for samples cooked for 12 h at 60 °C and lower for those cooked for
12 h at 80 °C. Samples cooked at 80 °C for 12 h showed lower (P b 0.05) values for most textural parameters
than all the other types of samples. Vacuum packaging showed no influence on any of the studied variables.
For the treatments evaluated, cooking temperature × time combination seems to be more important than
vacuum packaging in the textural and colour parameters of pork cheeks.
© 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Sous-vide cooking can be defined as the cooking of raw materials
under controlled conditions of temperature and time, inside heat-
stable vacuumized pouches or containers. After heating, the products
are rapidly cooled down to 0–3°C(Schellekens, 1996). This technique
was originally developed for the catering industry, as the method
allows for the manipulation of prepared food after thermal treatment
without the risk of microbial contamination (Armstrong, 2000). Now-
adays, many top level restaurant chefs are using sous-vide cooking
because of its ease and appropriateness for the management of pre-
pared food. Chefs usually cook meat at lower temperatures and for
much longer time periods than those used by the catering industry
(Roca & Brugués, 2003). For example, temperatures chosen for pork
primal are around 60–63 °C for chefs (Myhrvold, Young, & Bilet,
2011), while temperatures for pork in catering most likely reaches
75–80 °C (Armstrong, 2000). This cooking procedure has indeed
spread worldwide, as thermostatized water baths and vacuum pack-
aging machines are becoming common appliances in the kitchens of
many restaurants. In addition, several cook books and other publica-
tions that describe this cooking technique have been published over
the past five years.
As Roca and Brugués (2003) report, top level cooking chefs
observe that the most outstanding features found in the meat cooked
for such long times and at such moderate temperatures are the meat's
unique textural characteristics. However, according to our review of
the literature, there seems to be scarce scientific information on the
cooking of meat in the sous-vide manner. Hansen, Knochel, Juncher,
and Bertelsen (1995) reported data for sous-vide roast beef cooked
at either 59 °C or 62 °C for 5 h, and Vaudagna et al. (2002) studied
beef samples cooked at temperatures ranging from 50 to 65 °C, with
time only reaching 390 min, whereas the top chefs' reports indicate
that some meat cuts should be cooked for up to 24 h (Roca &
Brugués, 2003).
Some early work (Laakonen, Wellington, & Sherbon, 1970) fo-
cused on the effect of low temperature and long cooking time on
meat quality. Although this paper provided some important informa-
tion about the features of meat cooked under these conditions, the
meat was not cooked in the sous-vide manner. According to the stud-
ies, long cooking times seem to lead to higher collagen solubilization,
which in turn would cause greater formation of gelatin and less meat
toughness. In the mammalian connective tissue, this would happen
above 65 °C (Laakkonen, 1973). Moreover, cooking meat at these
moderate temperatures would involve a lower myofibrilar protein
coagulation, which for most proteins of this kind takes place at tem-
peratures above 70–80 °C (Palka, 2003; Palka & Daun, 1999). The
latter is important in meat texture, since the coagulation of myofibri-
lar protein is considered as one of the reasons for the increase in meat
toughness during cooking.
Meat Science 90 (2012) 828–835
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: + 34 927 257123; fax: +34 927 257110.
E-mail address: jruiz@unex.es (J. Ruiz-Carrascal).
0309-1740/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.meatsci.2011.11.024
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