The Chef Within
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Pounding meats in a contained, mess-free way
This technique is such a life saver. Have you ever come across a recipe that asks you to pound out a chicken breast or another cut of meat? It is an important step and is done to either help tenderize a piece of meat or done to even out pieces that might be thicker at one end, which would be the case for chicken breasts. Pounding with a mallet takes whatever piece of meat and sort of levels it throughout.
Pounding itself is not hard to do but it’s one of tasks that sends you to shower immediately afterwards because it is a bit messy and unsanitary. As you pound, little bits of meat go flying in all directions and occassionally you will feel little bits hit your face and body. Yuck! A lot of cooks with cover the meat with plastic film and then pound but I have found that the film is not heavy enough to withstand the pounding and it gets torn to shreds which can sometimes get worked into the meat.
So what works really well are heavy duty ziploc bags. Just slip the piece of meat that you are wanting to pound inside the bag and and you benefit in three ways; 1) You keep all the juice and bits that have a tendency to scatter, inside the bag 2) the heavy plastic can take quite a beating and will not tear during the pounding and 3) if the bag is of a high enough quality you can throw all your pieces of meat inside and then cover them with a marinade and use the bag as the marinading container. It’s awesome!
October 29th, 2008 at 3:13 am
Hi there!
Russ says when he was there you made cinnamon rolls that you didn’t bake. Did you let them rise before you grilled them? I’d really like to know – I want to try this out.
Thanks,
Aine aka Russell’s wife
October 29th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
What I made was french toast using cinnamon rolls. The cinnamon rolls were baked as you would normally but because these were rather thick I sliced them in half horizontally and then dipped them in the custard and athen threw them on the griddle. I’m not sure how he got the impression that they were uncooked. Sorry about that.
By the way I love your blog. I can’t believe you find time for that. There’s tons of information. If you want to link my site to yours I’d be honored!
October 29th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
lol! I had planned on linking to you, just hadn’t taken the time to do it. I did write a post about your blog and put the link on several yahoo groups that I belong to. That’s how I get writing done – I didn’t used to and got really sick. When I received blessings and I prayed the answer was I was supposed to write and wasn’t fulfilling my calling, so I was sick. I’m still healing, but worlds away from that time – I just make sure I take time to write.
Thanks for letting me know about the cinnamon rolls – he came home all excited so I will be trying that soon. I have enjoyed all your tips!