Jaccard 200348R, 48 Blade Durable Meat Tenderizer with Stainless Steel Razor Sharp Needle, Cooking Gadget for Tenderizing Chicken, Beef, Pork, Veal, BBQ, Red

I first saw this Jaccard tenderizer used in Alton Brown's TV show Good Eats, Episode: "Cubing Around" You can view it at the FoodTV website. He made Chicken Fried Steak I recently watched a rerun of this show and decided I had to have one of these tenderizers naturally Amazon had it. Amazon did their usual fantastic job of getting it to me.I have a thing about bottom round steaks, they taste good, never mind the fact they can be used for shoe soles. They also happen to be the steak of choice for chicken fried steak. For some reason the best tasting bottom round steaks are to be found in a rump roast, these can often be used as roofing shingles. I have long developed methods to deal with this, use unsalted meat tenderizer, or marinate in an English Chutney which has Papayas as an ingredient. I then used a fork in both cases to get the magical Papaya juice into the innards of the steak. The active ingredient in meat tenderizers comes from the Papaya. I purchased my usual bottom rounds with that scrumptious triangle of fat on the edge. I first anointed this potential piece of shoe leather with the unsalted meat tenderizer and then went to work with the Jaccard just as in the above TV show I made several passes across the steak. At first the steak fought back it was "tough" (sorry) to push in the blades, but on the second pass the steak capitulated. When I was done I still had an intact steak you could see the little holes cut in by the blades but it was not even close to the macerated cub/minute steaks you see at the supermarket. I prepared the Chicken fried steaks as I usually do, again see the above Good Eats episode, as an example. I used a white country gravy in which floated course cracked Madagascar Black Pepper this was poured over the Yukon Gold potatoes and steak. Oh My!!!! the Chicken Fried steak was fantastic. I not going to tell you I could cut it with a fork, a few more passes with the Jaccard would have seen to that. But it was just about the best preparation of a bottom round steak I have ever accomplished, and I have actually used small sledge hammers to beat these bottom rounds into submission. Thanks to the Jaccard's 48 blades the meat tenderizer penetrated well, much better than the forks I have used in the past. It cut easily, the chewing experience was marvelous, and the taste fantastic.There has been some observations about cleaning the Jaccard, and I can see what they mean, but it is designed to easily come apart for cleaning. In fact I just took mine apart and as with any professional grade kitchen tool it breaks down into individual parts that are easy to clean, three blade sets, the blades are replaceable, and according to the Jaccard website have a life time replacement warranty. with it apart the 3 16 blade cutters and the cutting guide are easy to clean with hot soapy water and a brush, or plunked in a dishwasher. The reassembly was not too bad considering here are no instructions as you might expect the springs where the toughest to get to stay in place. Once I figured out to place the blades into the guide, place the springs into their positions add the spacers, the place the the upper half, with the holes, down on top, position the blades with a chop stick in the center screw hole,insert and tighten the screw down and then the two screws on either side, done. A pain the first time, better the second, and so on.Thank you Alton Brown for showing me the Jaccard, And a caution to crooks trying to break and enter to steal my Jaccard, I live in Wyoming we are one of the evil "Steak" culture states PeTA hates. If you try and steal a man's tools to do a good steak you will be a hunted man. This is something a Wyoming Cowboy will not stand for, and as Droopy Dog would say "It's The Law of The West".You haven't ordered one yet?

Maybe you were like me in the past, pounding your meat (stop giggling) with one of those hammer-style meat tenderizers. Eventually you see the light, and realize that there are better ways to make food more tender. ESPECIALLY beef, when it comes to making tiny cuts to connective tissue. And man, is this thing terrific.I love skirt steak, it's the ideal meat for fajitas (basically how fajitas got their name, from the cut used). Though even after removing the membrane some butchers leave on, you can still have some overly-chewy beef when you're done cooking it. I use the right marinades, try to use some papaya when I can, but even the ingredient in papaya that softens meat can work TOO well and make it mushy. Well, no more headaches with this blade tenderizer. I give the meat a run on each side, so very tender when I give it a kosher salt rub first and then marinade later.Is there anything I would change about this tenderizer?Well, two things could be different, at least as far as the outcome. You do have to put a good bit of pressure on tougher cuts of meat, and in doing so, the plastic part can certainly press down on the meat. So if you want to thin your meat a bit (veal for Italian), perfect. But be careful, you could make an otherwise thick-cut steak a bit thinner than you wanted. Also, you can overdo it on some things, particularly poultry. Overtenderized some chicken breasts, after keeping them in a salt brine for maybe 30 minutes, they were a bit raggedy looking. So you don't want to turn your chicken breasts into sponge cake. Basically you'll learn just how much you can use it on beef or poultry to find the sweet spot for more tender vs overly tender (like a chicken fried steak you can cut with a spoon).Terrific investment. Really has changed the way I prep food I'm going to smoke and grill. Most recently used it on a gorgeous beef tenderloin I smoked and slow-cooked, turned out amazing. I'd recommend it, definitely.

Easy to use, does the job well, clean up is a breeze. Survived the dishwasher a few times. Tough as nails.