Why we marinate

It's about imparting flavor, not tenderizing, and there are a gazillion ways to do it

May 22, 2013|By James P. DeWan, Special to Tribune Newspapers
  • Making marinades: Simply changing a marinade's ingredients can make the same steak or salmon fillet fit easily into virtually any cuisine.
Making marinades: Simply changing a marinade's ingredients can make the same steak or salmon fillet fit easily into virtually any cuisine. (Bill Hogan/Chicago Tribune)

OK, so I'm no Margaret Mead, but it seems to me that if one of humanity's oldest inclinations is to throw raw meat onto a fire, then its second oldest has to be to throw it first into a marinade.

With grilling season upon us, our grills are calling plaintively: Bring us meat! And don't forget to marinate it!

Why you need to learn this

No matter how much we love the simple flavor of grilled or roasted meat, we want to be able to nudge that flavor in different directions. Simply changing a marinade's ingredients can make the same steak or salmon fillet fit easily into virtually any cuisine.

The steps you take

Marination, in a nutshell, is placing something you want to eat into a liquid before you cook it. Its primary function is to add flavor. In the case of meat, many people also talk about marination as a means to tenderize tough cuts. That role is a distant second, though, and, as we'll discuss presently, not all that effective.

Also, don't confuse marination with brining. Brining is similar to marinating, but instead of soaking meat to enhance flavor, the salty brine uses osmosis to get more water into the meat, preventing it from getting dry while seasoning it from the inside out.

Marinades are easy to make and can enhance any solid food. Typically, they contain acid in the form of wine, fruit juice, vinegar, even yogurt, along with a bit of oil and any number of flavoring ingredients, from herbs and spices to raw or cooked vegetables. Animal proteins like meat and fish are obvious choices for marinating, but you also can marinate vegetables, fruit or, if you're meat-averse, tofu. Today we'll focus on meat, but bear in mind that any of the marinades we mention will also work beautifully on anything else.

As we mentioned, traditionally there have been two reasons for marinating meat: flavor and tenderness. Now, it's true that the acid in a marinade can break down tough connective tissue, but the marinade penetrates meat so slowly that it would take days for it to work its magic on larger cuts of meat. German sauerbraten, for example, is marinated up to a week or more.

And consider this: Herve This, the French physical chemist who has had an enormous influence on many contemporary chefs, noted in his book "Kitchen Mysteries" that "meat becomes tender in a marinade because, while it is protected from putrefaction, the muscular fibers age and protein aggregates are slowly dissociated, just as when butchers age meat in their special refrigerators."

Got it? Marinades don't really tenderize meat so much as they keep it from spoiling while it decomposes, naturally becoming more tender.

Happily, though, modern meat is pretty darn tender, much more tender than the meat consumed by our cave-dwelling ancestors. That's because the more use a muscle gets, the tougher it gets. That lean, mean mastodon that great-great-grand-uncle Thak chased across the tundra would have some pretty tough brisket, unlike the meat from our modern, overweight, hardly moving corn-fed cattle, which fairly melts in your mouth.

Even our chubby modern cows have some tough cuts, though, from muscles that get the most use. Although that meat can still be tenderized, we prefer doing it by cooking slowly to dissolve the connective tissue or grinding it up before cooking, like with burgers.

And that's why marination is primarily about flavor.

Now, there are gazillions of marinade recipes out there, and the thing to remember is our goal is to impart nice flavors to whatever we're cooking. Start with an acidic liquid, add a little bit of oil, then use your brain and your experience to inform your choices of flavoring ingredients. Make sure the ingredients go well together, and make sure you combine them in roughly the proportion that you would if you were making a sauce.

Be safe

Incidentally, many marinades can be made into a sauce or sauce base after use. Just make sure you boil them for a few minutes to kill any microscopic creatures left over from the raw meat you just removed.

5 quick marinades

Basic combinations to get you started:

1. Basic red wine marinade (meat or chicken): 1 cup red wine, 1/4 cup oil, 1/2 to 1 teaspoon each of various fresh or dried herbs (thyme, basil, rosemary, etc.), sliced onion and minced garlic to taste, a sprig of parsley.

2. Asian-style marinade (meat, fish, vegetables or tofu): 1/2 cup each soy sauce and water (straight soy can overpower the meat), plus 1 tablespoon each of sugar, minced garlic and ginger

3. Lemon marinade (meat, fish or vegetables): roughly equal parts lemon juice and olive oil, sweetened with a little honey or sugar or brown sugar, flavored with a little garlic and some black pepper

4. Lime marinade (meat, fish or vegetables): roughly equal parts lime juice and olive oil, minced garlic, minced cilantro, cumin and/or chili powder to taste

5. World's quickest marinade (meat, fish, vegetables or tofu): Your favorite bottled oil-and-vinegar-based salad dressing.

James P. DeWan is a culinary instructor at Kendall College in Chicago.

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Prep School columns by Kendall College culinary instructor James P. DeWan have been collected in an e-book. Get "Prep School: How to Improve Your Kitchen Skills and Cooking Techniques" by visiting chicagotribune.com/ebooks