Article by Mufaddal IfuM Dewaswala
Have you ever cooked raw meat which was brought home directly from the butcher? It is very tough to cook, if it isnt tenderized. There are various ways of tenderizing the meat eg. mechanical tenderization, dry aging, marinating etc
But one of the classic ways which people follow is putting the meat in pieces of raw papaya for a few hours. I used to always question myself how does it help, well the answer is below!
Raw papaya has high amounts of an enzyme called 'papain'. It is a cysteine protease i.e. they break down proteins by a common catalytic mechanism that involves a nucleophilic cysteine thiol in a catalytic dyad. So basically when it is kept with meat this enzyme acts on it and breaks down the proteins in the meat and thus tenderizing it.
Now a days animals are injected with enzymes like papain before a few mins of slaughter so that the enzyme gets uniformly distributed in the body.
Enzymes which are cysteine protease are papain from papaya, bromelain from pineapple and actinidin from kiwifruit.
But one of the classic ways which people follow is putting the meat in pieces of raw papaya for a few hours. I used to always question myself how does it help, well the answer is below!
Raw papaya has high amounts of an enzyme called 'papain'. It is a cysteine protease i.e. they break down proteins by a common catalytic mechanism that involves a nucleophilic cysteine thiol in a catalytic dyad. So basically when it is kept with meat this enzyme acts on it and breaks down the proteins in the meat and thus tenderizing it.
Now a days animals are injected with enzymes like papain before a few mins of slaughter so that the enzyme gets uniformly distributed in the body.
Enzymes which are cysteine protease are papain from papaya, bromelain from pineapple and actinidin from kiwifruit.
