Top Chef ™
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What is a Panade?
A panade is the combination of bread and milk to form a paste, and is often incorporated into ground meats to avoid them getting too hard or dry when cooked.
When ground meat is cooked, the proteins contract and force out any moisture.
Starches, on the other hand, absorb liquid when they're cooked, so they expand, and undergo a change called gelatinization.
When a panade is combined with ground meat, the starches interfere with the tendency of the proteins in the meat to curl up when cooked. Meanwhile, the gelatinization, which is caused by the starches absorbing moisture, helps ensure that the final product isn't too dry. It's basically like adding little milk-soaked sponges to your ground meat.
Making a panade involves chopping (or food-processing) your bread into crumbs, adding milk, and letting it sit for 10 minutes before mashing the mixture into a paste.
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About Top Chef ™
Top Chef ™ is an American reality competition television series which has run since March 2006. The show features professional chefs competing against each other in culinary challenges.
The Top Chef ™ chef-contestants are judged by a counsel of exemplary, world-renowned professional chefs and famous names from the food and wine industry.
The contestants are superb, professional chefs with a huge array of global food skills.
The show is progressive, eliminating one or two chefs each week. Each episode follows a consistent theme with (usually) a Quickfire challenge (short and fun) followed by a more difficult "Elimination Challenge" that is much more intense. The Top Chef ™ Judges Table is where the winners and losers are determined each week.
