Tenderizing meat by using a meat mallet is a good technique to use if you're , tonkatsu, or any type of roulade (like with these ). It helps ensure that every piece of meat you're cooking has the same uniform thickness plus it makes your final dish easier to eat and chew. Whacking a chicken breast with a tenderizer is simple enough, but there's one step you won't want to skip while doing it.
You'll want to keep the meat covered with plastic wrap, wrap it in parchment paper, or put it in a resealable plastic bag — just don't hit the meat directly with the tenderizer. That's because you don't want to make a mess. Trust me: I'm guilty of skipping this step and I've regretted it every time.
Cleaning meat bits off the wall, my clothes, all the junk I have laying around my kitchen, and my glasses is a humbling experience that I don't want you to have to deal with. It's worth the slight extra step of covering the meat. Another less messy option involves a different style of tool If you're looking to simply soften up a tough cut of meat but you don't need to flatten it per se, you can use what's known as .
These manual tools pierce your ingredient with a series of thin, needle-like blades, puncturing the meat and tenderizing it in a process called "swissing." This is what happens to a raw cube steak before you purchase it from the grocery store, albeit the grocery store uses a decidedly more industrial version of the home tool. A blade tenderizer sounds scary, but thankfully, the b.
