How to Make Beef Softer While Cooking
Even the cheapest cuts of meat can be cooked in a tasty and succulent way. It is enough to know a few tips, to brand the meat soft and tender. So if you have purchased a piece of inexpensive meat that is fibrous – such equally the beef loin, the flank steak, or the diaphragm – you just need to follow our tips to get an excellent result. Let's find out how to soften the less valuable cuts of meat, with some grandma's tips, to enjoy your piece of meat tender and tasty, in a pan or grilled.
ane. Utilize the meat tenderizer
A quick and easy method is the use of the meat tenderizer. Identify the slices of meat between 2 sheets of nutrient plastic wrap, and beat them to suspension the fibers: the motion of the meat tenderizer must go from the inside to the outside. The piece will therefore exist thinner and softer. The foil volition protect the meat and the piece of work surface, just you lot can not put it on if you prefer. As an alternative to the meat tenderizer you can use the hand: striking the slice of meat with the carpus of the paw, with a firm movement that goes outwards.
If yous want to bread or fry the slice of meat, utilise the meat tenderizer with the tips, beating the piece for a couple of minutes on both sides, so as to break the connective tissues of the meat. It is a method not suitable, however, for tenderising steaks to be cooked in a pan or on the grill, but only for slices to be fried or breaded.
2. Cover the meat with coarse common salt
If instead y'all want to fix a steak, using a inexpensive cut, you lot tin can soften it with salt. In this case the piece of meat must be at least 4 centimeters thick: the thickness volition allow the meat to create an external crust, preserving its internal cooking. To eliminate excessive humidity from the piece of meat, laissez passer it in coarse salt: sprinkle both sides and leave to balance for at least 1 60 minutes, and so every bit to eliminate excess water, leaving fat and poly peptide. Rinse the meat and dry information technology well earlier cooking. Remember that the more y'all leave the meat in salt, the more tender information technology will be: it can rest for up to 24 hours.
iii. Acid marinade
For the thinner cuts of meat y'all tin try the acid marinade, that is based on citrus fruits, vinegar or wine, which suspension the musculus fibers of the meat, so every bit to make it more tender in cooking. Go out the meat to marinate in a mix of vinegar and lemon juice overnight. Keep in listen, however, that vinegar and lemon tend to flavor the meat. For this reason, it is advisable to use this method if you lot need to prepare cutlets or even meat with tomato plant sauce. In the latter case, the tomato volition also assist to soften the meat.
four. Marinade with fruit puree
It is also possible to make meat tender by using the principle of enzymatic softening. Enzymes are molecules that speed upwardly the softening process of meat. Among the fruits to be used for this marinade, it is necessary to choose the sour ones: kiwis, pineapple and papaya are recommended. Prefer kiwis, which practise not flavor the meat too much, as they have a more neutral gustation. As for pineapple, notwithstanding, be careful: in fact information technology contains bromelain, a substance that could make the meat a mush if left to marinate for a long time. Only here's how to keep: reduce the fruit to puree, lay the meat in a drinking glass container and encompass each slice with 2 tablespoons of puree. Cover with cling film and leave the meat to marinate for at least one mean solar day.
v. Slow cooking in a pan
If you take little time, and therefore y'all cannot devote yourself to the methods described above, so you lot can prefer some stratagems, to brand the meat soft when cooking. The kickoff is that of slow cooking in a pan over low heat: in this manner, the connective tissue – the one that holds the muscle fibers together – will have enough of time to melt, making the meat more tender and pleasant to chew. So at that place is a footling tip to forestall the meat from drying out during cooking. In fact, you can continuously wet the meat in a pan with h2o, broth or wine, without ever leaving information technology dry.
6. Grilling
Grilling is one of the tastiest methods of preparing meat: it makes the meat tender, juicy and it gives it a pleasant smoky smell. This method of cooking is excellent for steak and meats rich in fats: the high temperature allows excess fatty to cook, making the preparation lighter. With grilling, then, it is non necessary to add together other fats.
7. Add the coarse salt halfway through cooking
One of the mistakes that is made more often, when preparing the piece of meat, is to add fine salt during cooking. In this way the meat becomes dry and smaller, and it loses flavour. If you want to taste a slice of soft and delicious meat, add the fibroid salt halfway through cooking and lightly brown it. The meat volition be very tender.
8. Use baking soda
A grandmother'southward secret is to use baking soda, a modest flim-flam that allows you to obtain soft meat, without affecting its flavor. Only how to utilise it? When the meat is cooked for 1 third, add a lilliputian baking soda: it will take a teaspoon for every half kilo of meat. You lot tin add it in any grooming: just be careful if yous cook the meat with tomato sauce, because it could splash: in fact the baking soda reacts on contact with other components, forming bubbling. Withal, it will be useful to soften the meat.
Source: https://www.cookist.com/8-simple-tips-to-make-meat-softer/