Commonly used in Chinese cooking,
This is how to tenderise beef with a Chinese restaurant method called “velveting beef”. Also used for chicken, it's a simple, highly effective technique using baking soda that transforms economical beef so it's incredibly tender in stir fries and stir fried noodles.
While there are several ways to velvet, a pound of meat needs about two teaspoons of cornstarch and two teaspoons of oil, says Leung. You may also include two to three tablespoons of water. For beef, add a 1/4-teaspoon of baking soda for tenderizing. Additional seasonings are optional and vary from recipe to recipe.
It's all about tenderization. Treating small pieces of meat with a baking soda solution before cooking is a technique seen quite often in Chinese cooking, especially in stir-fries. If your favorite Chinese restaurant always serves incredibly supple and tender beef in their dishes, baking soda is likely involved.
It's because the chicken breast is tenderised, a method called "velveting chicken". Use this for the juiciest chicken breast you'll ever have in stir fries and noodles!
Transfer the meat to a zip-top bag, stainless steel or glass bowl or other non-reactive container, and refrigerate for 3 hours or up to overnight. Remove the meat from the container and briefly rinse the meat in plain water to strip off the baking soda solution (or as much of it as possible). Cook as desired.
Alternatively, a baking soda mixture generally takes between 15 and 20 minutes to tenderize the cuts of meat. It also carries less risk of harming the meat should the cuts sit in a baking soda for longer. As a result, a baking soda wet brine can be more forgiving and foolproof than a traditional saltwater brine.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Fifteen minutes is long enough to reap the benefits of a baking soda treatment, but don't worry if your dinner prep gets interrupted and you have to extend that time a bit. A 15-minute (or slightly longer) stint in a combination of water and baking soda keeps meat tender and moist when it's cooked.
Rub And Marinate The Meat With Sugar & Salt
Sugar helps keep the moisture in the meat (moisten the meat), and salt helps to break down the proteins and muscle fibers. Pierce the meat with a fork or a meat tenderizer, and sub the meat with sugar, then, repeat with salt. Ideally, marinate the meat overnight in a fridge.
The velveting technique is very easy and gives amazing results. Simply coat strips of chicken, turkey, pork, beef, (or scallops, prawns etc) in a mixture of egg white, cornflour, sesame oil and salt before deep-frying in hot oil or poaching in simmering water.
There are two main types of meat tenderizers: a hammer or mallet style tenderizer and a bladed tenderizer. Both are held in your hand. A hammer or mallet is the most commonly used meat tenderizer.
OXO Good Grips Meat Tenderizer
The Good Grips scored near-perfect scores on our tests. With both smooth and toothed surfaces and an angled head, it flattened chicken breasts and pork cutlets in less than a minute, although there was some tearing to the chicken breast.
But baking soda tenderizes meat in a different way. Instead of breaking tissues down, the ingredient causes a chemical reaction to occur on the meat's surface, which stops the proteins from seizing up when cooked. This means the meat stays softer and juicier since the tightening that squeezes out liquid doesn't happen.
Mix in something acidic
It is important to balance its overtly bitter taste lest it overpowers your dish. Use a small amount of an acidic condiment such as lemon juice or vinegar to neutralise the soda.
Most fine restaurants age their beef to intensify the flavor and improve the tenderness of the cut. Wet aging is done by vacuum packing the meat and letting it age in its own juices. Wet aging is done by more than 90% of fine steakhouses.
Baking soda and bicarb soda refer to the same thing. Australia, New Zealand and the UK use the term bicarb soda, while the US refers to it as baking soda.
There are different ways to tenderize meat, including slow cooking, marinating, and pounding. While you can tenderize meat at home using a meat mallet or rolling pin, some manufacturers handle the process by using mechanical tenderization, which involves breaking down the meat's connective tissue with sharp blades.
Acidic ingredients like vinegar, lemon juice, yogurt and wine weaken collagen and protein in meat. Once the proteins are broken by acid, one loose protein can bond with another and trap liquid in the meat, making it juicy and tender.
Food cooks faster in a smaller wok, and that's why the food is ready so quickly. Every ingredient is all ready prepared and all the chefs have to do is add the right mixture to the wok. Chinese dishes don't take much time to cook. Much is prepared, or cut, beforehand and they are very efficient.
Velveting is a critical Chinese cooking technique. Meat or seafood is marinated and pre-cooked in oil (or sometimes poached in boiling water). Then, the cook adds it to a stir-fry with other ingredients.
Salt and soy sauce tenderize meat, help it retain moisture, and increase its savoriness. Sugar helps browning characteristics. Oil helps distribute fat-soluble aromatic compounds over the meat.