- Today in the Test Kitchen,
I'm gonna share an experiment I've done on how
to turn a beef tendon into a light and airy chip.
Stick around and I'll show you how.
(upbeat music)
So in the Test Kitchen, we're always looking
for innovative ways to use beef,
and I'd heard about this technique
where you turn a beef tendon into a crispy, airy chip,
similar to a chicharrón or a pork rind.
So if you're wondering what a beef tendon is,
it's a piece of connective tissue
that connects muscle to bone.
In this case, I'm using the Achilles tendon
that comes from the heel.
I like using this because it's a larger piece
and easier to work with.
Tendons contain a high amount of collagen,
which, through cooking, converts to gelatin,
and we're gonna do just that.
First I'll pressure cook them, chill them overnight,
slice them very thin on a meat slicer,
dehydrate, then deep-fry them to a puffy crisp.
The thing about these is, they're not something
that you'll just throw on a grill
or chop up or stir fry.
It takes a certain technique to get 'em
to a place that you can actually eat them.
So the first step in this process is pressure cooking.
So I'm using an Instant Pot.
Wait for it.
(mechanical chiming)
So I'm gonna put these in,
and then I wanna cover them with just enough cold water
to have them fully submerged.
(water pouring)
This way, you know they won't burn,
because through the cooking,
there is a heating element at the bottom,
it might stick a little bit, might burn,
so I wanna make sure there's plenty of liquid in there,
so I have 'em fully covered.
Then I'll affix the lid.
(mechanical beeping)
Set it to pressure cook.
I'll increase my time to an hour and a half,
because I want 90 minutes.
So I'm using the Instant Pot to pressure cook,
because it'll rapidly convert the collagen into gelatin,
rather than slow cooking, which could take all night.
So I'll pressure cook this on high for 90 minutes,
then we'll be back.
So I've allowed these to pressure cook for 90 minutes,
and naturally depressurize.
(mechanical beeping)
So all of that really firm collagen has gelatinized,
and you can see in the wiggle in that
that it's gotten much more tender.
So at this point, I'll remove all these tendons
and chill them overnight to allow all that gelatin
to firm up so that I can put it
on a meat slicer and slice it super thin.
So after allowing these to chill overnight,
you can tell that the gelatin has set in these,
which'll allow it to be a lot more firm.
So when I get 'em on the meat slicer,
I can slice them extremely thin.
So let's get over and get 'em slicing.
So as you can see, the slices are coming
out extremely thin and translucent.
That's gonna give me 20 to 30 slices of tendon,
which is what I'm lookin' for,
'cause then I'll have a giant bowl
of a crunchy beef tendon snack.
So now that these have been sliced extremely thin,
I'm gonna get them dehydrating.
The thin slicing will help them
during the dehydration process.
So dehydration is a necessary step to making these puff.
You wanna get them dried to a crisp
before putting them in the deep fryer.
Notice how I've given these plenty of space between them.
That will help the air circulate
during the dehydration process.
So now I'll get these in here,
and I'll set the dehydrator to about 125 degrees Fahrenheit,
and let them dehydrate for around three hours.
What I'm looking for is a crisp, barely-translucent wafer.
They'll turn a little yellow and be firm,
but not completely brittle to the touch.
So my oil is preheated.
Just over 350, going up to 375 is the target temperature.
These have been dehydrating for just a touch
over three hours now, so I think they're done.
I've been checking 'em to make sure
that they've been going well.
And now, pull out one of the trays
of all these tendons here, and you can see
that they're extremely translucent.
They've got some flex to 'em, but they're not too brittle.
So they should be good to fry.
So I'll get out my handy kitchen tongs here,
and I'll go into the frying oil.
Now this'll happen real fast,
so you wanna keep an eye on 'em.
Look at that puff.
These tripled in size.
That's it.
(sizzling)
That's all you need; look at that.
You can hear it.
You hear it?
Hear the crackle?
This'll continue to crackle for a few minutes,
it's really interesting.
So I'm gonna keep goin' in for a few more.
So I like to just push 'em down, give 'em a dunk,
make sure that they're fully submerged in that oil.
You don't want any of that tendon
to kind of be undercooked,
because it's super chewy and gelatinous
and a little odd, so you wanna make sure
you get a full crisp on these.
The great thing is how fast they cook.
And I just keep chuckin' in here,
and they're gonna just keep poppin' up on me.
(sizzling)
I would throw enough in here just to fill it,
but I wouldn't wanna overcrowd it.
Like this is probably, I might be able to get one more,
but no more than that.
You don't want it too full.
Once they're fully puffed
and starting to float, they're done.
You don't wanna really let 'em go much longer.
So now that these are all fried,
we got 'em all puffed up, I'm gonna season 'em up
and I've got a special blend of seasoning here.
It's got some salt, some barbecue-type spices,
and then some powdered vinegar.
So the thing I like about this is that,
you get the acidic tang from the powdered vinegar,
but it won't make them soggy,
so you get like that salt and vinegar chip kind of flavor.
It's something that you can find online.
You can find these seasonings,
they're pretty regular nowadays as a culinary ingredient.
Get these onto a plate.
(crackling)
They're still crackling.
So there you go.
There's a puffed beef tendon.
It's a beef chip.
Beef chicharrón.
(loud crunching)
You can hear how crunchy they are.
The texture's amazing.
They look really cool.
They'd be a nice garnish or a vessel
for something like a dip, or any other snack.
Tell me in the comments how many
of you actually wanna try doing this.
Let us know what other tests you'd like to see us try,
and thanks for watching.
(upbeat music)