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Staged Whole Meat Prep
Ok, not sure if I can "wholee" devote an entire 2400 character quotient to this topic, but I'm Irish so let's see how far we can go!

Now, when I have my preference (an important qualifier!), I like to handle copious amounts of whole meats.

Roasts, Ribs, Whole chicken, Briskets, Haunches, Slabs, Sides, you name it. The bigger, the better.

Now, particularly for this little essay, we're going to tone down the volume (size) a notch, and refer to de-boned sections, filets, steaks, pre-made patties (at home of course!), and so on.

It's all about the protein!

Now, I'll invest entire days to months on a preparatory step when it comes to whole meat, I'll also throw that puppy in a skillet and be popping buttons in 45min flat if that's the deal at the moment.

Right now I'm going for some steaks. You're choice, everybody has a fave.

Whatever process gets em home for ya. The butcher, meat rack, road kill

We're on the counter top NOW.

What we're going to do is "freezer prep" these little doggies. Uh huh, you read it right. FREEZER PREP.

A nifty trick I learned on a visit to our nation's great North West region some years ago.

Being that there is an endless array of selections of concoctions for use we're going to settle on one for now, simple, easy.

Here's the 1,2:

Meat: Get yourself 3-5 pounds of raw USDA (that's the purple stamp!)

Marinade: 1-2 bottles of (insert brand name here) creamy Italian dressing, yeah you heard me. Quit dawdling!

A few 1/2-1gal. Zip-lock freezer bags

Ok, here's the simple, ready?

Put the meat in the bags, still with me?

Pour the dressing into the bags also.

Removing air as you do, close the bags.

Put in freezer.

Fuhgit about em.

Segue

1 to some months down the line

"Mmmmn, I sure could go for a tasty steak!"

Well, guess what? You've got a gourmet grill waiting right inside your freezer, jus waiting for the day.

Yes Sir/Ma'am, go ahead and pull out one of those long forgottens and set it down for a thaw.

What is going to happen is, is that you are about to have a DiGornio moment with your meat, when the last delectable forkful swabs the plate, nobody is going to believe you did this yourself. TENDER. NIAGRA JUICY. FLAVOR unstopping! Really, I ate six (6) of these charcoal grilled beauties my first time.

Literally fork tender. Knives are for barbarians (no offense!).

I don't know what it is about the dressing (who'd a thought?). I have experimented with many other remedies over the years, some successes The Italian is just a terrific default. Use your imagination.

The Prestige with this little gimmick is all in the freezing/thawing process.

What happens to water when it hits below 32`?!? It expands right? Well, what is inside every single cell of protein? Uh huh, that's right H2O. Guess what? You freezer tenderized this feast to perfection.

When the water molecules expanded (froze) they literally shattered the walls of each and every cell. When the thawing began, an immutable flavoring stampede was unleashed, as each successive cell reached above 32`, it collapsed, and a natural abhorrence occurred, vacuum! Yep, as the ice melted (and ran out) the dressing was irresistibly drawn in, cell, by mouth watering cell, all the way through. Time is a critical ingredient in the process, 30 days in the freezer is an ideal minimum.

I don't think I would use this trick on fish short of shark of something, but almost any other meat will do just fine.

Eat well, get fed.

Learn more about this author, C Mckittrick.
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