Why Should You Remove the Silver Skin from Meat?

Silver skin is easy to distinguish from fat: fat is matte and cream-colored and crumbles when pressed between your fingers; silver skin is shiny, looks pearly in the light, and resists stretching when pulled. Its fibers are the kind that do not break down during cooking, even during long, moist cooking. The connective tissue that turns into gelatin is found deeper in the meat; the surface layer of silver skin is not that type. That is why silver skin stays intact even in a stew cooked for hours and remains as a separate piece on the plate.

Silver skin is most often found on the outside of beef tenderloin, leg of lamb, beef eye of round and top round, and on the inner tenderloin beneath a chicken breast. The small tenderloin beneath a chicken breast has a white tendon of the same type; if it is not removed, it can be tough to chew. On cuts such as ribs and shank, the membrane is on the outside, along the bones. You can ask the butcher to sell it trimmed of silver skin, but many butcher counters do not do this, so you will probably need to trim it at home.

Use a sharp knife with a thin blade; a chef’s knife is too thick for this job. Lift one end of the silver skin enough to hold between your fingers, slide the knife at a shallow angle underneath it, and move the blade with the edge facing upward. If the blade is not pointed upward, it can cut into the meat underneath and increase the loss. Keep the silver skin taut with your other hand so the knife can move along it smoothly, and always move the blade away from the hand holding the skin. On a long piece of meat, remove the membrane in several strips rather than all at once; this is cleaner and wastes less meat. If the knife is dull, the silver skin will tear where you are holding it and you will have to start over repeatedly.

The trimmed silver skin does not have to be thrown away. Save it with any meat scraps still attached and add it to stock; it adds flavor during a long simmer, after which it can be strained out and discarded. Trimming it removes less meat than many people expect: with the right angle, the loss is only a few grams. If you skip trimming, the tough layer remains because silver skin cannot be fixed by cooking. The same rule applies to chicken breast: pull the tendon out by holding its end before pounding or butterflying the breast for schnitzel.

Silver skin does not always need to be removed. On a large cut that will be cooked slowly with moisture, if the membrane is on the outside, it can be separated easily while slicing the meat after cooking, so there is no need to remove it beforehand. Trimming is important for quick-cooking methods such as grilling, pan-cooking, and schnitzel, where the membrane can curl the meat and remain tough to chew. Another option is to leave the membrane on and make a few crosswise cuts. This reduces curling but does not remove the rubbery layer in each bite, so it is only a partial solution.