Gelatin like stuff from sous vide chicken and its uses?

#1

So I sous vide chicken thighs all the time and have them available to sear up, add some bbq sauce or lemon pepper or whatever. I started out (when I needed to keep them) immersing straight way into an ice bath but now I leave them out 15 minutes, leave them in water 15 minutes and then the ice bath. I have done a side by side on this and the texture is improved noticeably. (n=2).

However, either way I wind up with some pinkish gelatin which I use to throw away. Now I am keeping this (along with any of the stray chicken fat (schmaltz) that solidifies and more or less using in the place of some of the chicken broth I might use in a soup or sauce. Right or wrong, it seems to work fine.

What is this pink stuff? How to use it best?

TIA

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #2

Isn’t it gelatin? You could use it to make recipes involving aspic, I believe. The pink colour is, I also believe, from some of the interstitial liquid in the muscle meat. If you were frying or baking the chicken, it would get more thoroughly cooked and become clear. But sous-vide doesn’t reach that temperature, as I understand it, so yours is staying pinkish. I bet if you were to heat up this gelatin for a bit, it would go clear.

I believe that America’s Test Kitchen or a high-end cookbook, such as The Joy of Cooking, would probably be a good source of information about this sort of thing.

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #3

I would think that would be the collagen from the chicken. Below is how you can test it out.
From: https://ancientnutrition.com › blogs › all › collagen-vs-gelatin

Gelatin only dissolves in hot water, while collagen dissolves more easily in a variety of liquids at different temperatures. Gelatin forms a gel-like substance when mixed with water, whereas collagen does not. This means that gelatin might have more practical uses when cooking, such as making your own jellies or thickening sauces.

#4

Thanks. Very helpful