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Let's say that you'd just put pieces of meat or other food in plain water, for science, and don't season or do anything else to the food afterwards. You use two amounts of water, both of which are enough to cover the food, and boil until cooked through.

Would you expect a measurable difference the loss of flavor compounds of the solid food to the water? Or would the amount of water be irrelevant as long as you cooked for the same time?

This is a hypothetical question, not intending to reproduce an actual recipe.

MrSimplemaker
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    Hi, the question as asked was way too broad, it will depend on what you are cooking. Actually, also in the current state, I am not entirely sure what dish you are referring to, since I have never seen a recipe consisting of just throwing meat in water and boiling it. Are you making a soup, a stew, or something else? – rumtscho Apr 06 '21 at 06:59
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    Why would you want to boil meat? It's a great way to end up with flavorless rubber. – GdD Apr 06 '21 at 08:13
  • @rumtscho The question I'm looking to get answered *is* a bit broad, though. I'm wondering, generally, about whether the amount of water makes a significant difference in how much a solid food would lose flavor to it, or if it's primarily a factor of *how long* the food is cooked in the water. I understand it would vary and that the question is broad, but hopefully there may be an answer such as 'it would make a difference for such and such types of food, but not others' which would satisfy my curiosity – MrSimplemaker Apr 06 '21 at 14:03
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    @GdD Worry not, I wouldn't! Just a thought experiment, is all. – MrSimplemaker Apr 06 '21 at 14:07
  • @MrSimplemaker we cannot answer such a broad question on the site, indeed the close reason I used now used to have the wording "too broad". It will matter for some dishes and not matter for others, and how it matters will depend on the dish. That's why you have to say which specific dish you are interested in (a type will be sufficient - you can say "stew" without having to specify "beef bourgignon") - we cannot list all dishes in the world and explain it for each, that would be a book and not an answer that fits on our site. We can reopen after you edited in the dish. – rumtscho Apr 06 '21 at 14:12
  • Or wait, after rereading your edit: Do you really ask only about the extraction of flavors from a solid piece of food, independently of how the whole dish will taste and whether this is desirable or not? If it is only about extraction, it will be answerable. Just not a useful answer, because in most real-world dishes, the effect is not the primary reason to choose how much water to use. But we can reopen, making it only about the proportion of extraction - it is actually the same answer as we have already answered for tea. – rumtscho Apr 06 '21 at 14:17
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    That's *exactly* what I meant to ask! Couldn't have worded it better myself (and haven't, hehe). Let me take a crack at editing it, borrowing your wording if you don't mind. – MrSimplemaker Apr 06 '21 at 14:26
  • Your new wording is still mixing up two situations. The first: you take a piece of food, boil it in water, remove it, and measure whether the amount of soluble compounds remaining in the food changes when you take different volumes of water. The second: you boil the food, do something else (like seasoning), then give it to a human to eat and ask them if they notice a difference in taste depending on the volume of water. The first is a straight application of a simple law of physics and can be briefly explained in an answer here. The second is complicated, and an imprecise guess could... – rumtscho Apr 06 '21 at 14:40
  • ... be made for a specific recipe, but not in general. It would be too broad. That's why I also said that an answer is useless for practical purposes. I will try shortening your question to the first one only. – rumtscho Apr 06 '21 at 14:41
  • So, I removed all the background, since it was distracting, and some of it didn't have a connection with the very specific extraction question anyway. Also had to remove the parts about seasoning and flavor, which were adding too much complexity and making it impossible to give a general answer. I know that you may have been interested in that in the first place, but if so, then there is no satisfying answer, just a "sometimes yes, sometimes no". – rumtscho Apr 06 '21 at 14:51
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    No worries! The question in its current form is exactly what I meant to ask. Thanks! I will keep the principles you're using in mind when asking in the future. – MrSimplemaker Apr 06 '21 at 14:52
  • Still confused whether you're asking about the flavor of the solid food, or the flavor of the water. – FuzzyChef Apr 06 '21 at 17:34
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    The question in it's current form is basically "which would make better gravy?" It's a simple flavour concentration issue. – Tetsujin Apr 06 '21 at 17:35
  • I am asking about the flavor of the solid food. If I were to attempt this for something (for instance maybe using a lot more water so I can get less temperature variation when placing the food), I would cook the food in plain water, then later cut intp small pieces, and season it afterward - so all I care about here is whether the solid food itself loses flavor. And yes, I do realize this method of seasoning is not ideal. – MrSimplemaker Apr 06 '21 at 17:39
  • I've rephrase the question to make it clear I care about how much flavor the food loses, as opposed to how much the water gains (even though they are of course the same amount) – MrSimplemaker Apr 06 '21 at 17:41
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    I'd honestly think it's an experiment no-one has ever tried in this form, because just boiling meat in plain water was probably abandoned as a cuisine in the early stone age. The answer will likely be directly related to the saturation point of water for various chemical compounds [not really in the purview of cooks, beyond 'If you thin your gravy too far it tastes like p*** ;) – Tetsujin Apr 06 '21 at 18:17
  • Yeah, perhaps the question would be more suited to the chemistry site! – MrSimplemaker Apr 07 '21 at 12:48

1 Answers1

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I'm going to take my life in my hands here and hypothesize that the answer is "It all depends", assuming of course that everything is identical, apart from the volume of the water.

The first challenge is how are you going to objectively determine loss of flavour? If you were to subject the "Sample" and the "Water" to mass spectrometry for instance, you quite possibly could detect a discernable difference between experiments, especially if your food sample was very large and the water volume very small. For instance, certain salts would transfer from the food into the water, and once saturation point is reached, the water would not be able to absorb any more. Would reaching that equilibrium prevent a further deterioration of flavour? Quite possibly so, if salt was a major constituent of flavour for that particular food sample.

On the other hand, if the food sample was very small and the water volume was very large, salt would easily be expelled (unrestricted by saturation) to the point that the food no longer chemically resembled the original. Ergo, your sample would have suffered from loss of flavour. This conceivably could be offset by reabsorption, so it might not be total.

We haven't even started to examine in depth the chemical composition of the sample, any effect that a specific environment may have e.g. evaporation, pressure, Brownian motion, or just simply the heating methods used (radiant heat, microwave, pressure cooker, open pan, closed pan etc.). These may affect the speed of the process, the physical deterioration of texture etc. Nor have we covered different foodstuffs, a complex bony piece of meat or cartilage will respond differently to a more simple piece of vegetative matter. Using a piece of iceberg lettuce for instance, would probably give the answer "No" under both scenarios, as it would be difficult to find any situation where an observer could truthfully state that it actually tastes of anything.

Taking a step back from the realms of chemistry, physics etc, within normal limits (e.g. same food size, same temperature and cooking time, different water volume), it would be difficult for a individual to objectively "Taste test" the difference between the two scenarios. Eventually, both scenarios end up with a tasteless mush or the food dissolving completely. I'm not saying there wouldn't be any losses at the molecular or sub-atomic level, as boiling, pressure cooking and steaming food clearly result in very different outcomes when it comes to taste, aroma and texture. Which just goes to demonstrate the major effect even a slightly different scenario has on the whole shebang.

Probably the best definitive example would be cooking a brined fish. Large water volume, and probably all the salt (and therefore a core constituent of flavour) would eventually pass into solution. A small volume with a very large fish would rapidly cause saturation of the water to be reached and the fish would in theory, retain some taste. On the other hand, a raw carrot would probably, like the lettuce, demonstrate complete and total indifference.

Greybeard
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