best way to tenderize a steak

JEREMY wrote:

I wish my mom would have asked for pointers when i was growing up. Dont know what cut she would buy or if it even mattered. Everything was cooked to death and her and my dad still do it that way. Must be where i learned my love for ketchup. Definite jaw workout everytime.

Same here and I don’t know who was eating the ribeyes and T-bones cuz it sure the hell wasn’t my family.
My mother had this mallet she pounded the pizz outta the steak and not just round steak, to tenderize it.
I remember her using a lot of Adolfs Meat Tenderizer too. Gotta wonder how that affected my stomach?

And it was cooked well done. Grilled, fried didn’t matter. I think that came with the idea it had to be cooked to death to kill any bacteria.

My dads theory now is if you cook to death and then a little longer it will start to get more tender again. I dont like my meat mooing at me either but damn.

Don’t get me wrong, I will eat a sirloin… in fact there was/is a place in Willmar, that was all the sirloin you could eat… I believe it was Heartland or something like that… whatever they did to it, it was tasty !!!

I’d slice it into thin strips first. This is how Chinese restaurants get their stir fry beef to be super tender. It’s called velveting.

Sprinkle 3/4 tsp baking soda (bi-carbonate soda) on 250g / 8oz sliced economical beef cuts

Toss with fingers, leave for 30 minutes

Rinse, pat off excess water

Matt Moen wrote:

There’s nothing wrong with a sirloin.

Murray’s Silver Butter Knife steak is a sirloin.

picklerick wrote:

I’d slice it into thin strips first. This is how Chinese restaurants get their stir fry beef to be super tender. It’s called velveting.

Sprinkle 3/4 tsp baking soda (bi-carbonate soda) on 250g / 8oz sliced economical beef cuts

Toss with fingers, leave for 30 minutes

Rinse, pat off excess water

That is way cool. Thanks

I cook sirloins rare and let them sit until cool. Then dice them up and lightly cook them until the sides brown a bit and spice them up in the pan. It minimizes over cooking and they bleed out on the cutting board so the irony taste mostly goes away.

I’m a little late to the party, but I have a good high school friend who is a head chef at a high end steakhouse. Here are his rules.
1. Kosher salt…
2. After salting, let it sit for a day uncovered in the fridge. This will “dry age” the steak
3. Pull it out of the fridge at least 2 hours before cooking (NEVER cook a cold steak)

I have followed this pretty religiously now for several years and have never had a tough steak, regardless of cut.