Meat mallet with interchangeable tenderizing surfaces

Abstract

A meat mallet for tenderizing and flattening meat with a handle, a neck and a head with interchangeable face plates. The face plates have a meat-engaging surface of varying patterns that can be flat, have outwardly projecting points of different sizes and shapes to accommodate meats having different connective tissues or other suitable tenderizing structure. The head has a partially hollow cavity that opens at a front end and stores the face plates in a nested configuration with the top-most plate being an in-use plate. The face plates have a perimeter support shoulder that facilitates the nesting configuration providing a perimeter support system while protecting the meat engaging surfaces of the face plates. A retainer ring has an inner threaded surface that threadedly engages an outer threaded surface of the front end of the head and allows the meat-engaging surface of the in-use plate to partially extend past the retainer ring to engage the subject meat.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present application is directed to a meat mallet for use in tenderizing and flattening meat during preliminary processing prior to cooking and consumption, and in particular to such a meat mallet having a head having a number of interchangeable and nestable face plates with a plurality of mini-tenderizing or flattening surfaces of varying sizes and shapes depending on type and quality of the meat. [0002] Meat hammer-type mallets have been used for many years to tenderize and flatten various raw meats such as pork, beef and chicken prior to cooking and consumption. Meat mallets are especially ideal for meats having an excessive amount of connective tissue or that are otherwise not of ideal or desired tenderness. Meat mallets have evolved over the years with early meat mallets configured similar to traditional hammers with a handle that is attached to a head having a fixed face or two fixed faces on either end. One such mallet even had three fixe...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0007] The principal objects and advantages of the present invention are: to provide a meat mallet, having a handle and a head with selectively interchangeable face plates, which provides a single meat mallet that can be used for different purposes and for tenderizing and / or flattening different meats; to provide such a meat mallet having different face plates with outwardly extending projections of various shapes and sizes and / or flattening surfaces to allow different face plates to accommodate different meats; to provide such a meat mallet having face plates with an outer perimeter or rim and a rearward projecting ring to rest on the rim of the next plate so as to enable nesting of the face plates while providing support and spacing to each respective outermost face plate so that it will not cause damage to the next plate not in use; to provide such a meat mallet having a bore or cavity producing or hollow head for receiving and storing the face plates directly behind a plate being used; to provide such a meat mallet with a handle that is ergonomic and manufactured of a material that is conducive to use; to provide such a meat mallet which can be manufactured at a low cost, which can then be marketed at a low cost, thereby making such a meat mallet economically available to the buying public; to provide such a meat mallet which is constructed of a material that is durable and is particularly well-suited for its intended purpose.

[0008] Other objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein are set forth, by way of illustration and example, certain embodiments of this invention.

[0009] The drawings constitute a part of this specification and include exemplary embodiments of the present invention and illustrate various objects and features thereof.

Problems solved by technology

While such fixed faced meat mallets are capable of tenderizing or flattening a particular type of meat, such are typically not suited for a wide variety of jobs and may be quite inefficient for certain purposes.

However, a single face with one configuration of sharp projections, or one with simply a flat face, is incompatible with the many types and qualities of meats.

In order to provide numerous heads, the prior art requires numerous mallets with many fixed heads that take up substantial counter and storage space.

However, this approach has also been deficient as the heads are fixed and more than two or three types of heads are required to provide for the range required by many cooks.

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