Use 1 teaspoon of baking soda and ½ cup of water for every 12 ounces of meat.
Tenderizing with a baking soda solution is faster than using a saltwater brine. 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.
Make a slurry mixing ½ cup of water or marinating liquid with your baking soda for each 12 ounces of meat. Mix your pieces of meat with the slurry and let it sit in the refrigerator for 15 to 20 minutes. Up to 45 minutes is fine if you need.
Mix in something acidic
Baking soda is basically sodium bicarbonate, which is alkaline in nature. It is important to balance its overtly bitter taste lest it overpowers your dish. Use a small amount of an acidic condiment such as lemon juice or vinegar to neutralise the soda.
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.
Step 3: Remove meat and rinse thoroughly
Ensure all the baking soda is removed before cooking. It has done its job by now!
Chinese cooks use a magic meat tenderizer powder or baking soda to make tender and soft chicken, meat and pork.
How much baking soda is too much? Adults who are not pregnant can mix about half a teaspoon (tsp) of baking soda with at least half a cup of water to relieve temporary indigestion. However, the NCPC recommend using OTC indigestion products, such as Tums, rather than making at-home remedies.
Early after an ingestion of too much baking soda, vomiting and diarrhea are common as the body tries to correct the high sodium concentration by pulling more water into the digestive tract. After absorption, high sodium concentrations can cause seizures, dehydration, and kidney failure.
It's important to use just enough baking soda.
Using too little will give an insufficient reaction, while too much can make your baked goods taste soapy or metallic. Similarly, if you don't include acidic ingredients in a recipe with baking soda, it can taste soapy/metallic.
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.
Often, meat recipes call for tenderizing via a wet brine, a low and slow cooking method, or pounding with a meat mallet.
ANSWER: I found several sources that recommend using baking soda as a tenderizer for tougher cuts of beef, but not baking powder. You can also use baking soda to tenderize chicken and pork. But baking powder has an effect on poultry skin (more on this later).
Baking soda is pure sodium bicarbonate, a fine white powder that has many uses. You may wonder about bicarbonate of soda vs. baking soda, but they are simply alternate terms for the same ingredient. If your recipe calls for bicarbonate of soda, it is simply referring to baking soda.
To better understand this, let's look at the three main methods of tenderizing meat: mechanical, thermal, and enzymatic.
If you accidentally add baking soda instead of baking powder to baked goods, they won't rise because there is not enough acid. To fix this, add about one tablespoon of white or apple cider vinegar for every half teaspoon of baking soda to the liquids before mixing with the dry ingredients.
If you purposely or accidentally used baking soda instead of baking powder without making any changes to your recipe, you'll definitely end up with a bitter taste. Remember, baking soda is an alkaline, or base, ingredient that naturally has a bitter taste.
Healthline goes on to say that drinking too much baking soda — more than 3½ teaspoons or 1½ teaspoons for those over 60 — can also lead to a heart attack. There are plenty of other reactions people can experience due to the medications they take each day.
Good rule of thumb: I usually use around 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda per 1 cup of flour in a recipe. Baking soda CAN leaven a baked good when exposed to heat. However, unless it is neutralized with an acid, your finished baked good will likely have a metallic aftertaste—like I mention above.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Fifteen minutes is long enough to reap the benefits of a baking soda treatment, but don't worry if your dinner prep gets interrupted and you have to extend that time a bit. A 15-minute (or slightly longer) stint in a combination of water and baking soda keeps meat tender and moist when it's cooked.
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.
Rinsing the thickening agent (baking soda or cornstarch) off your meat after the velveting process is imperative. Leaving it on the meat may result in a thick and clumpy sauce for stir-fries and other recipes. In a colander, wash the thickening marinade off your meat after velveting is complete.