Watch muscle tighten with heat - Summer Meat Cooking

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Watch muscle tighten with heat

Close-up cutaway diagram of a raw steak showing several long parallel muscle fiber bundles filled with tiny blue water droplets, with minimal labels “muscle fibers” and “water”; no kitchen background or extra anatomy.

Meat is bundled muscle

A steak or chop is mostly bundles of long muscle fibers filled with water. Heat changes the proteins in those fibers, and that change decides whether the meat feels tender, firm, or chewy.