Meat Tenderizing?

[King Salmon]

Anyone have any tenderizing tips? Sometimes if the meat(or fat) is too tough,what are the tenderizing options?Thanks.

[djr_81]

You could beat on it with a mallet.
There are a number of natural things, mostly acids, you could marinate the meat in to tenderize but at that point it's not really raw IMO.

[dsohei]

the conquering mongol hordes would place raw meat underneath their saddles as they rode, until the meat was tenderized enough to eat more easily.

[raw-al]

the conquering mongol hordes would place raw meat underneath their saddles as they rode, until the meat was tenderized enough to eat more easily.

ROFL What a great idea! Get a piece of leather, wrap up your meat in it and put it on your car/bicycle seat....

[Michael]

the conquering mongol hordes would place raw meat underneath their saddles as they rode, until the meat was tenderized enough to eat more easily.

ha ha   Brilliant suggestion!


Is it really necessary to tenderise it KS?  In 10 years of eating this way and buying the cheapest, toughest cuts I've never even thought about tenderising it.

How are you preparing it?  Are you sitting down with a whole steak to eat?  The majority of my meals have been prepared by buying a good, sharp japanese knife and slicing the meat as thinly as possible.  I notice no difference between eating raw braising steak or prime fillet steak when prepared in this manner.

[King Salmon]

Michael,I've been eating mostly seafood until recently.I found a good local supply of grass-finished beef.Seafood is tender and that's what I'm used to.Beef is tough for me,so I've been eating mostly ground beef,which is great.With other cuts,I don't like chewing for a half-hour before swallowing.

I guess if you slice it thin,you don't need to chew too much?

Also,it seems you dehydrate your meats quite a bit.Does that help?

[dsohei]

i second the suggestion of getting a really good knife and learning how to maintain it and use it with whetstones and everything

[raw-al]

I third the sharp knife suggestion. My girlfriend has a new porcelain knife that she slices and dices the meat with. Tastes excellent when you don't have to chew it for a long time,. My friend from Tibet says that they would just dry the meat and then take a hunk of it for lunch when they went to do their work. It was tenderized by the bacteria. Now that is paleo.

[King Salmon]

Thanks guys,porcelain knife sounds interesting.I've been hearing about ceramic knives as well.Any difference between porcelain and ceramic?

[raw-al]

OOps that's ceramic not porcelain.

[Michael]

Michael....I guess if you slice it thin,you don't need to chew too much?

Also,it seems you dehydrate your meats quite a bit.Does that help?

I barely need to chew my meat meals at all KS!  I remember my first RAF meal was a whole raw steak on a plate.  That was tough to eat!  I've never repeated the experience.

I agree with dsohei about getting yourself setup.  I spent £300 on a japanese carving knife plus £100 or so more on a selection of japanese waterstones, leather strop etc for keeping it sharp.  Ideally, one needs to be able to shave the hairs from the back of the hand!  It's actually a meditative practice in itself too rather than a chore and there's just something beautiful about the process of maintaining sharp tools.

The regular, relatively short, dehydration of my meats is quite a new thing for me but is becoming a mainstay.  If the length of time is kept short (1-2hrs) then, yes, this also helps with the toughness of meats particularly if they're fatty cuts.

[King Salmon]

Michael,so I guess that makes you a "Samu-raw Warrior"

[Michael]

ha, ha    Very good KS!

I'm not the warring kind but my partner tends to get a telling off if she washes up my razor-sharp blade with a metallic scrubber after hours of sharpening! 

[raw-al]

I have tried numerous sharpening devices and the one that worked well till it died was one of these ones attached to a wooden knife block, where you simply pull the knife out of the device as you press down. It's not a perfectly sharp knife but being lazy...

I always put the knives back in the block with the sharp edge up so the blades do not dull.

[Michael]

If you can put the lazy tendencies aside briefly raw-al, I'd highly recommend trying japanese waterstones on your kitchen knives if you haven't used them before.  I can assure you that you'd never go back to one of those utility sharpeners after the meditative and therapeutic beauty of the true art of sharpening.  Man (or woman!) and his blade become one!    There are plenty of good books or internet videos on the subject if you need to learn the skill.

Likewise, I invested in a craftsmanship quality horizontal walnut knife block which has it's own drawer in my kitchen.  One cannot take too much care of one's knives I feel!

[raw-al]

I have a two-sided Japanese waterstone actually but haven't used it too much recently. Sometimes I use an electric sharpener with low and medium speed stones. The low speed is a water stone which I haven't used a lot but the medium speed one I use for my chisels. You are right though, I would do well to bring them all out of retirement.

[King Salmon]

raw-al,I thought ceramic knives didn't need that much sharpening?

[raw-al]

Good catch King Salmon. The ceramic knife is my GF's idea. Of course it can't be sharpened and it seems to be getting a bit dull.

[Michael]

I like to blame the GF myself raw-al!     Seriously, I was tempted by the promised land of ceramic knives too but could never accept that they could possibly attain the sharpness of the japanese blades with their samurai sword history and sharpening mastery.  There must inevitably be a compromise between sharpness and longevity of edge retention.

Yes, bring those waterstones out of retirement.  The edge achievable with electric sharpeners (even, I suspect, the Tormec which I've been tempted by many times!) could probably never compare with the combination of quality waterstones and expert technique.