Enhancing Food Flavors, Part 3
It is time to continue with my series on enhancing flavors of foods, and today’s entry is all about soaking your food before you cook it. There are more combinations of liquids that can be used to soak various foods than can be counted, but they come in three basic varieties: brines, marinades and pickling solutions. Each of these varieties has its own purpose and basic formula, which is dependent on the presence of acid and/or salt.
A basic brine is a water and salt solution, often with sugar added. The purpose behind a brine depends on how much salt is present. A moderate amount of salt will flavor the food that is soaking, as well as moiturize it, allowing for a much less dry finished food. Pork is a very good candidate for brining, as is a turkey, as they can dry out during the roasting process.
However, if you add a lot of salt, you actually change the process to one of preservation. If the final product is too salty to eat, then you know you have something that is intended for long term storage. Portuguese salted cod is a very good example of this; it is so salty, it needs to be soaked again in plain water prior to cooking, otherwise it is too salty to be tasty. Pork, too, has been salted for preservation, but more in the past than in the present. Before refrigeration was common, this was a necessary method of keeping food from going bad. However, it is not something you are likely to need or want to try at home today.
More common for preservation today is a pickling solution, also called a pickling brine. It is simply a brine with an acid added, typically vinegar. Because most bacteria cannot survive in a very acidic environment, this is a perfect method of preserving food in an enclosed environment, such as a mason jar. Jarred or canned goods can spoil VERY badly if not properly prepared, so please do not use this as a recipe for canning or jarring preserves, as there is a lot more to know about it before you try for the first time. Anaerobic bacteria, or the type that does not need air, is particularly sneaky, and can make things you thought were safe into something deadly. This is where the vinegar comes into play; it really reduces the risk, as both the acid and the salt inhibit the bacteria from multiplying.
The other side of pickling is that it can actually cook the items that are soaked in it. One of my favorite holiday treats is something called “Roll-mops”, or “roll-em-ups”, which are raw, pickled herring fillets, rolled up around a pickle. These delectable mouthfuls have never been cooked with heat, yet they are not raw, as the acid in the vinegar has cooked them. The advantage of this is that they are much more tender than if they had been cooked with a pan or oven.
The last variation of soaking, and the one I will be concentrating on, is marination, where a mild acidic solution is used to flavor and tenderize foods (usually meats) that are normally tough, bland, or some combination of the two. Compared to pickling solutions, marinades are quite mild acidically speaking, and contain no more salt than is necessary to season the food that is being marinated. The intent is more to flavor and tenderize than to preserve or fully cook the food; in fact, marinated food is supposed to be cooked after the marination process.
So what ingredients work well in a marinade? Well, the first thing to consider is the acid. Of course, vinegar is an option, and is very often used, but there are so many to choose from: balsamic, red wine, apple cider, malt, herb flavored — all are good, so match them to what you are marinating. (Also, prepared mustards work well, since they also contain vinegar.) The basic rule is: if it tastes good, then use it!
If you don’t want to use vinegar, then there are a lot of other options available to you: Fresh squeezed citrus (orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, etc.) are all excellent options. Red and white wine also offer enough acid to marinade all but the toughest foods. If you want something to really break down the toughest sinews, try your favorite cola drink (I don’t want to mention Coca-cola by name, because I might get the Pepsi people mad….oops!) This is one of my favorite marinades before barbecuing, as it makes the meat extremely tender, and the sweetness works very well with the barbecue sauce. Another liquid I like to use is soy sauce, which is really nice when preparing anything with an oriental flare to it. Finally, tomato-based marinades also offer enough acid to tenderize, which is why barbecue sauce by itself works very well as a marinade.
Again, the purpose of the acid is to break down the tough parts of the food, allowing for a quicker cooking process, and a more tender finished product. However, it is important to not overlook the opportunity to add a ton of flavor to the food as well. If you add a flavor carrier, such as an alcohol or an oil, you can infuse flavors of herbs, spices and other flavors (such as garlic and onion) to a depth that simply cannot be achieved by any other method of flavoring. I will not spend any time here giving you ideas of things to use, since the ingredients you can use are limited only by your imagination, budget and availability. You can go with anything sweet, salty, spicy or bitter, or any combination thereof, in addition to the sourness that comes from the acid. The beautiful thing about marinading is that there is almost nothing wrong that you can do; but when you DO hit a magical combination of ingredients, it is an amazing thing! Remember to try to contrast or complement flavors; either go for opposites (such as sweet and sour, sweet and spicy) or flavor that add more of the same element (apple cider vinegar with nutmeg and cinnamon and brown sugar). So, instead of me giving you MY favorite combinations (which I will save for another post!) I will ask you to add comments with your own!
So, how long should you marinate? Simply put, you need to look at three factors: the strength of the acid, the toughness of the food being marinated, and the thinness of the food being marinated. But a good rule of thumb is this: for vegetables and seafood, ten minutes is sufficient, and more is usually too much. Chicken and other poultry can be marinated for about an hour. Lastly, beef, pork and other red meats (okay, I know that pork is marketed as the “other” white meat, but let’s be serious: it’s a red meat), especially game, can be marinated for up to 24 hours. The exception to the above rule is a turkey: because of its sheer size, it can be marinated for about 24 hours, especially if it is at a very cool temperature.
The final thing I want to leave you with is the best way to store marinating foods. anything that is going to be marinated for an hour or more should not sit out in the open, and should be refrigerated. An open bowl is not always the most convenient, or even sanitary way to food, and there is always the danger of a spill. Also, a bowl, or any other vessel, tends to require a lot of marinade for the amount of food being soaked, so I likke to use sandwich bags with zip-lock seals. When you close the seal, you can force the air out of the bag, which achieves three benefits: 1) ALL the food is being marinated, as there is nothing sticking out of the liquid; 2) there is no food exposed to the air, which means less chance for spoiling; 3) You need less marinade for the amount of food being soaked. If I have a few of these bags, I store them in a jug rather than a bowl, as it takes up less room in the fridge, but if you want to use a bowl instead, that’s fine too.
I hope I have given you enough ideas to start your own marinating recipes. Again, if you hit on something you really like, please let us all know!
Yours in Good Taste,
Erik Christensen