Alcohol with your meat?
Jul 6, 2010 | 8:17 am
#2
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I'll occasionally make a marinade for a whole ham that's a pineapple, brown sugar and Rum.
I'll use wine for lots of things from shrimp to duck to chiekcn to pork to beef.
I'll use wine for lots of things from shrimp to duck to chiekcn to pork to beef.
Jul 6, 2010 | 1:04 pm
#5
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My guess is that there's nothing alcohol does to dissolve the tough proteins in meat. Additionally, marinades generally don't penetrate more than the outer 1/8" of the cut.
See, for example:
http://www.amazingribs.com/recipes/r...marinades.html
See, for example:
Here's what the great Chef Thomas Keller says in his award winning The French Laundry Cookbook: "If your marinating anything with alcohol, cook the alcohol off first. Alcohol doesn't tenderize; cooking tenderizes. Alcohol in a marinade in effect cooks the exterior of the meat, preventing the meat from fully absorbing the flavors in the marinade. Raw alcohol itself doesn't do anything good to meat. So put your wine or spirit in a pan, add your aromatics, cook off the alcohol, let it cool, and then pour it over your meat. This way you have the richness of the fruit of the wine or Cognac or whatever you're using, but you don't have the chemical reaction of 'burning' the meat with alcohol or it's harsh raw flavor."
Jul 6, 2010 | 3:38 pm
#6
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Jul 6, 2010 | 5:24 pm
#8
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Never tried marinating in beer, but the New England tradition of "hot dogs steamed in beer" sure produces yummy results.
Jul 6, 2010 | 5:34 pm
#9
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We just found a recipe for peppercorn steak using Cabarnet Sauvignon that we're about to try, but the recipe does as the chef in the quote above says, and cooks off the alcohol before putting the sauce (probably a better term, but I don't know it) back on the steak.
Jul 8, 2010 | 11:39 am
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I like to use a little bourbon on pork chops or ribs after I coat them with a dry rub, which helps to dissolve the spices.
Jul 8, 2010 | 12:15 pm
#15
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Along these lines -- I make a glaze using bourbon, brown sugar and apple juice. I put the ribs in foil for the last 30 minutes on the smoker with this glaze and it really adds quite a bit to the finished product.