Be sure to discard the marinating liquid after use to eliminate the possibility of food-borne illness being transferred to the cooked food. Pounding works well for cutlets, chicken breasts, and scallopini. Place a thin cut of meat between two sheets of plastic wrap or wax paper. Using a meat mallet or the back of a large knife, pound up and down the meat until the texture loosens slightly. Pounding tenderizes by breaking down the fibers inside the meat.
Braising involves long, slow cooking in liquid under low to moderate heat.
Use braising when you want to get the most flavor out of an inexpensive piece of meat. Roux Roux, a mixture of melted fat and flour, is essential to the making of many sauces. The primary difficulty most cooks encounter with roux is a residual flour-y aftertaste. Be sure your flour is completely cooked before proceeding with the rest of the sauce. If your roux is still light yellow, it isn't ready.