How should baking soda be used to tenderize meat?

Question

At some Chinese restaurants, I've had beef dishes where the meat was unusually tender. It also has a somewhat unusual texture, which is hard to describe. I understand that this is a result of using baking soda to tenderize the meat.

How should one use baking soda to tenderize meat? And can the technique be applied to other tough meats like chicken or pork?

Answer 1

Add the baking soda to the cut meat and then wash it off. Measure about a teaspoon in your palm and then sprinkle it over the thinly sliced meat from high up. This way you get a thin layer over all the meat. Wash after some time (you can do it overnight). There is an eHow that you may follow

The baking soda will work like other meat tenderizers, by denaturing the proteins on the surface of the meat, so it should work on pork or chicken as long as the baking soda is on the meat (and not the skin or fat). The tenderizers penetrate the meat very slowly, millimeters per day at refrigerator temperatures, faster at cooking temperatures, so in practice it will only work on thin slices. If you use thicker pieces, you will still change the meat's surface texture.

If you use the baking soda straight into the dish in the same proportion (some people like it this way), adjust your salt accordingly, as the baking soda will make the dish salty.

Answer 2

Some Chinese restaurants use a powdered form of Papain (found in any Asian grocery store) to tenderize meat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papain

Koreans use kiwi fruit. There are other enzyme based methods for tenderizing meat as well.

The problems with the above methods are:

1. As mentioned, they only tenderize the surface on thick cuts.
2. On thin cuts, the meat can become mushy.

I've been told that good restaurants tenderize beef as follows:

1. Buying a more expensive cut. (ok, this isn't really a method. ;-)
2. Cutting the meat against the grain to severe the collagen/muscly bits.
3. Pounding on the meat (mechanical)
4. Choosing the right cooking method. Beef has to either be cooked really fast in dry heat (grill) or really slow in most heat (braise). Anything in the middle will result in meat that's as tough as leather.

I don't think you can tenderize chicken. All you can do it to preserve its moisture (especially breast cuts) by brining it before cooking.

I don't know much about pork.

Answer 3

The goal of using Baking Soda in treating meat, generally beef, is one wanted to tenderize cheaper cut of beef such as round steak, for stirfry dishes, e.g., stirfry beef and Chinese Brocoli. Pork and chicken generally are not very tough after cooking hence will not require treatment with meat tenderizer or baking soda.

When round beef was cut in small pieces, not necessary very thin cut, stir fry them would result in very chewy meat because the meat is in contact with oil for very short time. Pre-treatment with baking soda will make the meat very tender after stirfry but the baking soda did leave a strong alkaline taste which is very unpleasant.

So it is very important to adjust the amount of baking soda and the time of exposure of meat to it as well as proper washing of treated meat with fresh water containing some lemon juice or rice vinegar to remove excess baking soda taste is very important. After removal of excess baking soda, the beef will be marinated with spices, oyster sauce, pepper, garlice etc... to enhance the taste of the final product.

Bon Appetit