So that the fried meat is juicy. How to fry pork in a frying pan so that it is soft

Anna Krachek | 01/14/2015 | 2479

Anna Krachek 01/14/2015 2479

Let's learn how to fry fabulously tasty meat.

It takes talent to fry meat properly. Sometimes it comes out too tough, sometimes undercooked, sometimes overdried, or even completely tasteless. Meanwhile, professionals have their own secrets of delicious fried meat, which we will be happy to reveal to you.

How to choose meat suitable for frying?

When going to the store or market for meat, give preference to pork, beef, and veal. It is better if it is the meat of a young animal: it is much more tender. Keep in mind that not every part of the carcass is suitable for frying. It is unlikely that you will be able to cook a decent steak from a leg, shoulder or neck; choose better tenderloin or entrecote (thick and thin edges of the carcass).

The meat that you are going to fry in large pieces must be free of films and tendons - otherwise it will turn out tough. Cut it across the grain. The thickness of the pieces, depending on the specific dish, can be arbitrary and is determined by a detailed recipe.

To what degree should I fry the meat?

It is very important not to dry out the meat. Professionals have such a concept as “degree of doneness,” according to which a steak can be from incredibly juicy, rare, to thoroughly fried.

If you want the meat to not resemble the sole of a shoe after cooking, listen to the following tips.

Fry the steak in a frying pan without a lid for 7 to 15 minutes. (time depends on the size and weight of the piece) over medium heat. If the fire is too high, the meat will burn; and if it’s too small, it won’t brown and will become saturated with fat.
Place the meat in the already heated fat. Then an appetizing crust will form on it, which will prevent it from losing all its juices and also from absorbing too much fat.
Do not stack the pieces close to each other. The steam that is released during the frying process will not allow the meat to brown properly. In addition, by turning the pieces over, you risk damaging the breading.
Don't turn the meat too often. Do this only once, when one side is already browned.

How to bread meat correctly?

Breaded meat is usually tender and juicy. A classic example is schnitzel. By the way, there are at least two ways to bread schnitzels: Parisian, when the meat is rolled in flour, dipped in a beaten egg and fried in hot oil, and Viennese, when, in addition to flour and eggs, the meat is also “bathed” in breadcrumbs, to which spices are added for taste.

Here are some more successful breading options, especially suitable for pork.

Dip the meat in flour, dip in white sauce (beat a raw egg with 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil) and coat in breadcrumbs.
Add lemon juice, salt, pepper to olive oil, beat with a fork. Dip the meat in flour, dip in the mixture and again in flour.
Pork chops taste best when dipped in batter, which should be slightly thicker than pancake batter.

How to quickly marinate meat?

If you are not confident in your culinary abilities, but really want your fried meat to be tasty, there is one simple and affordable solution - marinate the meat. The quickest and easiest way to do this is to rub a piece of pork or beef with chopped garlic and pepper and pour in vegetable oil.

At the same time, you should not salt the meat, as salt will cause premature release of meat juice, which will lead to dryness of the meat when frying.

If you have very little time, this recipe will help out. Lightly beat pieces of pork or beef, place in a suitable bowl, sprinkle with chopped onions, cumin, chopped bay leaf and parsley root, pour over vegetable oil mixed with lemon juice and pepper.

It would seem that frying meat - what could be easier? But when it comes to the cooking process itself, numerous problems arise due to meat being too tough, dry or tasteless.

There are a lot of secrets in cooking meat, and they depend on the type of meat you choose, be it chicken, pork or beef. Let's look at everything separately in the article.

How to fry meat - chicken

Chicken meat cooks faster than all other meats. If you want to cook a steak or chicken chop, then take the chicken fillet and cut pieces of the desired size along the grain. It is advisable to marinate the meat in advance, because the “success” of the dish depends on a good marinade. By choosing the wrong marinade, you can completely ruin the dish.

The best marinades for chicken:

Paprika and seasonings will be an excellent marinade for chicken meat, giving it an unusual taste and retaining all the juice. Just rub the meat with paprika and leave to marinate for an hour or two.
Honey and soy sauce are an unusual combination that will please all those with a sweet tooth. Soy sauce can also be combined with white and red wine and used as a marinade.
Lime. Don't be surprised, thanks to lime juice, the chicken acquires a very interesting taste with a sour note.
Red onion. Red onions have much more sugar than regular onions. Cut it into rings, knead it a little, mix with chicken meat and pour in olive oil, leave for a couple of hours.

Chicken meat fries very quickly. If the heat is set too high, the chicken will quickly become dry and may even burn, so fry the chicken over medium heat for about 3-4 minutes on each side. The time depends on the thickness of the meat itself.

The advantage of chicken steaks is that they do not have to be marinated for a long time; if you need to cook it “here and now,” this can be done without much loss of flavor.

How to fry meat - pork

If you want to cook a classic steak, then choose the meat carefully - it should be fresh, pale pink in color, with white streaks. It is advisable to take meat for steak from the tenderloin; from the leg or neck it is not very suitable, but in a desperate situation you can use it.

Before frying, the meat should be blotted with a napkin to remove excess moisture. Heat a large amount of oil in a frying pan and add the meat there. You can turn the steak if one side is almost ready; if you turn it often, the meat will not be so juicy. And try not to pierce it again. The steak can be breaded in egg batter or breadcrumbs.

Frying time is approximately 6-8 minutes per side, depending on the thickness of the meat.

There are a great variety of cooking options in various sauces and marinades, ranging from banal seasonings to beer and pomegranate juice. In principle, it all depends only on your imagination and desire to try something new.

How to fry meat - beef

Beef is the most difficult meat to cook, and frying it so that the steak turns out soft and juicy is not so easy. For the most part, the taste of the dish is influenced by the age of the animal whose meat you will fry.

Choose a cut of tenderloin with perfectly white layers of fat. If the fat is even slightly yellowish, this indicates that the animal was aged and its meat is much tougher.

It is very difficult to cook tasty beef without first marinating it. The most popular and effective marinade is ordinary salt water. Dilute a quarter cup of salt in one liter of water and place the steak there, let it lie there for at least a couple of hours, then rinse under water, dry with a towel, and the meat is ready for frying.

If the meat of an old animal, and even the marinade does not cope, then lightly boil it before frying, this will help soften it. A marinade of kiwi and onion can also soften old meat. Kiwi contains tenderizing enzymes and can be used not only on beef, but also on other types of meat.

You need to fry the beef for 8-10 minutes on each side, and just like with pork, it is advisable not to turn it over or pierce it until it is completely cooked.

Knowing all the secrets and nuances of frying meat, you can get a very tasty and juicy steak at home that will be able to compete with steaks from restaurants. Bon appetit!

Choosing meat is a great art. It’s good to do this slowly, with a fresh mind, going to the market early in the morning to a familiar butcher. But in the store, choosing the right quality of meat is not so easy. And if you come across old, stringy beef, it is very difficult to turn it into a tender dish that melts in your mouth. However, trying is not torture, and cunning housewives have invented many tricks that can turn a hard sole into a perfect roast.

Brute physical strength

More precisely, mechanical impact. Wrap a piece of meat in a plastic bag and give it a good pound on both sides with a hammer. After beating, even the oldest meat will become softer and more tender. If chops are not your thing, but you need to put the bad meat somewhere, grind it in a meat grinder. White bread and onions soaked in milk will add tenderness to the minced meat.

Often the meat feels too tough due to membranes and tendons that you forgot to remove during processing. Next time, pay more attention to cleaning the meat and everything will work out. But, of course, that's not all! There are other methods in the world, after all.

Gentle impact

The best assistant in giving meat tenderness, juiciness and taste is marinades. They don't have to be super complex in composition. For example, regular mustard will do the job perfectly if you coat pieces of meat intended for frying with it and leave them alone for about one hour.

In general, almost anything in the house can serve as a marinade for meat. For example, fruits. Thanks to fruit acids, they make the meat tender, soften it and give it a piquant taste. The fruit marinade is simple to make: take a couple of kiwis, a little salt, pepper and spices. Grate and cut all this wealth, soak the meat in the resulting marinade for half an hour - and you will have a luxurious roast on the table. Just don’t forget to blot the marinade off the meat before frying.

An excellent marinade is obtained using pomegranate juice. It is enough to add spices to the sour, astringent, tannin-rich juice and leave the meat for several hours.

Lemon has shown itself to be quite good at tenderizing meat. Pieces of meat are layered with lemon, sometimes a raw egg is added to this mixture, and left in a cool place for a while. The time depends on the degree of toughness of the meat, but on average two to three hours are enough for it to acquire acceptable condition.

Marinades based on fermented milk products will also give the meat the required softness and tenderness. Moreover, no matter what you are going to cook: chicken, pork, lamb or beef. The main ingredient is kefir or unsweetened yogurt, mixed with spices, a little salt, pepper and herbs. It is enough for the meat to spend about 2-4 hours in this marinade. By the way, some people like to marinate meat with mayonnaise, but for some reason professionals do not welcome this method. Keep in mind that this recipe for marinades with dairy products may not be suitable for everyone for religious reasons, but we have a lot more in store.

Wine or beer is quite widely used as a marinade. This is how the meat is prepared both for regular frying and for frying on skewers. If you add mineral water, onions and seasonings to the wine, it will turn out faster and tastier. Fragrant meat soaked in beer will not leave your household or guests indifferent. Before frying, it is best to roll such meat in flour.

As for stronger drinks, vodka has long been used as a base for marinade, especially when working with poultry. In China, soy sauce and spices are added to vodka, chopped turkey or duck breasts are immersed in the marinade and marinated for a maximum of 2 hours. Before frying, dry the pieces of meat with a napkin. Don't worry - there won't be any trace of alcohol left behind.

For the most fearless experimenters, we can offer marinades based on kvass with honey, tomato sauce with adjika or tea leaves. After trying to marinate meat in several of the above methods, you are sure to find an option that suits your taste.

Other tricks

In order for the meat to be tender and juicy, you need to prevent the juice from leaking out of it during frying. This is best done either by breading or by “sealing” the meat over high heat. Bread the meat immediately before frying. Flour, crackers, eggs or combinations thereof are suitable as breading. Pieces of meat are placed in boiling oil, then the frying process begins immediately, and the meat juice does not leak out.

You can “seal” meat without using breading, and even without using oil. Simply place the meat on a hot frying pan, fry until brownish, turn over and fry in the same way. After this, reduce the heat and fry until cooked over medium or low heat. Beef can even be undercooked - some people like the meat rare. This trick won't work with other types of meat: you don't want to get some Trichinella from a half-cooked pork chop, do you?

An excellent result is obtained if the meat is baked in pots or foil. In these cases, it is cooked in its own juice and turns out excellent even without any additives.

If you are frying cutlets, try to turn them over as carefully as possible so as not to damage them, otherwise the juice will also leak out. And most importantly, do not salt the meat in advance! The salt will draw the juice out of it before cooking. Well, if your roast still turns out a little dry, try fixing the problem with a water bath. Pour water into the pan, place a colander with meat over it and close the entire structure with a lid.

So, if one of your gastronomic experiments has failed, don’t be discouraged, there will always be a way to get it back on track!

Pork is one of the most versatile meats available. It has a pleasant, mild flavor that goes well with sour ingredients, as well as aromatic seasonings and sauces. Unlike chicken, which is very tender, and beef, which becomes juicy when cooked over low heat, pork can be quite tough and, according to conventional wisdom, should be cooked thoroughly (although this has recently been increasingly questioned) . Learn to tenderize pork to create flavorful, tender dishes using this versatile meat. Read on!

Steps

Soften the pork before cooking

Use a meat mallet. Pork cuts will be tough if the muscle fibers remain long and intact. Before seasoning and cooking, try breaking up the muscle fibers using a meat mallet (sometimes called a "meat tenderizer"). It usually takes the form of either a heavy hammer or a serrated mallet used for beating meat, or a sharp-toothed tool for piercing meat. The goal is the same; simply pound or pierce the meat to break up the muscle fibers.

If you don't have any of these items on hand, don't worry. Take an ordinary fork, but you can even pound the meat with your bare hands. Pierce, pound or mash the meat to break up the muscle fibers and create a juicy dish.

Prepare a softening marinade. Marinades are a great way to make meat more flavorful and tender. However, not all marinades are created equal; To tenderize pork, the marinade must contain either acids or tenderizing enzymes. The marinade must break down helical proteins at the molecular level. However, there is no need to use large quantities of such ingredients; If the marinade is too acidic, the meat can become tougher due to denaturation of its proteins, and too many tenderizing enzymes can make the meat porous.

Salt the pork. Brining is an alternative to marinating and works especially well with pork loin. Brining helps the meat retain moisture while it cooks. To brine pork, fill a large bowl with water, add a pinch of salt and stir to dissolve the salt. You can also add seasonings to the brine; Common pork brining ingredients include apple cider, brown sugar, rosemary and thyme. Do not add too much salt to the brine, otherwise the meat may turn out too salty.

Alternatively, artificial tenderizers can be used to tenderize the pork. These tenderizers are usually sold in powder form, but you can also buy liquid ones. Typically, papain is the active ingredient in such tenderizers. This is a natural enzyme found in papaya. And in this case, it is important not to overdo it, otherwise the meat will become unpleasantly soft.

Cooking pork
1. Fry the pork, then bake. When it comes to pork, there are a wide range of cooking methods that can be used to achieve juicy, tender meat. For example, pork chops or sirloin should be cooked over high heat in a well-heated frying pan (or grill) until crispy, then transfer the meat to the oven (or to a cooler part of the grill and close the lid) to finish the cooking process.
  
  Another way to make pork tender and juicy is to braise it. Braising is a slow cooking method where meat is placed in a liquid mixture with other ingredients and simmered for several hours. The braised pork is tender, juicy and flavorful. This method is suitable if you have small, tough pieces of meat. Additionally, the braising liquid can then serve as a base for making a sauce or gravy for meat.
  
  Smoking is a gradual method of cooking over low heat, used for barbecuing pork and producing meat with smoke. There are many ways to smoke, but in general you start a fire by placing the wood in a closed container and smoke the meat. The smoke from burning wood will permeate the meat with a unique aroma, and it will become juicy and tender, and will also have an unforgettable taste.
  - Because smoking is an expensive and labor-intensive process, this method is suitable for larger cuts of meat that require more cooking time (such as brisket or ham) and for large events such as barbecues and picnics.
  - Smoking is a delicate art that requires professionalism and special equipment, which can cost a lot. However, a similar effect can be achieved using a regular barbecue grill.
2. Simmer the meat or use a slow cooker. The gradual, moist heat of a slow cooker will produce meat so tender you won't even need a knife to cut it as you eat. Simmering involves cooking meat over low heat for a long time by immersing it in a mixture of liquid and solid ingredients. Often meat for stews is cut into small pieces. Just like braising, this method is suitable for cooking small, tough cuts of meat or meat with a lot of connective tissue (such as shoulder or ribs).
3. Let the meat rest after cooking. If you want the meat to be juicy and tender, then let the meat sit after cooking! This is one of the most important but often overlooked points. Regardless of cooking method, leave the meat alone for 10 minutes after removing from the heat or turning off the oven. You can cover the meat with foil to keep the dish warm. In 10-15 minutes the meat will be ready to eat. Enjoy!
  - If you cut the meat immediately, all the juices will flow out of it and it will become tough. When you cook a large piece of pork, it's common for all the juices to leak out during the cooking process. Leaving the meat alone for a while helps the meat reabsorb those juices and remain juicy.
4. Slice the pork across the grain. You need to take into account how you cut the pork. Cut the pork into very thin slices, across the grain of the meat. If you look closely, you will notice sections of individual fibers in the cut piece. This method allows for additional destruction of muscle fibers before consumption. You'll never regret taking these extra precautions!
  - With extra-tender cooking methods like braising and simmering, your meat will be so tender that you won't have to worry about how to cut it. However, for large, thick cuts of pork that have been grilled or oven-cooked, you should know to cut against the grain to keep the meat as tender as possible. That is why, during large events when roast pork is on the menu, waiters almost always make thin diagonal cuts against the grain of the meat.
Choosing soft pieces
1. Select meat from the lumbar region. The loin is the long strip of meat around the pig's spine. Typically, cuts of meat cut from the loin region are among the most tender, making them great for those looking for a soft, juicy cut of pork and a source of nutritious lean protein. Here are some ways to cut the lumbar region:
  - Butterfly chop
  - Roast beef from the rump
  - Rib chop
  - Portioned piece of meat
  - Roast meat
2. Select tenderloin. The tenderloin (sometimes called "pork loin") is a small section of the loin of the pig and is the most tender part of the pork. Tenderloin is a long, narrow strip of muscle that runs along the upper internal ribs of the animal. This cut is one of the most expensive cuts in the carcass because the meat is juicy and tender. Tenderloin is often sold:
  - By her own
  - Cut into ''medallions''
  - Wrapped for cooking "roast"
3. Select the meat from the shoulder section. The shoulder is the part of the carcass above the spine that runs down the sides, and can produce a variety of tasty, meaty cuts that vary in texture depending on which part of the ribs they are cut from. Pieces cut from the shoulder part (closest to the spine of the pig) are similar to pieces from the lumbar part, as they are just as juicy and tender. Cuts cut from the lower ribs (closer to the belly of the pig) can also be quite tender if cooked properly, but tend to be fattier and take longer to cook. The blade part can be cut into:
  - Milk back ribs
  - Pork ribs with a thin piece of meat
  - Peasant ribs
  - Individual ribs
4. Select the subperitoneum. This is a very fatty piece of meat that is located under the abdominal region of the pig. Many people are familiar with this part; they make bacon from it. Bacon is thin slices of belly meat that are fried in the oven or on the grill. They turn out juicy and tender.
  - Pork belly is not usually sold in grocery stores unless it is bacon or pancetta (a type of bacon). To buy belly meat, you need to visit butchers or specialty stores.
5. Choose firmer cuts if you plan to cook the meat in the slow cooker. Some of the most tender cuts of pork (especially from the loin section) can be expensive. If you are on a budget, there is no need to buy expensive meat. In fact, cheaper, firmer cuts (such as those from the shoulder of a pig) can generally make a tasty meal when cooked in the slow cooker. Below are examples of inexpensive cuts of pork carcass that will produce tender meat if properly processed:
  - Pork shoulder