In the Kitchen With Mattie

Meat Tenderizers

I thought I would start going through all the gadgets I have collected in my 40 years of playing in the kitchen and listing some of my favorites and tossing those that don’t perform well enough to earn the space they take up. First up are the tenderizers I use with meats and poultry, the three in the picture are my all time favorites, at the top is my Jacquard circa 1996, back then it cost me over $50 but it has repaid that well over the years. Next on the right side is a triangular mallet type, it has one side with fine spikes, one with bigger triangular spikes and one flat side, this one allows you to use the weight of the mallet more than the stregnth of your arm to do its job, it does its job very well indeed, you can flatten steaks into see thru scallops in seconds. The third at the bottom is the flat mallet, it is stainless steel and works well but not as well as the triangular one on the right, it has a large flat area but I think it has more to do with the leverage you have with the other smaller one that does the job better. This larger flat one is good for chicken breasts, you can hit the whole suface area of a breast in one hit. I threw out all the others I ahve had over the years, they more tore up the meats and poultry than flattened it, it I had to only chose one of the above I would keep the white handled triangular one, it is just an all around great gadget and gets the job done quickly with no arm fatique, I have this in a large size too, I remember I paid $12.99 for it at TJMaxx years ago but have seen them there recently too.