June 2023
Updated Nov 2024
There doesn’t seem to be a fail safe method of checking your raw meat to see if it is tender or tough. Having your butcher as a friend helps make sure you get the good stuff 🙂 Also buying meat that comes from “Higher Welfare” animals can also help. Here is a good article about “higher welfare” by the RSPCA. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to a friendly butcher so have to rely on the supermarkets. With Beef steaks, I tend to go for 36 day matured Aberdeen Angus rump or sometimes sirloin. I tend to think that a butcher preparing meat for the dry curing method would only choose the best cuts but this is not always the case 🙁
Most times I cook the steaks in my cast iron pan for a couple of minutes each side to get rare / medium rare steaks that are melt in the mouth. Unfortunately, I occasionally find that some of the steaks and other meat I buy is as tough as nails, even though I have cooked it as I always do and that is quite annoying.
Fork it
I have discovered that sticking a fork into the raw meat will indicate the tenderness / toughness. I’ve only been cooking 50+ years so I’m still learning 🙂 I like to think that everyday is a school day, always something new to learn.
Prepare it.
When I get my steaks home, I get them out of the packaging and use 2 forks to make several holes in the steaks. Most times the forks go through the meat with no resistance and the steaks are usually melt in the mouth. Other times, there is a resistance to the forks puncturing the meat and that always means that the meat is tough and will need tenderising.
This simple “Forking” test works on most meats, including poultry. It isn’t fail safe, it’s just an indicator that helps you decide on how you are going to cook the meat. Sometimes slow cooking is the best option but there are other options. When the meat is cooked, the fork test should indicate little or no resistance otherwise you haven’t cooked it correctly or your tenderisation method hasn’t worked 🙁
Planning.
I tend to make sure I buy the meat at least a day before I know I’m going to cook it. For beef I look for a good amount of “marbling” and a nice layer of fat on the outside. Fat gives the meat taste, you can trim the fat and cook it separately to make some beef dripping but make sure leave some on the steaks.
Do the fork test and decide on the method of preparation and the way you’re going to cook it. Quite often, forking, oiling and Dry Brining (salting) overnight is all you need. This helps to breakdown the connective tissue and should make sure your steaks are melt in the mouth but a tough bit of meat will probably need additional preparation..
The forking would ideally produce a piece of meat that has many perforations (holes) and this allows the oil and salt to penetrate into the meat to help break down the connective tissue and give you a melt in the mouth bit of meat.
If the fork test indicates that the meat is tough, a good option is to use the “Chinese Velveting” general method or this for Velveting Chicken. The Velveting method works for all meats but usually means that you would have to slice the meat into thin strips and then soak them in a Velveting solution for 15 / 30 mins. This often includes a starch, a “vinegar” and Bicarbonate of soda and often includes a marinade to add flavour.
If you don’t want to cut the meat into thin strips, there are other methods like Sous Vide which some call “Boil in the bag” 🙂 I have never used this method, the nearest I get is to cook chicken or other meat in a “Roasting / Oven Bag” When I cook a chicken, I usually throw in some carrots, celery and onion to make sure I have the basics of an awesome gravy. A 1.5 KG Chicken cooked on gas 5 for about 90 Mins usually just fall to pieces. The bags keep in all the moisture and it helps make the meat tender.
With chicken / poultry it is usually better to cook brest side down and maybe turn it over for the lat 30 / 40 mins of cooking.
Bacon! thats an enigma. If you want it crispy, you have to make sure it has dried out first. Most of the supermarket bought bacom is injected with brine and other stuff like nitrates so when you get it in the pan, you have to “boil off” the water and then remove the white “snot” before you have any chance of making it crispy. Dry cured bacon isn’t injected with brine but you still usually have to get rid of the white snot before you can make it crispy. I don’t actually like crispy bacon, I like the fat to be browned and the bacon to be moist and tender. The air frier does a good job for me.
You might like to read my article on Marinades, Salting and Tenderising, hopefully it will give you some ideas.
IMO, slow cooked meat is a travesty. Pulled Pork and “Corned” Beef are just overcooked (usually) low quality meats. I like my meat to be rare but can cope with medium rare. I like the taste of meat, pork and beef in particular but venison is also on the cards.
Unfortunately, affordable meat often has to be slow cooked and that slab of beef nicely browned on the outside, pink in the middle and melt in the mouth that you dream about is just a dream 🙁
The epitome of tender tasteful melt in the mouth beef is Welfare Grass Fed Wagyu beef steaks but Wagyu beef is not affordable for most people 🙁 The fat and connective tissue of Wagyu beef is so soft, it practically melts at room temperature. The taste is just wow, you could add a little salt and pepper but you certainly don’t need horseradish or mustard to bring out the flavour.
A very close second to Wagyu is (Aberdeen) Angus that is higher welfare grass / pasture fed. It isn’t as expensive as Wagyu but still tastes great and is usually melt in the mouth tender. I prefer the 36 / 37 day matured (usually 30 day dry cured and then vacuum packed for a further 7 days).
Tender meat will never be “budget priced”, buy the best you can afford and find a method of tenderising and cooking to your liking. Good quality welfare fed meat should never need tenderising but if you are on a “UK State Pension”, you will likely only be able to afford to buy the cheeper cuts. So the challenge is to be creative with tenderisation, brining and possibly slow cooking. You can’t make a silk purse out of a pigs ear but there is lots of things you can do to make your cheep cuts of meat meat tender and edible.