Cook immediately. When preparing thicker cuts of meats, let stand 30 minutes before cooking.
Answer: I usually marinate beef overnight, in the refrigerator. Question: Do I need to wash the powdered meat tenderizer off the beef before cooking? Answer: No.
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.
What Do Meat Tenderizers Do? The goal of a meat tenderizer is to make meat softer and easier to chew. Tough meat is difficult to chew and digest—and it's unappealing as well. Tender meat, on the other hand, is more palatable, tastier, and chef's kiss.
Are There Any Side Effects of Powdered Meat Tenderizer? Besides containing active enzyme agents, most meat tenderizers also have sodium and monosodium glutamate (MSG), resulting in high blood pressure, nausea, headaches, or flushes on the body if you overuse it.
It breaks down tougher muscle fiber and can make what would be a chewy piece of protein melt-in-the-mouth tender. But when that goes on too long, it becomes essentially melted-outside-the-mouth: The meat turns mushy.
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.
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.
Cut It across the Grain
One way to make tougher meats tender starts with your knife and fork (or on your cutting board). Cutting meat "across the grain" simply means cutting crosswise through the long muscle fibers in the meat. Breaking them up makes meat more tender.
To better understand this, let's look at the three main methods of tenderizing meat: mechanical, thermal, and enzymatic.
Less than a teaspoon of baking soda ensures that your steak remains juicy and tender—even after a speedy marinade. While other recipes demand hours of marinating, this baking soda hack makes a flank steak or any other fibrous cut of beef ready to sear after just an hour.
Pounding
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.
Just before cooking, moisten surface of meat with water. Sprinkle tenderizer evenly over meat (1 tsp. per 1 lb.). Do not add salt.
Flank steak is by far the most popular cut of meat used by Chinese restaurants in all of their stir-fry dishes. It also happens to be the most recommended cut of beef we use in our stir-fry recipes. Flank steak is flavorful, relatively reasonably priced, and readily available.
Simmering and stewing are used for less tender cuts of meat while poaching is used for tender cuts.
These cuts can marinate for up to 24 hours. Flat cuts of meat benefit the most from tenderizing marinades.
Over a short period of time (like an hour or even up to overnight,) a layer of coarse salt on a steak will draw out some of the meat's natural juices. The juices will dissolve the salt, creating a brine. Most of the brine will then be reabsorbed, where it will tenderize and flavor the meat.
Acidic ingredients in marinades like vinegar, wine and lemon juice will tenderise meat by denaturing or unwinding the long protein in the muscle. In fact, if you leave an acidic marinade on a piece of meat for a long time, it will eventually break down all the proteins – leaving behind a mushy mess.