I recently picked up one of those big, metal meat tenderizer hammers. Are there certain cuts of meats which really benefit from it? I’m especially interested in cheap cuts that will taste much more expensive after getting worked over.
That ain’t gonna happen. Cheap cuts are cheap for a reason. Now you can make them more tender, and you can cook them to highlight the cuts’ strengths, but you aren’t going to be able to make skirt steak taste like sirloin no matter what you do. That’s more a function of marbling than anything else.
Get 2 lbs bottom round steak 1/2 to 1 inch thick. Trim fat off, and whup the shit out of them until they are 1/4 thick. You now have Swiss steaks; cook using this recipe.
Oh, Loisseau, you beat me to it!
That recipe looks good, but not in this godawful heat. I’ve made something similar, but with green peppers, onions, and a pinch of cloves in the tomato sauce (whizzed in a blender before pouring over the fried meat).
Round, flank, and skirt are the typical cuts of meat that are pounded with a tenderizing mallet.
The mallet is also good for pounding down various types of meats (chicken breast, pork loin, veal cutlets, etc.) into an even thickness for breaded & fried dishes (schnitzels of all sorts.)
Round steak is very flavorful, but it’s as tough as shoe leather unless you tenderize it. It’s also comparatively cheap. So go ahead and use that tenderizer on round steaks.
But if you leave it too long, you will get a meat jelly.