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Chefs’ tip to make meat more tender than ever: add this secret ingredient before cooking
In the middle of a family meat meal, your mother-in-law says, “These steaks are as tough as rocks!” You remain calm and diplomatic despite this disaster. This family is obsessed with meat, but there is still a solution to improve the situation.
Discover our 10 foolproof tips to make your meat incredibly tender and tasty, shared by Samuel Le Boch, a chef in Paris.
Are you curious to know how meat lovers and professionals manage to make their meat so tender and delicious? Meat cooking is not reserved for specialists. There are many cooking tips and techniques that will satisfy seasoned meat lovers, providing them with an excellent source of protein and vitamins.
Through a series of questions and answers, we will examine the 10 essential methods to prevent your next family meal from turning into a pitched battle, knife between teeth!
Why and how is my meat so tough?
It is important to go to the butcher, a professional who knows his stuff. Because, in fact, the tenderness of the meat will also depend on the choice of the cut, the date of slaughter, the packaging, and the quality of the supply. Forget the eternal « it’s the butcher’s fault, he served me his leftovers! »
You need to be more specific when making your request: « beef for braising, pork for the oven, escalopes for the pan… » These details are important to the professional, who will also give you valuable advice and that bouquet of aromatic plants lying around on his worktop.
How to get tender and melting beef?
By rolling your piece of meat in coarse salt, a few spoonfuls of baking soda or honey, you will give these ingredients time to act on the meat fibers. It will then be more tender after rinsing.
It is also quite possible to cook meat in a crust with the same ingredients. The principle?
Steam cooking that will tenderize even the toughest meats. Baking soda, salt and honey in abundance will give your legs of lamb, the meaty parts of beef, beautiful golden crusts after a trip through the oven, which everyone loves, except this aunt, who wants to be tougher than the meat! On the other hand, keep an eye on the cooking time.
Can marinade tenderize all tough meats?
This is a method that could be described as a grandmother’s trick, which would make star chefs grumble! And yet, that’s exactly what it is, since the dawn of time, women have found practical tricks to satisfy the whole family, and often with the means at hand.
They experimented with everything and today we benefit from these discoveries, which have become traditions. Marinating is one of them. To tenderize tough meat, you have to hydrate it, allow its fibers to relax. It therefore contains acidic and softening elements. The question that arises in this case concerns the duration of maceration.
The answer is quite relative, and depends on many criteria, including the type of meat and marinade. 3 to 6 hours, and the case could be settled! It’s your turn to experiment and make your own contribution.
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