So I cooked some Oryx steaks tonight on the grill. This was my first attempt. I might have gotten them a bit too done but overall they were good. The flavor was good. I used a Dr. Pepper Marinade with Soy Sauce and Lemon Juice and some seasonings.

The only problem was, they were T-O-U-G-H!!!! You definitely got your money's worth with each bite because you had to really work it.

Suggestions? I only marinaded them for about 5 hours. Maybe they need to soak longer? The lemon juice and acid in the Dr. Pepper should have been able to soften them up, just maybe didn't have enough time?

Help!!!

You might try a jaccard, then marinate for a few hours. Prep them like you are going to chicken fry. Then cook them hot and fast. Oryx is a hard one. Dense muscle on that meat, but very flavorful. So manual tenderize is important.

Try adding fresh papaya or pineapple to your marinade. Those fruits have enzymes that will tenderize meat in addition to the acid. It has to be fresh though, canned doesn't have the enzymes like papain. I've never had oryx, but it worked on steak from an old mule deer. Before the marinade, you could have used those steaks as everlasting shoe soles.

Good tip Palehorse. I'll try that!

I was poking around on the net and ran across this.

http://m.recipetips.com/kitchen-tips/t--351/tenderizing-beef.asp

If not already cut into steaks try this, I use it with deer and elk. Backstraps or rear leg muscles. Take off all the silver skin, coat heavy with your favorite dry rub and put in fridge in ziplock bag for over night or even a day or two. Take out and let come up to room temp then grill over high heat until rare or medium rare. Take off grill and let rest for 10 minutes then slice cross grain in thin slices. The thin slices cross grain will make it seem more tender and any leftover make for some great sandwich meat.

we chicken fry it or make it into hamberger

Go to academy on the cooking aisle there will be a tenderizer that has four rows of small blades and you put this over the meat and push down. The little blades come out and make tiny cuts in the meat. A couple passes with that and it will be tender and not lose its shape or flatten out as much as with a meat hammer.

fresh lemon juice is a good meat tenderizer, I like the pineapple idea

Pineapple juice or orange juice and a longer marinade time will help. Also wrap in bacon and cook fast until bacon is done and serve meat rrare to med rare. Cooking the meat to long causes shrinkage and makes it tougher. You can also tenderize it a bit before hand as well.