THE BEST WAY TO CLEAN MEAT BEFORE COOKING

The festive season is approaching and a majority of us are thinking of what meals to prepare for the season.

These meals are probably ‘meaty’ and could include chicken, pork, beef, goat meat, fish mutton and seafood.

Cleaning your meat before cooking enables you to remove blood and contaminants that could be present in the meat.

Raw meat may be contaminated with harmful bacteria and viruses that could lead to food poisoning.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that washing meat with plain running water doesn’t remove food-borne pathogens.

Here’s how you can properly clean your meat before cooking.

1. Soaking in vinegar

The acidic nature of the vinegar will help eliminate the bacteria that could be present in the meat.

However, soaking the meat for too long could make it over-tenderise and lose moisture.

Leaving the meat in the vinegar for 20 to 30 minutes is enough time to clean it up.

The meat will be marinated in the soaking process.

2. Washing the meat with lemons/lemon juice

Cleaning up your meat using pieces of lemon or juice squeezed from them could eliminate present bacteria.

Just like vinegar, the acidic nature present in the lemons will help clean your meat.

3. Using salty water

Salty water will help eliminate any bacteria that could be present in raw meat.

Any contamination that could be present will be eradicated by the salt present in the water.

Doing this will add a salty flavour to the meat.

This means you should be careful not to add too much salt when cooking.