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.
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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.
Thanks to the acidity… lemon, vinegar:
The acid element is highlighted here. Of course, you’re not going to look for chemicals, although, in molecular cuisine… You need elements that contain non-abrasive, milder acids, which are nevertheless able to penetrate the muscle fibers and relax them.
Lemon, red wine vinegar or cider vinegar will do the trick. Note that tomato, pineapple or papaya are excellent meat tenderizers! Thanks to lactic ferments: milk, cream, dairy products.
Lactic ferments contain tenderizing powers, thanks to their famous enzymes which do so much good to the digestive tract, which will overcome the toughest meats.
This foolproof technique therefore consists of soaking your raw meat in these nutrients. You should no longer see a single square centimeter of meat, whatever it is. Here again, time is on your side: between 5 to 8 hours, or overnight in the refrigerator.
Is this crazy life making you boil? What if you let off steam by “beating” this tough meat?
Yes, sometimes in the kitchen, we tend to want to let off steam… physically! What we are going to discuss now is rightly called: hammering. We hit the piece of meat, to destroy the fibers and therefore tenderize it.
There are two methods available to you. With or without a meat mallet.
No tools: put your piece of meat in a clean cloth or wrap it vigorously, then place it on your work surface and start tapping it for a few minutes. Observe the effects, you won’t have any bad surprises!
With a meat mallet: As with the previous method, simply strike your previously wrapped pieces of meat and observe the final result.
How to make a pot-au-feu, beef bourguignon or any simmered dish without the meat being dry?
« Simmering » is in itself a method for tenderizing meat. It is important to let it cook over low heat for a long time and especially to watch the level of water, salt or tomato! We forget it too often, the tomato sauce with its acidic action, its water, counts for a lot in the success of so-called casserole dishes!
Beforehand, we will have taken care to cut the pieces of tomato well and also to slip in a teaspoon or two of baking soda. Shhh, it’s a secret!
How to make meat tender after cooking?
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Sometimes you fail to cook. Don’t panic! You now have a lot of tips and tricks to help you get through it. You can use marinade for example, or even milk.
It’s never too late! Here’s how to fix beef bourguignon that’s too tough?
It’s never too late to do it right! The wrapping technique should be enough. After removing them from the pot, wrap the pieces of meat, ideally in aluminum foil or cling film and leave in the refrigerator for a quarter of an hour.
This involves cutting the cooking time and rehydrating the meat with its own water losses. To serve hot, slide everything into an oven at 80°C. Meat lovers will see the difference!
And how to tenderize a skewer of beef? How to do it?
The method is pretty much the same. Except that the barbecue tends to quickly seize the blood and water from the grilled meat. By always wrapping it in aluminum foil or cling film, you give it a chance to regain its juices.
If necessary, slide them, still wrapped, into a low-power oven. The trick also works with a leg of lamb that is overcooked on the outside.
Even a pan-fried beef steak?
For beef or pork steak, you need to intervene urgently with an ingredient that you already have in the refrigerator: sparkling water. Bathe the piece in it, taking care to first collect the juices and juice for your sauce.
Let it soak, covered, for five minutes and then reheat in the oven. More effective than in a hot pan. The ice cube technique also gives good results.
You are now up to date on all the tips and techniques that you can put into practice right now to satisfy the meat eaters around you! Before, during and after cooking, you will deliver on all fronts!
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