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About Meat Tenderizers, at Uncle Ken's Corner Table
9/9/08
As I re-read your article about the teri-beef at Rainbow's being so tender, it reminded me of the "secret" tenderizer that a restaurant in Hilo used to use in their teri-beef . In addition to the usual Shoyu, Sugar, Mirin, Garlic, Ginger and Pepper, they used the juice or pulp from local fruits that contained natural tenderizing enzymes, e.g., papain (from papaya) or bromelain (from pineapple) or actinidin (from Kiwi Fruit), in their marinade, whichever fruit was cheapest and in season. Since many folks found the undertone of pineapple or papaya in their teriyaki to be unusual, the restaurant most often used Kiwi which "hides" its flavor well underneath the sugar-shoyu marinade. And Kiwi is easy to smush up into pulp for the marinade.
The tenderizing occurs both during the marinating process, and also during the cooking process where heat is applied to the marinated meat. The tenderizing enzymes break up the collagen holding the beef's muscle strands together and "loosen" or "relax" the protein molecules, making the teri beef "fall apart tender". So the Hilo folks would always compliment the restaurant on their tender teri beef.
However, when using a tenderizer in a marinade, you have to be sure that the marinating time is rather short, less than an hour for thin slices, and a couple of hours at most for thick pieces, depending on the cut of meat. Don't leave it overnight in the tenderizing marinade or else the beef will lose its meaty chewiness, and will go "beyond tender", and will become somewhat mushy or slimy, like chewing on a slimy mushroom or slimy tofu, or will crumble and fall apart, not good for teri beef. Meat has to have a little chewiness. Too soft, and it doesn't feel right in the mouth. If the teri beef is already falling apart when you remove it from the marinade, you've probably gone too long, since it will further fall apart during grilling.
Other kinds of tenderizers which can be used are acids like vinegar, and citrus juices (lemon, lime, orange, yuzu), or alcohol like wine, sake, or beer. All of these tenderizers add their own layer of flavor (and aroma) to the final product, and it takes a trained palate to identify what it is. And suprisingly, milk or cream or buttermilk can be a tenderizer, too, due to it's "lactic acid" content (requires more time to tenderize). And an "acidic" vegetable like tomatoes can also tenderize.
Teri beef which is marinated for a long time, WITHOUT a tenderizer, is usually very dark brown in color (since the shoyu marinade has had a lot of time to soak into the beef); teri beef which has been marinated WITH tenderizer is usually lighter in color, e.g., light or medium brown, indicating that it was not soaking in the marinade very long. Shoyu blends very well, taste-wise, with most tenderizing agents, except maybe milk and cream.
So the next time you go to Rainbow's for the Teri Beef, try and see whether you can detect a "fruity" undertone, indicating a tenderizer of green papaya, pineapple, kiwi or citrus. Or maybe they may have discovered a new fruit to use as tenderizer, like Mango (altho' Mango is a little expensive to use as tenderizer). The taste of wine or sake as tenderizer is more difficult to describe, but I doubt Rainbow's would use it in their teri beef. And your comment that their teri beef doesn't have a strong shoyu-sugar influence may be the result of a shorter marination time (or addition of water or a juice to the marinade, to thin out the liquid a bit). I wouldn't be surprised that the recipe at Rainbow's includes a tenderizer in their marinade (and maybe they use a combo of fruits, which gives it that indescribable taste undertone that you mention in your blurb), since your photo of the teri-beef shows a "light colored" teri beef..
On the other hand, the marinade might include MSG or Aji-no-moto which is a great flavor enhancer, and which has gotten a bad rap from the press, just because a few people got a bad reaction. MSG can make a good marinade taste "great".
And, finally, tenderizers are mostly used on meats that are naturally "tough" and lean, and where the cooking time is brief, as in grilling, stir frying, or open flame barbeques. You don't need an artificial tenderizer if you tenderize meat by cooking for a long time in a liquid, like braising or stewing. Pot Roast is a good example of a chunk of tough meat which is tenderized by long moist cooking. Barbecued Ribs, also, are often cooked first in a liquid for an hour or so to tenderize it, before it is marinated and grilled over a flame or baked in an oven. That pre-cooking is what makes a barbecue meat "fall off the bone" tender.
So, summarizing: You can tenderize meat (beef) by long, moist cooking in a liquid, as in Pot Roast, Beef Stew, or Sweet-Sour Spareribs or by marinating the meat or cooking it in a sauce which contains one or a mixture of:
Fruits with Enzymes: Pineapple, Kiwi, Mango, Green Papaya, Figs; Fruits with Citric Acid: Lemon, Lime, Orange, Yuzu juices; Other Acidic Ingredients: Tomato or Tomato Sauce, Milk or Buttermilk, Cream; or a Cola or Lemon-Lime Soda; Acetic Acid in Vinegars: such as Balsamic Vinegar, Rice Vinegar, Red Wine Vinegar, Cider Vinegar, Regular White Vinegar; Alcohol: Wine, Sake, Beer, even Vodka & hard liquor; Other: Chinese chefs use a mixture of Baking Soda and Cornstarch to coat and tenderize slices of beef before stir-frying.
Each of these tenderizing agents adds its own footprint to the flavor palette of the dish, so the choice is yours. A cook often won't tell you which tenderizer he uses cuz that's his "secret" ingredient.
Good eating!!
Mahalo and thanks for stopping by!
Uncle Ken
