Quote:
Originally Posted by Dean2
Meat becomes tough for a reason. The ONLY causes of meat being naturally tough are age and exercise. Older an animal gets the tougher the meat gets and the more a muscle is exercised the tougher the meat will be as a result. Outside of those two causes tough meat is the result of an external variable.
There are MANY ways to tenderise meat, hanging, pounding, cutting it into thin strips, slow cooking, marinating, not overcooking it and a long list of other things. Certain cuts of meat, those that have a lot of connective tissue and see a lot of exercise are going to be much tougher than the meats that are not heavily used muscles. That is why we make ground or sausage out of certain cuts.
You can control the tenderness of the meat you serve to a very large degree but it will be far harder to overcome the natural things that cause tough meat if you don't mitigate rigour, adrenaline, stress and the many exogenous factors the cause tough meat. You will also get far tougher meat if you do not apply the correct cutting, processing steps, and cooking. The English have a richly deserved reputation for being able to turn a prime cut of Filet into an unchewable lump by severely over cooking it, which they are prone to do with any red meat.
There has been lots of great advice in this thread, even if hanging does not tenderise the meat sufficiently there are still a large number of steps that can be taken to mitigate that, even down to making sausage and peperoni out of it, though that should rarely be required if the other proper measures are used. Best of luck..
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Yup!!
Also the Europeans for years didn’t raise good beef, even though they think they raise the best ...it ain’t true. When I lived in England I totally quit eating beef. It just wasn’t worth the heartache.
Many of the older (especially French) recipes rely on long cooking techniques to render their beef edible. Beef bourginion is fantastic and one of my favourites, sauerbraten is another one that’s yummy. Rouladen -pounded and rolled then braised will make any piece tender eventually.
If I remember right there are only 3 ways to tenderize meat
Chemical/enzymatic - using natural enzymes when aging or adding enzymes like papain (from papaya).
Mechanical which makes the tough parts smaller and easier to chew-
Slicing thin, grinding, pounding etc.
Cooking- to break down the connective tissue and make it soft.
There’s lots that can be done with tough meat.