Tenderizing Top-Round for Philly Cheese Steaks

Top round can work if sliced thin enough and cooked long enough to break down. Hopefully the meat you bought is 1/16" to 1/8" thick (thin) and cut across the grain. I recommend doing a test to determine your cooking method.

Moisture will be your friend. Try doming the meat and introducing liquid to steam it. This will prevent drying out.

If you're convinced you must tenderize it, you have three choices, mechanical, enzymatic, and combo.

To mechanically tenderize meat you can use a cuber (alternating slices), a jaccard (puncture), or a knife (cross cut).

To enzymatically tenderize meat you can use the presence of natural enzymes in fruit. These are kiwifruit (actinidin), pineapple (bromelain), fig (ficin), and papaya (papain).

Third option is to use a combination of mechanical and enzymatic tenderizers.

When I was a working guy, there was a cafe in Dekalb, owned by three black ladies. They sevred a fried chicken breast to die for. They took a boneless breast and tenderized it with the top of an empty coke bottle. when they finished pounding it, they seasoned, breaded and skillet fired it in one of those 6 inc deep cast iron skillets. Perfection, served with three sides. Only negative I remember is when you went back to work, you smelled like fried food.

I have a rubber mallet I'm about to use to tenderize the pre-cut strips. No, they aren't in deli shavings, they are cut in what are like fajita strips or stir fry strips. I will cover them with plastic wrap and beat them. Then, I plan to marinate them in something acidic for about 30 minutes like soy/lemon juice combo with some salt and pepper. I am not sure what else to do. I don't have any papaya or pineapple or kiwi. Also no meat tenderizer powder. Hell I just found I don't even have any vinegar. I used to have MSG but my wife threw it away because she's a bitch. So I'm kind of stuck trying to do what I can.

quote:

---

So, I guess the time proven method, utilizing the top of a coke bottle, pounded up and down until tenderized, used by three black southern chefs. Is a no go, in favor of a rubber mallet? What a shame.

---

I have no coke bottles. I have no beer bottles. I do have a mallet.

A Jaccard mechanical meat tenderizer works great. You can watch video on line of chefs tenderizing meat with them. I use mine a lot.