Then choose Yet another reason e-readers can't replace books! Protip : Make sure to wrap the meat in plastic wrap, wax paper, or a zip-top bag and place on a cutting board before you commence pounding to keep things tidy.
No Meat Mallet? By Karen Gaudette Brewer December 18, Pin FB Share. Meat Tenderizer via Wikipedia Commons. Toss a few well-crushed cloves into these Instant Pot beans and hardly wait as they dissolve into the flavorful broth. To get the most flavor from these reedy stems, you want to expose their core—but you usually want to be able to fish out the stem in the end, like in this fragrant braised chicken-leg recipe which is also perfumed with smashed garlic, btw.
Kitchen mallet to the rescue. Ever heard of the technique where you par-boil small potatoes , crush them into craggy discs, and then pan-fry them to achieve a crispy fractured shell filled with the lightest potato fluff? Let a kitchen mallet get you there faster, and with less burning flesh than you'd experience trying to do the smushing with the heel of your hand. Mallet-smashed potatoes are the Platonic ideal of potatoes. Get the recipe. Cookbook author Andrea Nguyen says her kitchen mallet is one of the best birthday gifts she's ever received.
She uses it to smash charred ginger, exposing the fibrous, flavorful flesh to a vat of broth for pho. Sure, you could coarsely chop nuts with a knife, but when you can HULK smash them, why bother? Just kidding, don't actually HULK smash them, just place the mallet on top of the pre-toasted nuts and apply gentle, even pressure to split the nuts. We love the classic Sichuan dish of smashed cucumbers swimming in a spicy, vinegary dressing.
And we love Thai salads that start with bashed green beans. My colleague Anna Stockwell riffs on this method for her tangy green bean salad. Most recipes for this type of dish suggest smashing with a rolling pin, but that can be a bit unwieldy, and not all of us have massive mortar and pestle sets fit to do the job. But realize that not all marinades will tenderize equally. Some will yield a firmer chicken, and not actually tenderize. Using a very acidic marinade, like one with vinegar or lemon juice, may slightly toughen the meat.
Acid-based marinades infuse the meat with great flavor, but you may have to get very aggressive with mechanical tenderizing. This works best when you're making a curry. You cannot really detect the fruit in the finished curries, but you may be able to in dishes without a strong-tasting sauce. These may do the job a little too well, causing chicken meat to become "mushy". Of course, this may be the desired outcome, and this may be fine for dishes that call for very soft chicken.
Alternatively, use a fruit marinade. If you want the chicken to be as tender as possible, and don't mind if it gets a little mushy, you can take advantage of the enzymes naturally found in certain fruits. Peel and puree a Kiwi fruit, pineapple, or mango and mix with your raw chicken pieces. Keep it covered in the refrigerator for about an hour.
Try soda as a marinade. An easily available and surprisingly good marinade is a soft drink. The highly acidic properties of pop chemically break down the chicken, and the flavor is delicious. Simply cover your chicken with your choice of soda, and add about a teaspoon of salt. If you do not have quite enough soft drink, add some water to the mixture Cola flavors tend to work well: Coca Cola, Pepsi, RC, etc.
Moxie an uncommon American soda brand also works very well. Method 3. Pick your cooking method. There are many ways to cook chicken, but here are a few examples: Blackening the chicken: Take a pan, put 1 tbsp 30 mL oil olive oil adds extra flavor!! Meanwhile, season the chicken using whatever spices you like. Cover the chicken with the spices, and then place in the pan. Cook until no longer pink on the inside. Oven-baking the chicken: Season chicken and place in a greased baking pan.
Bake minutes, or until no longer pink. Grilling the chicken: Transfer the tenderized,seasoned chicken to the grill and cook until done. Stewing the chicken: In a proper stew, it is virtually impossible to produce tough chicken. This is one of the many reasons chicken stews of various types are found throughout the world. This can use both plain or marinated cuts of chicken. Do not overcook the bird. Overcooking can lead to loss of moisture and proteins tightening up into bubblegum consistency.
Experience will help you judge when chicken is done, but even professional cooks will still test with a thermometer to be certain. Test the temperature of the bird using a meat thermometer to determine whether it has reached the correct internal temperature. Use a probe thermometer when cooking a whole bird, plunged into the deepest part of the breast. Use an instant read for smaller cuts like breasts and thighs.
Try a "low and slow" cooking method. Though seemingly contradictory to the "do not overcook" warning, low, slow cooking breaks down proteins, allowing for a more tender experience. This type of cooking also allows time for flavors and juices to penetrate into the meat, giving even more juiciness. It works best with bone-in thighs and other dark meat, or you could roast an entire chicken this way. Allow the meat to rest after cooking. Cover it with heavy-duty aluminum foil and let sit for 5 to 10 minutes.
This allows the juices to redistribute in the meat. If you cut it right away, the juices are more likely to drain out immediately instead of reabsorbing into the meat. This is especially important for whole roasted chicken or roasted chicken parts. While this advice is absolutely true, be assured that carving right away will also not take your succulent chicken into a dry mess of a meal.
It also makes sense to wait until the chicken is cool enough to handle, anyway. A chicken just out of the oven is too hot to cut into without risking burns. Chicken that hot will also burn when bitten into. Method 4. Know your source. It is difficult to judge the quality of chicken just by looking at the meat, so the best thing to do is buy your chicken from a reliable source.
The store brand may or may not be as reliable as a nationwide brand name. The organic poultry farmer may or may not provide a more tender chicken, although if bought at a farmer's market he or she may be able to guide you to a good choice.
Keep in mind that old chicken is tough chicken. In the United States, meat chickens are processed at only a few weeks old to ensure tender flesh. However, it is possible to cook older "stew hens" such as found on hobby farms or backyard coops.
As the term suggests, stewing the meat is the suggested cooking technique, as the older flesh tends to be tougher. Consider the cut of poultry used. Dark meat chicken contains more fat, and therefore can be rendered more moist and tender in dishes that work well with dark meat. Breast meat and other white meat tends to be a little tougher. However, if you use a good buttermilk marinade or a meat tenderizer, it can still turn out quite tender. You can keep the chicken in the buttermilk as long as the chicken doesn't go bad.
Keep it in a sealed container in the fridge.
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