TikTok Chicken Tendon Extraction Hack

Chicken breasts are a staple in my kitchen. Crispy, bathed in marinara and mozzarella sauce, poached in milk and herbs, I still cooked them. Normally setup is pretty easy (and by setup I mean remove them from the package). But there is one thing that is always painful: to remove these hard fibrous tendons.

You know what I mean: unsightly white things that only stick to the cup. Are you trying to cut them carefully, just to cut pieces of precious meat? Or are you just ignoring them, turning a blind eye to these nasty pieces?

As a lazy cook, I usually do the latter (dipping everything in breadcrumbs helps you forget that they're even there). But I also couldn't help seeing, first with skepticism and then with amazement, like TikTok user Mandy Klentz shared a brilliant tip

to extract them from chicken breasts in five flat seconds.

All you need is a fork and a towel (try a paper towel or something more solid, like a tea towel). Oh, and some chicken breasts.

It is so simple. All you have to do is slide the fork under the tendon at one end of the chicken breast, then use the fork to hold the chicken in place, grab the end of the tendon with a paper towel and pull to the top. In one glorious gesture, the chicken is released from its tendon sheath (sorry, coarse) and is ready to cook.

If more than four million views and 600,000 likes are proof, I am not the only one to find this miracle trick.

Don't believe me, give him a watch for yourself. Spicy chicken with orange and ginger, pork chops and any piccata you could want is waiting for you.

Erin Alexander is Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Food52, which covers pop culture, travel, internet food and everything related to sponsorship. Previously, in Men’s Journal, Men’s Fitness, Us Weekly and Hearst, he currently lives in New York.