Velveting Meat With Baking Soda. As Cooks Illustrated explains baking soda alkalizes the meats surface making it harder for the proteins to bond and thereby keeping the meat tenderer when cooked. Baking soda helps meat hang on to its moisture.
For those individuals a viable alternative is a baking soda. For 1 pound thinly sliced meat or alternative protein it can be anything really. You dont even need to add water as long as the raw meat is sufficiently moist for the baking soda to dissolve Chemicalkinetics says.
Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes. The heat from the cooking process makes these strands tighten up but the increased alkalinity causes the strands to relax making the meat more tender. Mix again until everythings well incorporated. It involves pre-coating the meat with a mixture of oil egg white corn starch and sherry or rice wine and then blanching and drying.
