If meat chews like a dry shoe sole after cooking, the cooking time is not necessarily to blame for the poor taste. In fact, the way you cut your meat has a big impact on the quality when you eat it. Especially if the meat is already fundamentally firmer. Due to the different amounts of meat and muscle fibers as well as connective tissue, the wrong cutting technique is less noticeable with chicken breast than with a steak. However, if you value tender meat, you should know the most important rules when cutting it. What these are and why the types of knives are crucial for the cutting technique are explained as follows.
There are only two ways to cut meat: either parallel to the grain or across the grain – but only one option is the right one. This is simply due to the length of the fibers, which are very difficult to chew and make the meat tough like the sole of a shoe. They are largely preserved if the meat is cut parallel to the fibers (i.e. the white stripes). However, if you cut the meat across the fibers, they don’t have to be broken up when chewing. This makes the meat much easier to chew. In plain language this means: Always cut across the grain. Because long fibers make the meat tough and short fibers make it tender. This applies equally to raw and cooked meat.
If you chop meat with a knife that is too small, you won’t be able to make “clean” cuts. Quite the opposite: If the cut surface frays, this will have a negative impact on the cooking process. In other words, the meat becomes tough. For this reason, there are special meat knives that are characterized by a long and narrow blade. They cut the meat smoothly and make it tender and juicy after preparation. However, you should always make sure that your knife is sharp – because a dull blade does not create a smooth cut. Here you can use a classic knife sharpener or knife block with a ceramic whetstone to sharpen the knife.
These knives are suitable for cutting meat:
1. Tefal carving knife
2. Fiskars carving knife
3. Meat knife from WMF
4. Carving knife from Sunnecko
5. Paudin carving knife
In addition to the right technique and a sharp knife, there are other tricks you can use when cutting meat:
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