I got this tenderizer mainly with eye of round in mind. Eye of round is economical, lean, the right size and shape to make good sandwich meat. It's tough, though. A way to really tenderize eye of round would be a wonderful thing, like turning a sow's ear into a silk purse. I have used this on boneless, skinless chicken breasts and it seems to work. On the breast and a couple cuts of beef, it seems to reduce the shrinking and warping that I normally see in the frying pan.-- the meat lies flatter on the pan. To me, it seems to matter very much to "Jacardize" the meat several times over. When I tried it on the one eye of round I have roasted so far, I Jacardized the roast from end to end about four or five times over. For those not familiar, this roast has the grain running from end to end so I was stabbing the tenderizer into the meat across the grain. The first pass over the roast, the Jaccard stuck in the meat despite the spring loaded dohickey. I had to pull the Jaccard back out. (Only for the eye of round, not for other meats.) The second pass, the Jaccard released from the meat much more easily. I assumed it was already tenderizing the flesh. I didn't have to pull the Jaccard out after the first or second pass. Was the meat tender after roasting? Yes and no. I fell asleep and overcooked it severely. It was much more tender than an overcooked eye of round ought to be. I think the tenderizer did it's work. I'm pretty sure it did. I cooked the roast dry, though. It was only salvageable by using it in soup. Bottom line is I'm pretty certain this thing works but I need to experiment more. Oh, and the comments others have made that it reduces cooking time; I concur. I concur that it keeps meats juicy, too. I Jaccarded a chicken breast, butterflied it, grilled it in a skillet in a flash and had a very juicy, tender sandwich of it. I don't understand using this on steaks or any cut where the knives of the tenderizer enter the meat WITH the grain. Only cutting across the grain makes sense to me and experiments so far have borne this out. I don't need this appliance for a chuck roast or a steak or pork chop. 1 Sept 2013. I've used the Jaccard several times now, in different ways, mostly for eye or round roasts. I've come to believe that Jaccarding several times over is more than necessary. One time, maybe two, from end to end, per side, does it. How many sides on an eye or round roast? It looks like three to me but when actually working with the meat, it's very difficult to use the Jaccard on three sides -- the meat is slightly wedge shaped and putting the pointy side down makes it too unstable to be jabbing it with the Jaccard. Therefore, an eye of round has two sides. Jaccard from end to end, turn it over and Jaccard the other side from end to end. That should be sufficient to make it cook faster, stay juicier, shrink less. The rule for eye of round is the closer to rare, the more tender. More cooking, more doneness means tougher, drier meat. They say don't go past medium rare. Medium rare, it would have an internal temperature of about 150 degrees. I screwed up again and somehow did not hear the alarm on my nifty digital in-oven thermometer. When I came to check the meat, the internal temp was 185. It had to be ruined, I was sure. It was not. After chilling it, Although it was not remotely rare or medium rare, it was still tender enough and just moist enough that I happily ate the entire roast as sandwich meat. I am certain the Jaccard treatment is the only reason that roast was not ruined by overcooking. Also, the meat was much firmer and easier to slice than the rare/medium rare I generally prefer.
