Two Ways to Tenderize Meat

Steps for Marinating Meat

• Make a marinade with either an acid base or an enzyme base. Your marinade should include salt, herbs and spices. You can also add oil or something sweet like brown sugar, if you wish.
• Submerge the meat in the marinade inside a large bowl, cover and refrigerate.

Steps for Using a Mallet

• Using your meat mallet and a cutting board, pound the meat to a thinner, consistent thickness. It can be helpful to start your mallet in the middle and work your way out to the edges. Make sure you use the textured side of the mallet. If you want less mess, put down a piece of parchment over the board.
• Flip the meat over and repeat on the other side. Now you can season the meat and get cooking.

Tips for Tenderizing Meat

• Tenderizing meat lets you take tough cuts and cook them quickly. Good cuts to marinade are skirt steak, hanger steak or flank steak. Veal and pork cutlets are great for mallet tenderizing.
• Marinades tenderize meat by softening the cell structure with acid or enzymes. Marinades will also add flavor. They’re perfect for grilling. Chimichurri is a great example of an acid marinade. Caribbean and Latin foods often use pineapple or papaya in marinades for their enzyme properties as well as their flavor.
• Mallets tenderize by breaking up the cellular structure of meat, much like what happens when you mash a potato. Use a mallet when you want a plainer flavor, or when your dish already has a sauce that will flavor the meat. Most meat tenderized with a mallet is pan-fried. Scaloppine is a great example of mallet tenderization.