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To Make Tough Meat Tender

This method tenderizes tough beef by soaking it in water and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 28% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,895 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

To Make Tough Meat Tender

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak the beef in a mixture of water and vinegar.

  2. For a large piece, soak for about 12 hours.

  3. For 10 pounds of beef, use 3 quarts of water and ¾ pint of vinegar, soaking for 6 to 7 hours.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Beef + vinegartop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,895 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef
Is the protein being softened; soaking in acidic liquid loosens its tough muscle structure.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps break down tough muscle fibres during soaking.
Water
Forms the soaking liquid that carries the vinegar into the meat.

The step that matters

Matching soak time to piece size. Acid works slowly into meat, so a large piece needs a longer soak than a small one. Too short a soak leaves the centre tough, while a very long soak can make the surface mushy.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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