Velveting is a simple process of using baking soda or a mixture of egg whites, cornstarch and oil to marinate and tenderize economical cuts of steak, chicken and other meats before cooking. Velveting meat softens fibers to reduce toughness and enhance juiciness for maximum flavor and tenderness.
Using a meat mallet (or kitchen mallet) to pound steaks helps soften and tenderize the meat. Simply place the meat in between pieces of plastic wrap or wax paper and pound it prior to cooking. If you don't have a meat mallet, you can also use a heavy kitchen tool such as a skillet, saucepan or rolling pin.
Briefly soaking meat in a solution of baking soda and water raises the pH on the meat's surface, making it more difficult for the proteins to bond excessively, which keeps the meat tender and moist when it's cooked.
Marinate: Marinating your steak in acids or enzymes breaks down the fibers and tenderizes the steak. To marinate the meat in an acidic solution, add lemon juice, lime juice, apple cider vinegar, or buttermilk to your marinade and let the steak soak in it for thirty minutes to an hour, depending on the size of the cut.
In Chinese cooking, proteins like beef, pork or chicken are velveted first before stir-frying them. There are several ways to velvet, but at its most basic level, it involves marinating meat with at least one ingredient that will make it alkaline. This is what tenderizes the meat, especially cheaper, tougher cuts.
Whether hosting a holiday cookout, serving up some stir-fry or tackling game meats, baking soda is the go-to meat tenderizer to help make your steak, chicken or turkey silkier, juicier and yummier.
To better understand this, let's look at the three main methods of tenderizing meat: mechanical, thermal, and enzymatic.
Muscles also toughen with age, so a younger animal yields more tender meat. Additionally, overcooking meat, even meat that comes from the more tender muscles, can make it tough. That's because heat causes the proteins in the meat to firm up.
Most fine restaurants age their beef to intensify the flavor and improve the tenderness of the cut. Wet aging is done by vacuum packing the meat and letting it age in its own juices. Wet aging is done by more than 90% of fine steakhouses.
Besides velveting the meat prior cooking, the meat in restaurants may be marinated with chemical meat tenderizers. The active ingredients are usually papain or bromelain, which are enzymes extracted from fruits.
Meat only has to sit in a baking soda solution for 15 to 20 minutes, but a brine solution can take at least 30 minutes to start working. Plus, letting the meat sit longer in baking soda will not harm it, whereas over-brining meat can make it stringy and mushy.
Chinese cooks use a magic meat tenderizer powder or baking soda to make tender and soft chicken, meat and pork.
Often, meat recipes call for tenderizing via a wet brine, a low and slow cooking method, or pounding with a meat mallet.
Velveting meat—the practice of marinating slices of meat in egg white, wine, and cornstarch—is a Chinese cooking technique that we've covered on Serious Eats before. Typically, after the meat is marinated, it is quickly blanched in a bath of hot oil and then drained, at which point it's ready to be stir-fried.
We recommend salting your steak approximately one hour before cooking it per inch of thickness. For example, if you were working with a steak that was 2-inches thick, then you would salt your steak 2 hours before cooking it. This will allow the excess moisture on the steak to seep out while it is sitting.
The acetic acid in the vinegar breaks down meat fibers, making them more tender and flavorful.
As it turns out, Worcestershire sauce already contains many of the components of a good marinade! It has vinegar to tenderize the meat, sugar for sweetness and shine, and savory flavors like onion, garlic, tamarind, and anchovies.
Salt as Natural Meat Tenderizer
Salt and its alkaline cousin, baking soda, both break down proteins in beef. A thick coating of kosher salt, sea salt or baking soda applied one hour before cooking will draw water from the meat, allowing some of the salt or soda to sink into the beef. This improves the meat's texture.