Why Marinate? And a Recipe. And News.
UPDATE: Chef friends have added info in the comments section. Check it out!
Before I launch into the purpose and science of marinades, two quick pieces of cool, Hungry Sam-oriented news. One, that only I and perhaps my blogger friends might consider interesting -- I'm getting up to 100 views on a couple of my semi-recent posts. Sweet.
Much more interesting: Someone sent a screenshot of my recent post RE: Candy Cane Tootsie Pops to the good people at Tootsie. Said people emailed me AND ARE SENDING ME SEVERAL BAGS OF THEM. WHAT NOW?!?!?!
This is awesome, wonderful news. (Also SUPER public relations. All my readers should go out and spend money on Tootsie products.)
Anyways, to the point: Marinades.
I'll admit, I have gone back and forth on marinades, particularly for meats. Often, I find it easier, faster, and nearly as good to use a good dry rub or some such. However, having decided the other night that I deserved a steak, I opted to whip up a quick marinade since I had tome on my hands anyways.
First, the recipe: For .6 lbs New York strip, I mixed 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup soy sauce, and pinches each of dried rosemary, garlic, and fresh ground ginger. I seasoned my beef in salt and pepper, threw it in a plastic bag with my marinade, and left it in the fridge for 4 hours, flipping whenever I thought to (maybe 3 times all told).
I grilled my steaks to rare on my Foreman grill, and boy, did they come out beautifully. Savory and well-flavored throughout, they had a perfect caramelized crusting on the exterior. Interior was that just-cooked texture, just-pink coloring that marks (in my opinion) a perfect rare steak.
Now, these particular New York strips had very little marbling of fat, which is often what makes an expensive steak tender, as fat breaks down quickly while cooking. Yet the steaks I cooked had that melt-on-your-tongue-like-a-pat-of-butter tenderness. Why?
The marinade. Chef's know this from experience, but from a chemical perspective, why do marinades tenderize as well as flavor...ize?
Basically, not all connective tissue in meat is created equal -- some breaks down during the cooking process at a faster rate or to a different degree than others. This is why cheap meats are best when cooked for a long time, such as in braising, and more expensive meats tend to have more fat marbled throughout, since fat breaks down VERY quickly when heat is applied. The goal of marinating is to help all the meat break down a little faster, leaving less tough meat remaining when it's cooked fast (as in grilling). Marinades do this by imbuing the meat with enzymes that themselves break down the connective tissue in meat, enzymes such as papain, found in ginger, garlic, papaya, pineapple, etc.
Things to remember when marinating:
- Contact is key -- the smaller the pieces of meat that are marinating, the better able the marinade is at getting in and tenderizing the interior of your meat.
- Marinating breaks down meat -- so don't marinate too long. The more fat (i.e. higher quality) the meat, particularly beef and lamb, the less time, generally speaking, you should marinate.
- Marinating can dry meat out -- so either cook quickly or in liquid after marinating.
beef, food thoughts, recipe, teaching moments
Reader Comments (5)
OMG re: Tootsie pops. BEST BLOGGING SWAG EVER.
I KNOW!!! I'm so excited. Also, you would really like my coworkers, including and particularly Anne, who is my Tootsie dealer.
Even the active ingredient in most meat tenderizers, papain, only works at oven temperatures, so you'd have to stew the meat to get it to work. The hallmark of a marinade is actually an acid, be it vinegar or citrus juice. Some people still insist that the acid in a marinade helps to break down connective tissue in the meat, and I think that's true at very long marinating times, but I doubt those collagen fibers are really breaking down in a couple hours. Nevertheless, they make meat TASTE good.
Interesting. That doesn't jive with my research on the subject, but that's not to say you're wrong.
Thanks for the input!
Howdy Sam! Mr. Munsen has come to share his two cents on the marination lowdow! First hurdle, the enzymes; While it's definitely true that the enzymes in fruits can be used to help tenderize a tough cut of meat, you do have to be careful which fruits you use. For example, pineapple contains, in addition to papain, an enzyme called bromelain, which works to break down connective tissue. Unfortunately, it also breaks down the basic protein structure of the meat, which if used for short periods of time will give even the toughest skirt steaks the soft, buttery consistency of a prime rib. If you leave it on for too long, however, the meat will basically fall apart and turn into something you just don't want to eat (think beef flavored toothpaste). To fix this, try simmering the pineapple juice or cooking the fruit itself before using it to marinate, since bromelain breaks down at fairly low temperatures (this is not an issue with canned pineapple products).
Acids and alcohol can also be used to break down connective tissue, but also work on the regular muscle tissue, causing it to essentially cook (see Seviche). If you're going to use an alcohol, beer works best (again more enzymes), especially dark beer with red meat, but wine can also be used. I find anything over 9% (18 proof) should be watered down to at least that level, in order to preserve the integrity of the meat.
In short, while marination can be used as an aid to tenderize meat, the reactivity of the effective enzymes and chemicals make it a most effective as a flavorizing technique as opposed to a tenderizer. For the most success turning a tough cut into a tender one, try manual methods. Cook it slow and low, or physically break up the connective tissue. To do this, either pick up a jicard or just take a grill fork to your cut and stab the heck out of it. For thinner cuts, use a meat tenderizer to cause some blunt force trauma. Don't worry, it's already dead so you're not going to hurt it.
Hope this helps, and give me a call the next time you're in the Upstate New York area, Sam! We'll do brunch.