What is the ideal texture characteristic of cooked cockles that have been properly purged?
Answer
Tender, slightly chewy, and entirely free of resistance when chewed.
The final texture of the cooked product serves as the ultimate indicator of successful purging. When cockles have been thoroughly cleaned, the expectation is that they will achieve a desirable consistency: tender yet possessing a slight chewiness. Critically, when bitten or chewed, there should be absolutely no abrasive resistance, which would signal the presence of lingering sand or grit. Finding even one or two gritty individuals in a steamed batch points directly to insufficient soaking time or methodology for those specific mollusks.
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