Tenderizing Steak with Salt When it comes to cooking tender steak, the seasoning matters! Salt tenderizes beef by drawing moisture out of it, then dissolving so it acts as a brine. We prefer sea salt over table salt for tenderizing, as it has the perfect texture and flavor for steak.
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.
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.
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.
To better understand this, let's look at the three main methods of tenderizing meat: mechanical, thermal, and enzymatic.
In addition to acid-based foods, plant enzymes in fruits like pineapple and kiwi can tenderize meat. Like with lemon juice or vinegar, you don't want to leave these foods on beef for too long—it will make the meat soft. You can blend fruit to create a marinade.
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.
Marinades have two main roles – they add flavour, and they may also tenderise the meat, making it softer and less chewy. Marinades are a mixture of ingredients that can include acids (typically vinegar, lemon juice or wine), oils, herbs, spices, dairy products, fruits and vegetables.
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.
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.
Place the meat on the bed and completely cover it with kosher or coarse sea salt. You can rub it in or just let it sit for approximately **15 minutes (or up to 45 minutes for thicker cuts). The salt breaks down the muscle fibers and connective tissue to maximize the tenderness and texture of the steak.
How to fix a chewy steak. If your steak is chewy due to undercooking, all you need to do is throw it back on the grill and allow it to reach an internal temperature of at least 145 degrees Fahrenheit (via Livestrong).
This is how to tenderise beef with a Chinese restaurant method called “velveting beef”. Also used for chicken, it's a simple, highly effective technique using baking soda that transforms economical beef so it's incredibly tender in stir fries and stir fried noodles.
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.
Pear juice or puree is traditionally used in Korean meat marinades—the juice not only adds sweetness but also works to tenderize the meat. I've watched Korean friends and mothers use pineapple juice, apple juice, and even soda in lieu of pear juice, but I prefer the pear.
Salt and soy sauce tenderize meat, help it retain moisture, and increase its savoriness. Sugar helps browning characteristics. Oil helps distribute fat-soluble aromatic compounds over the meat.
The acetic acid in the vinegar breaks down meat fibers, making them more tender and flavorful.
Green kiwifruit contains a natural enzyme, a natural enzyme unique to kiwifruit — actinidin. The actinidin found in kiwifruit — specifically green-variety kiwifruit — is highly effective in breaking down the protein and connective tissues of meat without turning the it into mush.