Butterfly for Meat for Faster and More Even Cooking
Meat is muscle. For this reason, they are not perfectly symmetrical bricks. The various cuts may be teardrop-shaped, conical, or other asymmetrical shapes with a thick side and a thin side. But unfortunately, uneven shapes lead to uneven cooking. The thinner end of a chicken breast can heat up relatively quickly compared to the bulbous end, which can be almost two inches thick. Avoid partially overcooked, dried out, rubbery cuts of meat and try a technique called butterflying.
Butterflying is a simple method of altering a piece of meat by cutting it in half horizontally. You can cut it all the way this way and get two thin pieces, or try not to cut through the other side and open it up like a book. This serves to flatten the piece of meat and increase its surface area. Keep in mind that butterflying does not transform the meat into a perfect rectangle, but rather alters the extremely asymmetrical cut to give it a more uniform thickness. The butterfly’s flight provides a more even distribution of heat, but the increased surface area serves other functions as well. This allows for easier mashing or softening, full absorption of flavors during marinating, a more flexible and thinner roll material , and shorter cooking times.
How to butterfly cut a piece of meat
Butterflying a piece of meat takes a little getting used to at first, but once you’ve done it a few times, it’s easy, quick, and very rewarding. Make sure you have a sharp knife and a stable cutting board.
1. Place the meat on a cutting board.
For a long piece of meat, such as chicken breast, I usually place it so that the thickest side is on the right and the point of the breast is facing me. The goal is to cut through the thicker side first, we’ll leave the thinnest side connected so that it ends up reflecting the same overall thickness as the other sides. If you are left-handed, you can reverse the position. I’m right-handed, so the thick side will be on the right.
2. Start cutting
Place the knife on the middle of the thick side of the chicken, parallel to the cutting board, and slowly begin cutting through. It helps to hold the chicken with your non-dominant hand and also lift the top when you do the butterfly. This stabilizes the meat and also creates some tension in the flesh, making it easier to slice.
Again, do this slowly, watch your fingers, and periodically check where the knife is going. One of the easiest mistakes you can make is to quickly cut without checking and end up with one tiny piece and one big weird piece. One of the worst mistakes you can make is not checking the path of the knife and accidentally cutting yourself.
3. Stop at the cut to maintain an even thickness.
Continue cutting along the same cut and stop the cut about half an inch from the joining side. Now you can open it all the way like a book (the hinge side will look like the binding of a book). If you need two thin cuts, continue the cut to the other side.
For a proper butter chicken breast, the connecting side remains about the same thickness as the rest of the exposed chicken breast, so consider whether you should stop more or less than a half-inch from the thin side. Once you get more comfortable, you can even cut butterfly chicken breast and other thick cuts of meat into thirds, like unrolling a letter, to increase the surface area.
Butterfly flight is a useful technique that you can do on most boneless cuts of meat, as long as it’s thick enough and you have precise knife skills. Try butterfly steak, chicken thighs, pork or even shrimp. After this step, you can pound the chicken or other meat and stuff it with cheese and herbs or dried fruit and bread toppings for a smoother dish. Enjoy the quick preparation and marinate, roll or soften depending on stomach contents.