My new favorite kitchen gadget makes steaks incredibly tender and flavorful
Last year I discovered a kitchen gadget that has made my ribeye and sirloin steaks more tender than a young girl's heart, and has eliminated the need to use a knife when enjoying my Chicken Marsala. I used to employ a fork to poke hundreds of holes into my steak to improve its tenderness and to drive the rub spices deeper into the meat. It worked ok, but when cooking more than a couple of steaks, the fork method takes too much time. To tenderize my Chicken Marsala, I used a mallet style meat tenderizer, but that was a messy affair since inevitably the plastic wrap I used to keep the chicken "juice" contained would tear, causing juices to spatter the kitchen cabinets, counter and walls.
The Deni meat tenderizer is worthy of accolades usually reserved for medical breakthroughs. 48 stainless steel blades (or 16 on the single row version) can tenderize a 3/4" thick, 14 oz ribeye in about 10 seconds; I would've spent three minutes achieving the same result with the fork method. Turning a boneless chicken breast into barely recognizable version of its original self takes only about 10 strokes of the 48 blades; it would take at least 40 whacks with my mallet tenderizer to get a breast ready to cook.
I like the darned thing so much I gave two of them as Christmas gifts this year to fellow culinary enthusiasts. Here you can see the Deni Meat Tenderizer in action.