The golden ratio: Tender or tough: That's why it's important how you cut your (raw) meat

If meat chews like a dry shoe sole after it has been prepared, the cooking time is not necessarily to blame for the bad taste.

The golden ratio: Tender or tough: That's why it's important how you cut your (raw) meat

If meat chews like a dry shoe sole after it has been prepared, the cooking time is not necessarily to blame for the bad taste. In fact, how you cut your meat has a huge impact on the quality of the meal. Especially when the meat is firmer from the ground up. Due to the different amounts of meat and muscle fibers as well as connective tissue, the wrong cutting technique is less noticeable with chicken breast than with a steak. However, if you value tender meat, you should know the most important rules when cutting. What these are and why the types of knives are also crucial for the cutting technique is explained as follows.

There are only two ways to cut meat: either parallel or across the grain - but only one variant is correct. This is simply due to the length of the fibers, which are very difficult to chew and make the meat as tough as a shoe sole. They are largely preserved if the meat is cut through parallel to the fibers (i.e. the white stripes). If, on the other hand, you cut the meat across the fibers, they do not have to be divided when chewing. This makes the meat much easier to chew. In plain language this means: Always cut across the grain. Because long fibers make the meat tough and short fibers make it tender. This applies equally to raw and cooked meat.

If you chop meat with a knife that is too small, "clean" cuts will not be possible. On the contrary: If the cut surface frays, this has a negative effect on the cooking process. In other words, the meat is tough. For this reason, there are special meat knives that are characterized by a long and narrow blade. With them, the meat is cut through smoothly and is beautifully tender and juicy after preparation. However, you should always make sure that your knife is sharp - because a blunt blade does not create a smooth cut. Here you can use a classic knife sharpener or knife block with a ceramic whetstone to sharpen the knife.

These knives are suitable for cutting meat:

1. Meat knife from Tefal

2. Meat knife from Fiskars

3. Meat knife from WMF

4. Sunnecko carving knife

5. Meat Knife by Paudin

In addition to the right technique and a sharp knife, there are other tricks that you can take to heart when cutting meat:

This article contains so-called affiliate links. There is more information here.

NEXT NEWS