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Cooking tip: How to tenderize meat Sake-Shochu-Manual.today Tenderization
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Benefits 4Wellbeing Glossary ReachUs How to tenderize meats
The following is a list of methods of tenderization to choose from. A. Dissolve 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda in 1 tablespoon of water. Put 1 pound meat of ½ inch thick into a plastic bag. Add the baking soda solution. Rub surface of the meat with baking soda solution. Leave the bag in the room temperature for 4 hours. B. Put 1 pound meet of 1/2 inch thick in a plastic bag and place at 40 degrees C or 104 F for 4 hours (see footnote below). C. Put 1 pound meat of ½ inch thick into a plastic bag. Add 1 table spoon shio-koji. Rub surface of the meat with shio-koji. Leave the bag in the room temperature for 4 hours. D. Put 1 pound meat of ½ inch thick into a plastic bag. Add 2 table spoon soy sauce and 1 teaspoon grated ginger. Rub surface of the meat with soy sauce an ginger. Leave the bag in the room temperature for 4 hours. Experiment A ¼ pound sirloin beef was cut into 5 portions, each piece about 1.4 oz. Each was put into a small plastic bag, and a different tenderizing method was applied. Of course the amount of tenderizing material is proportional to the amount of meat. We name these as A. B. C. D, and E. Here E is a reference case with no tenderization, simply saved in refrigerator for comparison. After the 4 hours, the 5 pieces are cooked together as steaks in a skillet. Before the A, B, C, and D are cooked a photograph was taken to compare the color, which is shown below: Beef pieces from the top, clock wise: B, C, D, A (before cooking) It is interesting that color of the beefs became significantly different after different treatments. The beef (A) treated with baking soda had the most reddish meat color. The beef kept at 40 C (B) is the next redish. The beef treated with shio-koji (C) was discolored, and dark. The beef treated with soy and ginger (D) was less darker than C. Taste comparison To compare the tenderness and taste, all of 5 pieces are cooked in a skillet to well-done steak, with slight amount of salt. As explained earlier, A through D were cooked to together. E was cooked in exactly same way but separately. \ A. Very soft, and indeed the softest. The flavor of beef was somewhat lost although no taste of baking soda was felt. B. Much softer than E. Flavor of beef was not lost and was as good as E. C. Much softer than E. Had a little taste of salt, Flavor was slightly lost but not as much as A. D. Much softer than E. Had taste of soy sauce and ginger. E. Had the best original steak flavor, but the meat was hard. Conclusion The experiment was a success. Each of the tenderizing method was found to be very effective in tenderization. However, A, C, and D tend to alter the flavor slightly, particularly A being the most. Therefore, if the beef is intended to be cooked as steak, B is the best. If the beef is cooked with strong spice or such that the original beef flavor is no longer important, any of A, C and D can be applied. Also if the cooking uses soy and ginger, D is most recommended. Likewise if shio-koji is the final ingredient, then C is recommended.
Final remark Even methods A, C, and D can be combined with B. Namely if A, C, D are kept at 40C or 104 F, the time needed to tenderization would be shorter than 4 hours. Footnote: How to keep the temperature of 40 C or 104F? A medium cooking pan filled with water to half is placed on the smallest ring on the stove. Put a baking pan, and measure the temperature. If the temperature is lower or higher, adjust the height of the baking pan with some spacer. If you look around the house, you can always find a spot of about 40 C or 104 F. |
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