Q&A for How to Tenderize Beef

If you find that your meat is still tough after cooking, consider serving your dish with very thin cuts of the meat. While you can't tenderize it once it's cooked, cutting into small pieces will make it easier to chew.

That totally depends on what cut of beef you're cooking. Something with a lot of connective tissue and collagen, like short ribs or oxtail, need to cook low and slow in a braising liquid for several hours. However, something with very little collagen, like a strip steak, might only need 10-12 minutes on a hot grill to achieve a tender medium rare.

You can, but most of the seasoning will probably go flying off the meat, so it's best to tenderize first.

Absolutely, or else you will have a vinegar taste throughout the meat, no matter how long you cook it.

Cutting it against the grain will make it a little easier to chew.

It depends on how tender you want it to be. If you are going to freeze the meat for a meal later, or if you just want it to be tender, then use the mallet before you freeze it, and then after you are done tenderizing it, then freeze it. I always label mine (Tenderized, not tenderized) stuff like that. Then, when i take it out and it thaws, just lightly tenderize it again (lightly) and then season it and cook it.

Actually boiling meat can make it quite tough. Braising, wherein the meat is cooked over low heat with a little water or broth in a crockpot or dutch oven over a few hours is a good way to tenderize a tougher cut of meat.

Yes, you can. Just be sure to take proper precautions.

You can use a marinade or wet rub. Acid in vinegar or citrus breaks down the tougher elements of meat, as does salt.

It sounds like you're using too much baking soda. When using baking soda, either rinse the beef afterwards or use less baking soda and do it with tenderlizer. You could also use Maggi sauce with the baking soda.

Absolutely. Muscle is muscle, and can be mechanically tenderized in the same manner.

Usually broiling is done on high. It's a personal preference how long to broil it on each side and also will depend on the thickness of the meat. Be careful because broiling doesn't take long at all. Stay with it and don't get distracted.

Between the muscle and the fat is a thin membrane, often referred to as "silver skin" (most visible on the back of a slab of ribs, for example). That membrane contracts more, and more rapidly, than the muscle fiber, and so "squeezes" the meat during cooking, causing it to curl. Simple solution: cut through the membrane around the edge of the meat, as if cutting a rubber band into sections. You don't need to cut into the muscle fiber itself (but you probably will); just the membrane, every three or four inches. Then cook as usual.

Generally, if the rib roast has nice marbling of fat, no tenderizing should be required. Cooked right, you should be able to cut it with a fork.

It is not advisable to freeze marinated meat, as the liquids in the marinte can interact in an adverse way with the meat as everything freezes and defrosts.

It is best to refrigirate the meat after rolling it up, so it's easier to work with, and after you refrigerate it, it will retain its shape.

Pound it with a meat tenderizer or a rolling pin.