"Water massage" for meat?

[rxrfrx]

On Ming Tsai's PBS show the other day, a particular segment featured a visit to the kitchen of Kenny Chan's Joy Luck restaurant. Kenny prepared his version of orange beef (mentioned here under Episode 219).

Kenny points out that the beef has been tenderized by "water massage," and there's a quick clip of what appears to be beef sitting under a stream of running tap water. He says that this took a few hours. The beef now looks malleable and grayish. After preparing the recipe (battered, deep-fried pieces of beef with a thickened orange syrup) he again mentioned that the beef was water-tenderized. There's no mention of this on Ming's show website.

Was this just cold or room-temperature water? Or was it some kind of water-feathering using properly warm/hot water? I'm baffled.

[origamicrane]

was the beef sliced into strips then put into a colander and left under a slow running tap?

If it is it a standard (i think) chinese beef preparation technique.

[rxrfrx]

was the beef sliced into strips then put into a colander and left under a slow running tap?

If it is it a standard (i think) chinese beef preparation technique.

←

It was in fairly big pieces, and in a bowl under a slow running tap.

How does this work?

[origamicrane]

was the beef sliced into strips then put into a colander and left under a slow running tap?

If it is it a standard (i think) chinese beef preparation technique.

←

It was in fairly big pieces, and in a bowl under a slow running tap.

How does this work?

←

not sure actually will have to ask my old man about it

but we do it at our place too.

I suspect that the beef has been tenderiser using bicarbonate of soda and then the water is used to wash off the excess soda.

[curlywurlyfi]

Fascinating. We had some Szechuan beef at the weekend and were trying to work out how the meat was so soft - really, hardly even needed teeth to chew it - but had clearly not been beaten to death with a meat mallet, nor slow-cooked.

[Hest88]

The way I was taught by my aunt (a retired chef from a Chinese restaurant) was to squish baking soda into meat, let it sit, and then rinse well under water. I just sort of squeeze it and plop it around a colander under I think the meat is rinsed enough. I'm assuming running it under the tap serves the same purpose.

[touaregsand]

The beef now looks malleable and grayish

My parents do this sometimes. It removes alot of the blood in the meat.

[Luckylies]

cool, this has answered lots of long pondered questions for me.

[origamicrane]

The beef now looks malleable and grayish

My parents do this sometimes. It removes alot of the blood in the meat.

←

we definitely releasing a trade secret here

yep just ask my old man about this and the washing serves a dual purpose

one is to remove any excess soda used to tenderise the meat and to remove the blood from the meat.

The reason we want to remove the blood from the meat is that for some dishes where the meat is dipped in a batter and fried like crispy shredded beef or the orange beef dish.

When you fry it the blood from the meat will be released and cause the batter to darken and not look attractive on the dish.

so now you know