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.
