Gadgets – The Tenderizer

For many years, Herb & Honey-Marinated Filet Mignon reigned supreme as my favorite “special occasion”  meal. But as I just noted in my Highs and Lows post, I recently found an equally tender, equally mouth-watering, far less expensive option: sirloin.

I should mention however, that it takes a little extra muscle-power, a good meat tenderizer, and a lot of patience to get a sirloin steak looking, feeling and tasting like filet. There’s a reason sirloin is about six times less expensive than filet mignon.

When I made Mock Mignon (aka Honey and Herb Marinated Sirloin Steak) a few weeks back for my daughter and her fiance, I asked them if they could pop out and pick up a meat tenderizer since I was missing mine. I sent them to Williams-Sonoma.  And they came back with the Holy Grail of Mallets.  I’d never seen anything like it (and I was a bit wary of the torture-device-looking spikes), but man oh man did it whip that sirloin into filet shape. I highly recommend it and while the $30 price tag shocked me at first, it’s now my not-so-secret weapon when it comes to transforming a cheap cut of meat into a tender little slice of heaven.

Amazon.com offers another great option, the Norpro Professional Meat Tenderizer, which is an absolute steal for $5. In general, spring for steel and the bigger the spikes, the better.