shaping it, and boiling it until it solidifies.
Washing the mince removes nearly everything
from the muscle except the muscle fiber
membranes and contracting proteins. Salting
then dissolves the protein myosin out of the
muscle fibers, so that when it’s heated, the
myosin will coagulate into a continuous,
solid, elastic gel in which the other fiber
materials are embedded. The result is a
flavorless, colorless, homogeneous matrix
that can be flavored, colored, and formed to
imitate nearly any seafood.
Shellfish and Their
Special Qualities
Though shellfish have much in common with
finfish and are cooked in many of the same
ways, they’re also distinctive. Most of the
shellfish we eat are creatures from one of two
groups, the crustaceans and the molluscs.
Unlike true fish, these creatures are