SCENE 1
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The first step to pounding something thin, is usually cutting it thin to begin with. Now, here I have a sixteen ounce hunk of beef tenderloin and as you can see, it is a darn tender hunk of cow, so it’s going to be difficult to slice thin at least in this state. So we’re not going to cut it in this state. Nope. We’re going to wrap this back up and stash it in the freezer. No, I don’t want to freeze it solid. That would be a silly thing to do. But I do want to firm it up. So I’m going to park it in here for at least two hours. Don’t go more than three or you’ll have yourself a meat ice-sicle. |
1 Pound Piece Beef Tenderloin |
Slicing even a well chilled piece of meat with a regular blade is a tough
proposition. An electric knife will help you keep your slices nice and even and
pretty thin. [slice a thin piece] There. Now that’s pretty thin but to get it as thin as we’re going
to need it, will require some extra technology.
A paillard is a cutlet that's flattened and seared rather than sautéed.
GUEST: W, Equipment Specialist
AB: [AB enters a room with many hands along the wall
hammering cuts of meat] Hi W. Hammered out any new discoveries lately?
W: Well actually, yes. We found that mallets with larger
heads produce better
results. The smaller heads require a lot more strikes and that can lead to ...
AB: ... making messes, like this.
W: The hard edges are the problem. Mallets with rounded edges cause less tearing.
AB: What about materials?
W: Wood mallets are lighter than the metal ones, so you have a lot more strikes and a lot more work.
AB: Ok, so metal it is.
W: You know, ultimately pounding is about controlling the strike to deliver the right amount of force.
AB: Right. Hey, you know this, this doesn’t, this doesn’t look bad here at all.
W: Well with good reason. ‘Cause you see that ...
[turns to the
hands] Stop! [they do] Phew! Ok, where was I? Oh. We
have a matte finish that reduces the friction, a large head to evenly distribute the impact, curved edges so that cuts down on the tearing, and you have a padded
handle so that it’s less shock to the arm.
AB: Well the only problem with this is that it looks like a uni-tasker and you
know how I hate a uni-tasker. Can you think of anything else you’d might do
with this?
W: Oh, well. You know. I could show you what I would want to do with it.
AB: Oh sure, paper weight. I got it. [to the hands] Hammer time! See you, W.
Well now that we are armed with a proper pounding tool we are ready to go,
right? We’ve got ourselves a nice sturdy surface and a piece of meat that’s thin
but not thin enough to be what the French call a paillard which is what we’re
out for.
So a pounding we will go right? Wrong. Not quite yet. See there is one
other force we haven’t taken into account here: friction, okay? Study your physics.
Anytime a blow goes straight down and hits something, it slides, right? The blow
deflects and if that happens with a tender piece of meat in the middle of it,
well, it could tear the meat. Maybe not a piece of flank steak or a piece of
round steak or something even chewier like my mom’s Swiss steak but this would
definitely be damaged. So we need to add slippery into the equation here and I
got just the thing.
Number one, plastic wrap—[cuts a piece off] cross there—and number two, good old fashioned water,
H2O, okay? I’ve got my plastic wrap down and I’m going to give it a little spritz.
The meat goes down on one side. Fold over [the plastic wrap] to make ourselves a little sandwich.
Then I’m going to add just a little bit more water right on top. Now we pound.
We don’t really pound. Just kind of drop this right down into the center and then
move out towards the edges. It’s a lot like, like rolling a piece of pie dough,
you know.
You 
don’t just go like this [up and down], you start in the middle and roll out in every
direction to keep it even and that’s what we’re looking for here, evenness. Okay?
Here we go.
[flattens it out and holds it up]
Here we go. And it’s already wrapped for the refrigerator. Pretty convenient.
We’ll try one more time: plastic ... water ... meat ... fold
... a little more water. And …[looks at his mallet]
Hmm. ‘Scuse me a moment, won’t you?
[gets a pie pan and a marble mortar,, placing the pan on the
meat, he pounds the pan with the mortar producing a flat piece of meat]
Now that’s multi-tasking for you. Gotta love it.
If you don't have a mallet or a
mortar and pestle,
use a heavy can of food with a pie pan.
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Hmm. Since its surface to mass ratio is ... well ... high and since tenderloin contains very little connective tissue, there is no reason not to cook our paillards very high and very fast. So, heat your cast iron skillet for a couple of minutes over medium heat. |
Heat 12 inch cast iron skillet over medium heat for 5 minutes. |
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Then you can season your meat thusly: a little bit of oil, a little bit of salt—kosher of course—a wee bit of freshly ground pepper and then invert onto your hand, little bit of oil, a little bit of salt and a little bit of pepper. Now, to the heat we go. |
Brush each slice of meat lightly with vegetable oil on both sides and sprinkle with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. |
The problem with cooking a
piece of meat this thin and a pan like this is that it’s just hard to get down
in there and work with it. So my rule is don’t. We’ll just turn the pan over, no
problem. I’m going to brush on just a little bit of oil and down it goes. It’s
only going to take about ten seconds per side so work quickly to get the other
meat done.
There we go.
Now by the time the third one goes down, odds are good the first will be ready
to flip. Obviously speed is a real benefit here. [flips the last piece] There we go. That one folded
over a little bit. That’s not a problem. Now, as soon as they are brown on this
side, and they are, let’s get these off to the plate. Their still going to be a
little bit red in the middle and that’s just the way we want them.
To serve, just pretend it’s carpaccio. Drizzle on a little olive oil, grate on
some good parmesan cheese, sprinkle on some capers. You can even put a little
salad right in the middle but keep it simple. Of course, once you’ve got your
technique down, there are applications a plenty to pursue, like piccata.
Katsudon, a popular flat meat in
Japan, is composed of
a fried pork cutlet and onion broth served over rice.
GUESTS: Vladimir Bundislov, Russian Chef
Deb Duchon, Nutritional Anthropologist
Roughly translated, piccata means 'sharp', and refers to an entire class of dishes
featuring very thin cutlets cooked in a pan and served with a sharp or piccata
sauce. Now classically speaking, veal is the leading cutlet in piccata recipes
but chicken, pork and even turkey do very nicely. In fact, I prefer turkey
‘cause I think it’s tasty and very easy to cutlet-ize.
[voice over]
We start by cutting your turkey breast crosswise to half-inch slices. Then cover
with the plastic wrap and pound as we have so many times before. But be gentle.
It’s really easy to tear turkey. Now when the piece is basically twice it’s
original size—you know flatter-wize, that is—season side A with kosher salt and
pepper. Now place
side A down into the flour and season side B. Then flip to
coat. Now we’re not looking for a heavy coating here so make sure you dust off
the excess flour before you add it to a pan in which you have heated two
tablespoons of olive oil and four tablespoons of unsalted butter over medium
high heat. When brown on both sides—a couple of minutes each, I'd say—move to a
foil pouch over a heating pad set to high. You don’t have a heating pad around
you can always use this [foil pouch] in a 200 degree oven. Now onto the sauce.
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[voice over] Right when the last piece is finishing up, just keep whatever fat is in the pan there and add to that two tablespoon of finely chopped shallots cooked for about a minute. Then add half a cup of white wine and a third of a cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice. Let that simmer down for two to three minutes. Then whisk in two tablespoons of butter. Just whisk it until it’s thoroughly integrated. Nice. |
2 Tbs. Finely Chopped Shallots 1/2 Cup White Wine 1/3 Cup Freshly Squeezed Lemon Juice 2 Tbs. Unsalted Butter |
[voice over] Move your slices off to a platter. Remember, you want to make sure that they are warm and the platter is warm. And then cover with the sauce. Garnish with chopped parsley, a couple of tablespoons should do the trick. You can use cilantro if you like, but I stick with parsley.
For a sharper sauce, finish the piccata with capers or peppercorns.
Once you’ve become proficient with your pounding procedures, you can move onto
applications that although build upon a flat meat platform are not themselves
flat. For instance, if you pound a chicken breast thin and put on a few pieces of
chilled herb butter, roll it up, bread it and pan fry it, you’ll have Chicken
Supreme. Oh sorry. You probably know it by it’s modern name, Chicken Kiev.
VLADIMIR
BUNDISLOV: Comrade Brownovitch! Finally, you look to Mother Russia to fuel your
capitalist cooking circus.
AB: Circus!
VB: Chicken Kiev, truly a great culinary achievement. Named for might Soviet
city.
DEB DUCHON: Not so fast, comrade.
AB: Uh-Oh.
DD: Chicken Kiev isn't from Kiev. It’s not even Russian.
VB: Alton Brownovitch, who is this fiery American fox?
AB: Fox?
DD: Chicken Kiev is French.
VB: нет! [Nyet!]
DD: да! [Da!] French food was very popular in 18th century Russia.
VB: [to AB] Do not listen to this propaganda.
DD: Chicken Kiev actually got it’s name from a bunch of restaurant owners in New
York City.
AB, VB: [they look at each other and then the camera] New York City!
DD: They were trying to attract Russian immigrants.
VB: Pretty lady, how could you possibly know these things?
AB: Yeah.
DD: Because I’m a dietalog antropolog. [questionable translation
of Nutritional Anthropologist]
AB: Ugh.
VB: Then how can you hate Russian cuisine?
DD: I love Russian cuisine. I love the Russians. [moves closer to VB and
holds his hand] I spent a year in St.
Petersburg in graduate school.
AB: Pfffooo.
VB: St. Petersburg, birthplace of Beef Stroganoff.
DD: Yes. Created for a cooking competition in the 1800’s.
VB: Really? Tell me more.
AB: Yeah, that’s great. Look.
DD: Well, I’d love to.
AB: Why don’t you guys rent Doctor Zhivago, I’ve got cooking to do.
[exits]
VB: So, you know Istanbul was Constantinople?
DD: I read that.
VB: Yes.
Chicken Kiev begins with a compound butter. Now for those of you who may not have committed our episode, A [sic] Case for Butter, to memory, a compound butter is essentially a butter that’s flavored with various herbs and spices. And this one is very, very simple.
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We begin with one stick, that’s four ounces or eight tablespoons of unsalted butter. To that we add: one teaspoon of dried parsley, one teaspoon of dried tarragon, one teaspoon kosher salt and a quarter of a teaspoon of ground black pepper. Now you certainly can use fresh herbs for this but just remember, you’re going to need twice of many. I like the dry stuff because I think it’s more of a stronger flavor, a little bit more robust, which is good. Let’s take this for a spin on low speed, shall we? |
8 Tbs. unsalted butter, 1 tsp. dried parsley, 1 tsp. dried tarragon, 1 tsp. kosher salt and 1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper. |
Chicken Kiev was developed by
Nicolas Appert in
France and brought to Russia during the mid 18th century.
[voice over]
To prep your newly formed compound butter for storage, just plop it on a piece
of wax paper, fold it over, and use something straight and long like a offset
spatula to basically push it into a log like shape. Then just roll it up. Make
sure there is enough paper to go around at least twice. Then twist the ends like
taffy. Now you are ready to store either in the refrigerator or the freezer.
To build your Kiev, start by pounding a chicken breast nice and flat. Put in a
couple of pieces of the chilled butter, about a tablespoon of Panko bread crumbs
and then roll by folding over the longest flap halfway first, then the ends and
then continuing the roll using the plastic to pull it taut. Just make sure you
don’t get the plastic up inside the roll. Seal it up like a sausage. There.
Panko bread crumbs are lighter and
coarser
in texture than regular bread crumbs.
Now let this chill in a secure place in your refrigerator for at least a couple
of hours or even overnight. Why? Because allowing them to firm up means that they
will stay rolled up in the pan; and we like that. See, most of the time Chicken
Kiev is made tied with butcher string. I don’t like that. Why? Last time I ate
Chicken Kiev this happened. [pulls a string out of his mouth] Blah, I hate that.
Refrigerating the wrapped Kiev also
helps prevent
the herb butter from oozing out during cooking.
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[voice over] To cook your Kiev, take each of the chicken rolls and dip them in a combination of two large eggs beaten with about a teaspoon of water. You’ll have enough for at least four, if not more, pieces. Then toss in Panko bread crumbs, about two cups worth would be what it takes to coat. |
2 Eggs Beaten With 1 tsp. Water 2 Cups Panko |
Then add them straight to a large in this
case a twelve inch sauté pan containing half an inch of vegetable oil heated
over medium high heat to 375 degrees. Leave them alone
for four to five minutes or until they are golden brown and delicious. Roll each
piece over carefully—I like to use chopsticks for this because it’s easier to
toss—and cook for another four to five minutes or until the internal temperature
reaches a hundred and sixty five degrees. Then evacuate to a draining rig. Mine
is composed of a standard cooling rack set over a half sheet pan. Let them rest
for five minutes before serving.
While the Kiev is cooking, the butter
mingles
with the meat juices to create a sauce.
I hope that we have cleared the way for you to try your hand at some horizontal cuisine. Pound for pound, flattened meats deliver flavor the way few three dimensional foods can. Add to that the stress relieving effects of hammering your dinner silly, and you’ve got a recipe for some seriously good eats. See you next time.
VB: Comrade Brownovitch! Finally you look to Mother Russia to fuel your
capitalist cooking circus.
AB: [begins to laugh] I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m, I’m sorry. Cut.
Transcribed by Eeyore8
Last Edited on 08/27/2010
[AB turns his computer to the side to
reveal that we've been watching him on his computer]
I like flat. I like Kansas. I'm all for a flat tax. I love my flat computer
monitor. I wish I had a flat TV screen. And I kind of would like to have a flat stomach.
Now, I may not be able to have all these flat things but at least I can have
flat food.
Ever since I came home from school one day to witness my mom pounding out a
Swiss steak with a back of a frying pan, I've been fascinated by dishes built on
hunks of meat pounded wafer thin.
[AB is driving a steam roller]
So, what could we possibly gain by flattening a perfectly good piece of meat?
Well, in breaking down the connective tissue, we can certainly gain some
tenderness. This is probably why our ancestors pounded so many of their meals.
But today’s meat critters are already pretty darn tender. Nope, what we’re
looking for here is an increase in surface area. Now, consider that cow over
there.
COW: Moooo. Moooo.
[climbs off the roller and places a slab
of meat in front of the roller]
Well, since I’m told that running over an actual cow might upset some people,
we’ll rollover this roast instead which at three and a half pounds would
ordinarily
take about two, two and a half hours to roast in an oven. That
doesn’t really give us that many culinary options. We can change all that by altering
the surface to mass ratio.
GB: The fish?
The Venetian renaissance painter, Vittore Carpaccio, was famous for his dramatic
use of the color red. So famous, in fact, that centuries later he would have a
dish, a very red dish, named after him, carpaccio; which is nothing more wafer
thin pieces of beef dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, greens, flakes of
parmesan and capers. And yes, that’s raw meat.
AB: [goes to window, opens it and looks up, and yells] You’ll never take me alive, you lousy culinary cops! Never!