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I'm familiar with using a meat mallet to tenderize steaks, but I'm curious what other techniques or methods there may be to achieve the same or similar results.

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Should perhaps be a wiki? – sdg Aug 8 '10 at 14:47
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Strip steaks are already pretty tender... – ceejayoz Aug 8 '10 at 15:48
What is a "meat stabber?" A tenderizer with the pyramid spikes? – Aaronut♦ Aug 8 '10 at 17:57
Just edited it, sorry about the lame description before – AttilaNYC Aug 9 '10 at 1:22

7 Answers

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Many marinades will act as tenderizing agents; particularly those that are longer-term or overnight.

The acids in the mixture will act on the meat to break it down and tenderize it.

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Pineapple especially will tenderize meat due to... bromelian, I think it's called, an enzyme in the fruit,. – daniel Aug 8 '10 at 16:49
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Coke will do a job on meat. – squillman Aug 9 '10 at 2:11
@squillman - I remember that as an elementary school product to keep us from drinking soda - they left meat in it for 2 weeks and it was pretty much destroyed. – justkt Aug 12 '10 at 14:42
@justkt heh, yeah. I should have said "quite a job". I used it to get corroded batteries out of my flashlight once. A steak overnight in a marinade of Coke is, um, quite tenderized. – squillman Aug 13 '10 at 3:12
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Acids will help to tenderize meat. Most marinades include acids -- vinegar or citrus juice. You can also use tenderizing powder bought with spices -- it's made with an enzyme from papaya. Certain cooking methods (braising, or cooking for a longer time with some liquid in a covered dish) will make meat more tender. I've read that brining meat can help tenderize it too, but I haven't tried it.

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There are the meat tenderizers that do actually stab through the meat with several blades.

http://www.amazon.com/Jaccard-Supertendermatic-16-Blade-Tenderizer/dp/B001343VTY

I wouldn't use it on a steak I'm going to throw on the grill, but I've used it with tougher cuts making cube steak for things like Chicken Fried Steak

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

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For years, I just used a fork -- stab repeatedly, dip in your marinade, then grill. I use it for the cuts of meat that you might use for london broil, as that's what I typically grill. – Joe Sep 14 '10 at 21:06
@Joe yes I wouldn't use this tenderizer on most pieces of meat, it is for very tough ones to break up as much connective tissue as possible not just to make a few holes for a marinade to get into. Of course, there are people that will argue holes in meat to get flavor in will inevitably just let all your juices flow out. If it works for you though, I say keep it up. – ManiacZX Oct 6 '10 at 18:10
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You can get best effect using syringe. Soda niter injections are very effective.

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Instead of a mallet, you could use a rolling pin. The rolling instead of hitting will treat your meat more softly for a better result.

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Marinating in oil. E.g. marinating rump-steak in oil is very effective to get a nice rump-steak.

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In addition to acids (to which I would add Coke is a pretty good one), I've also had some luck with Whiskey. Leaves an extremely interesting flavor in the meat too.

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