shred
Tear or cut into long, thin strips -- by hand for cooked meat like pulled chicken or pork, or with a grater or food processor for cheese and cabbage. Which approach is right follows from what the strands are for: meat wants coarse strands substantial enough to hold sauce and moisture, while cheese and cabbage want fine, separate ones.
How to do it
For cooked meat, let it rest about five minutes after cooking -- long enough to be comfortable and safe to handle, not so long that it cools and stiffens -- then pull it apart by hand or with two forks along the natural direction of the muscle fibers. Aim for coarse, roughly bite-sized strands rather than threads, since pieces with some substance hold onto moisture and texture. Run your fingers through the shredded pile once at the end, especially with anything bone-in, to catch stray cartilage or bone. For cabbage or a similar vegetable, create a stable flat surface first, then slice thin.
Common pitfalls
- Shredding meat that isn't cooked enough for it -- properly braised meat should pull apart with very little resistance.
- Pulverizing it into threads -- extremely fine shreds dry out fast and can turn mushy once sauce is mixed in.
- Leaving shredded meat exposed too long -- the huge surface area it now has loses moisture quickly.
- Shredding soft cheese while it's still warm -- it tends to smear rather than grate cleanly.
Why it works
Long, slow cooking makes meat shreddable largely because its connective tissue has softened and the collagen has converted into gelatin, while the muscle fibers themselves stay arranged in bundles that naturally pull apart along their length. Shredding dramatically increases the surface area exposed, which lets sauce and seasoning coat the meat effectively -- but it also speeds up moisture loss for the same reason, which is why shredded meat is usually mixed with some cooking liquid, sauce, or its own juices fairly soon after shredding.
Equipment
Hands give the best tactile control for most meat. Two forks work well while the food is still hot. For vegetables and cheese, a box grater offers a few size options, and the shredding disk on a food processor handles large quantities quickly. A mandoline produces very uniform vegetable strips, but the hand guard should always be used.