Meat Mallet

There are two ways to tenderize tough meat: cooking it and pounding it. Tough meat that you don’t want to braise to melting tenderness must be pounded.  Even some tender meats benefit from pounding.  And while you can certainly smack away at your meat with a skillet, using a proper meat mallet gives you concentrated force to do the job quickly and well.  While there are all kinds of mallet’s available, Mac and I were unable to find one with multi-purpose sides like the one I found years ago in an antique shop. So we made it ourselves! This mallet has four different surfaces for different uses.  The horizontal bars are for seriously breaking down the toughest thickest cuts, leg, and shank.  The big spikes are the next level, followed by smaller spikes for meat that is already thin but still tough, like veal for scallopini.  And the flat side actually spreads the meat out for more surface area, something you want if you’re breading and frying. One of the great meats to pound is that Amer