Here is a question for the THF cooking experts. When I was a kid my mother bought round steak to feed the family. She'd make Swiss steak & stew-it tender. Dad wasn't much of a cook but when he made BBQ it was a chuck roast grilled over oak & slathered with Kraft BBQ sauce lastly. It tasted good but tough as a boot. I don't think mom or dad ever bought a ribeye, fillet or other prime steak. My large family didn't know the difference & we ate well. Seems like all of our venison was chicken fried & it was our favorite meal. Always ate up in a hurry.

Everyone has seen the prices of meat lately - YIKES! My question, is there a secret method or marinade to make a tough cut of meat tender? I'm not talking about fajitas or beating a piece of meat with a hammer until its pre-chewed. It seem like I read something about brinning or dry salt brinning. I also heard of folks aging meat in the frig for a week. What about Adolph's meat tenderizer? I'm tempted to get an HEB shoulder roast that's on sale & experiment to see if I can make it baby-teeth eatable. Any thoughts?

TIA

You can brine those leaner/tougher cuts, or you can use a jaccard and rub with a little lime juice. Let that sit in the fridge for a few hours. Be careful if you use pineapple juice. It works, but it works fast and will turn your meat to mush if marinated too long. Besides the particular cut of meat, the doneness of course makes a huge difference in tenderness. Growing up if my Dad grilled anything it was going to be well done. He would order a steak at a restaurant and tell them he wants it extra well done, told them to “burn it”. Seriously. I didn’t know what a tender juicy steak was until my mid 20’s when I tried my first medium steak.

Aging in the fridge works really well, it’s just time consuming and you have to prepare in advance.

You can always cook until tender. Chuck roast is a really popular substitute for brisket. Found a random recipe you can check out.

Use an acidic marinade with vinegar, citrus juice, wine, yogurt, buttermilk, or even Coca-Cola. But I don't ever think a marinade makes a big difference to tenderness. I only marinade when I want to add flavor.

Brine it. Cover the cut with salt, leave in refrigerator overnight, rinse off in the morning.

To me the only way to make a lean cut noticeably tender is hammer it, use a jaccard, or brine it as far as I know. Bigger cuts you can dry age.

On the other end of the process, letting the meat rest for 10 minutes or so after cooking will help. Also, slicing thinly against the grain will help make it seem more tender.

Cooking anything wrapped in foil (moist heat) will make it tender. Hit it on the grill and give it a good char/grill marks the wrap it in foil and stick it in the oven and finish cooking.

sous vide. You can tenderize boot leather and still have it any way you want to eat it. It's all about time and temperature, just like a brisket.