A Brief Introduction to Meat Tenderizer

Posted by Heinsohn's Country Store’s on August 19th, 2016

Meat is among the trickiest dishes when it comes to cooking. Reason? The best quality of old or new meat is always available in coarse to hard texture. Therefore, cooking it right requires tenderizing. What serves the purpose here is a meat tenderizer. Tenderizing causes the meat to become soft, lending it the ability to absorb the flavors better. This means that the cooked meal will be rich in flavors and optimally cooked to treat those taste buds.

Meat tenderizer – The utensil

The tenderizer is available in two forms. The first is as a utensil. There is nothing complex in the structure and design of this utensil. It is a simple, manually operated tool to soften the meat slabs in the course of cooking. It can actually be any handy tool that can easily smack the meat to serve the purpose of tenderizing.

The three most common designs are:

• The dual head tool – Available in the options of metal and wood, it is shaped more or less like a mallet or hammer that has a short handle to be easily held by hand, with a comfortable grip. Just as a hammer, this tool too has one flat side and other pyramid shaped side.
• Potato masher lookalike – This tool has a large metal face and short yet easy to hold handle. The metal surface may be designed smooth or carved with multiple pyramid shaped tenderizers.
• Puncture tool – This tool has several blades that cut into the meat, puncturing it thoroughly so as to disintegrate the fiber component of the muscle.

Meat treated with the above stated tools is left tender, making them chewable and easy to digest. It is ideal for preparing well cut steak portions and also with cooking methods such as steaming and broiling.

Meat tenderizer – The enzyme

The second kind of tenderizer is that available as an enzyme. These are ingredients that act as a catalyst in breaking down the coarse structure of the toughest meat fiber, leaving it soft.

The enzymatic property of commercially available tenderizers is similar to that of the enzymes found in human bodies, called proteolytic enzymes. Produced in the pancreas, these help in breaking down and digesting the proteins on reaching the small intestine. In a similar fashion, these enzymes also work with meat, fish and poultry as they are also masses of protein. The rubber likes, hard to chew protein elastic fiber is tendered by the enzymes, with collagen as its main component.

A popular commercial enzyme that comes really close to the proteolytic enzyme is that found in papayas and pineapples. These fruits can be directly used by being mashed and blended to a paste that is then used to marinate the meat for a few hours, usually overnight. A few other options of tenderizers are vinegar, salt, beer, kiwi, etc.

Hope this piece of writing proves helpful in understanding the nature and function of a meat tenderizer. So now you know why treatments like marination are done and how tenderizing is the key to a well cooked, lip smacking meaty dish!