Nathan Myhrvold almost fainted. “What?” he said, “that can’t be right.”
After a series of escalating experiments, Myhrvold had proven what he thought was nonsense: the best way to make a steak juicier is to punch a bunch of holes in it.
Myhrvold is the founder of an invention company, a former CTO of Microsoft and a peer-reviewed physicist. Recently, he’s the founder of Modernist Cuisine, a culinary lab and food research institution in Bellevue, Washington that publishes its own cookbooks. Following his deep dive into moisture levels in meat, Myhrvold became a strong believer in punching holes in a steak before cooking it. His choice tool: Jaccard’s affordable tenderizer.
AmazonJaccard Meat Tenderizer
“It’s just a white brick with a bunch of tiny knives. You punch it down on a steak before cooking — pchunkpchunkpchunk — and the final product will be better than it would’ve otherwise been,” Myhrvold said.
Myhrvold says the magic is in the muscle fibers. As you cook a piece of meat, you cause all the fibers that connect the muscle together to rapidly contract. When they contract, he says, it’s “a little like wringing out a wet washcloth.” The Jaccard tenderizer’s job is the stop this from happening.