Does meat (Black Angus) caramelize just with heat? I follow a famous chef in Spain. He uploaded an Instagram Reel showing a quick recipe: Black Angus burger (smash burger), cheddar cheese, truffle cream, fried egg and chips. Watch short video in here.
So the thing is that on the first step, he says &quot;Black Angus&quot; (while putting it on the grill), &quot;very well pressed so it can caramelize&quot; (and pressed the burger to leave a thin and wide burger). He adds later the rest of the ingredients directly to the burger (bread, etc). But I am still curious about that caramelization he mentions. No sugar, nothing else added to the meat. I was looking at the comments of the video, looked for specific information about Black Angus but did not find anything relevant. So he either made an unlucky mistake while talking, or I am definitely missing something.
He's not referring to the kind of caramellisation you see when you make caramel, he's referring to the Maillard reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars that is responsible for among other things meat and baked goods browning.