“What really sets one BBQ joint apart from another isn’t the way it’s cooked, it’s the way it’s seasoned.” Doug Worgul, Oklahoma Joe’s, Kansas City

These aren’t mine they are from AmazingRibs.com but I thought that they were great for a starter, there are TONS of helpful tips and tricks on brining and marinating and I got stung by linking so someone else’s website without saving the content and DOH!!! (shout out to Homer Simpson) the content was removed…

 

Memphis Dust Recipe

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Makes. About 3 cups. I typically use about 1 tablespoon per side of a slab of St. Louis cut ribs, and a bit less for baby backs. Store the extra in a zipper bag or a glass jar with a tight lid.

Takes. 15 minutes. 10 minutes to find everything and 5 minutes to dump them together.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup paprika
• 1/4 cup garlic powder
• 2 tablespoons ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons ground ginger powder
• 2 tablespoons onion powder
• 2 teaspoons rosemary powder

Method

1) Mix the ingredients thoroughly in a bowl. If the sugar is lumpy, crumble the lumps by hand or on the side of the bowl with a fork. If you store the rub in a tight jar, you can keep it for months. If it clumps just chop it up, or if you wish, spread it on a baking sheet and put it in a 250°F oven for 15 minutes to drive off moisture. No hotter or the sugar can burn.

2) If you have time, sprinkle on 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of table salt per pound of meat up to 12 hours in advance. Then a thin layer of oil just before cooking. For most meats, sprinkle just enough Meathead’s Memphis Dust on to color it. Not too thick, about 2 – 3 teaspoons per side of a slab depending on the size and your preference. For Memphis style ribs without a sauce, apply the rub thick enough to make a crunchy crust. To prevent contaminating your rub with uncooked meat juices, spoon out the proper amount before you start and seal the bottle for future use. Keep your powder dry. To prevent cross-contamination, one hand sprinkles on the rub and the other hand does the rubbing. Don’t put the hand that is rubbing into the powder.

 

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Recipe for Rendezvous-style Rub

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Makes. Makes a bit more than two cups, enough for about 12 pounds of ribs. You can keep in a jar for months.

Takes. 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 8 tablespoons American paprika
• 4 tablespoons powdered garlic
• 4 tablespoons mild chili powder
• 3 tablespoons ground black pepper
• 4 teaspoons whole yellow mustard seed
• 1 tablespoon crushed celery seed
• 1 tablespoon whole celery seed
• 1 tablespoon dried crushed oregano
• 1 tablespoon dried crushed thyme
• 1 tablespoon whole allspice seeds
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 tablespoon whole coriander seed
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon Accent

Method

1) Mix all the rub ingredients in a bowl, making sure to break up all lumps. Put it in an airtight jar.

2) Click here to learn how the Vous makes its mop and cooks its ribs in only 60 minutes!

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Big Bad Beef Rub

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“I adapted your brisket rub recipe this summmer to and my customers love it (8,000 pounds served in the past 6 months)! My brisket even won ‘best beef’ in the Sonoma County Harvest Fair this year (2010).” Larry Vito of BBQ Smokehouse in Sebastapol, CA

By Meathead Goldwyn

In Texas many barbecue joints use just plain old salt and pepper, called Dalmatian rub. But beef brisket can and BBQ beef ribs handle, and benefit from, a more potent mix. The rub creates a rich, flavorful, crunchy crust, called the bark or Mrs. Brown.

Beef rub is different than pork rub. Pork loves sweetness, but beef does not. The best pork rubs have of more sugar in them, like Meathead’s Memphis Dust. Black pepper, on the other hand, works great with beef.

You can make this recipe days or weeks in advance. It makes more than you need for even a large brisket, so you can just put it in a clean jar or zipper bag.

As background for this recipe, please read my article on the Science of Rubs.

A beef brisket flat with heavy rub, before (above) and after (below) cooking.

Recipe

Makes. About half a cup

Preparation time. About 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon granulated white sugar
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 2 teaspoons mustard powder
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons chili or ancho powder
• 1 teaspoon chipotle or cayenne powder

Method

1) Mix the ingredients together in a bowl. Store the rub in a tightly sealed bottle in a dark place. It will slowly start to decline in quality but should be fine up to a year later. Taste it first.

2) About the salt. Most foods, especially meats, need a bit of salt and this rub has no salt. Salt magnifies flavors and helps proteins retain moisture. When applied at home you normally use much less than in processed foods. So normally the first step is to salt the meat then apply the rub. But some meat is pre-salted. Meat that is labeled “enhanced” or “flavor enhanced” or “self-basting” or “basted” has been injected with a brine at the packing plant. Kosher meat has also been treated with salt at the plant. If you have meat that is already salted, then just apply the rub, no more salt.

If your meat has not been pre-salted, you should do it yourself. Unlike herbs and spices, the tiny NaCl molecule gets absorbed rapidly and penetrates deep with time. It also has electrical properties that help it move in. If possible salt the meat the night before. Read more about how salt interacts with meat in my article on wet brines. How much salt? About the same amount you would apply at the table. How much is that? Shoot for about 1/2 teaspoon per pound of meat and apply it heavier on thick spots. When possible, I like to apply the salt the day before, but even an hour or two is enough to get it moving inward, and the AmazingRibs.com science advisor Dr. Greg Blonder has shown that when the meat heats, the salt moves deeper and faster.

You can apply the rub in advance, some people like to apply it the night before, but the fact is, most molecules in the rub are too large to penetrate more than a fraction of an inch, just like marinades. And they don’t have the electrical properties that salt has. The rub is mostly a surface treeatment for flavor and bark. So you can apply the rub just before cooking if you wish. Moisture and oils will mix with the spices and herbs, heat will work its magic on them, and all will be wonderful. I like to put down a thin layer of oil before the rub because many of the flavors in the rub are oil soluble. Spread the rub generously on beef brisket, not so thick on other, thinner cuts.

Also, be aware that the drippings from a salted meat for use in a gravy or jus will probably not need salting, so be sure to taste before you add salt. Remember, you can always add salt, but you can’t take it away.

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Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow Crust

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“Late last night while we were all in bed, Mrs. O’Leary left a lantern in a the shed. Her cow kicked it over and winked her eye and said, There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight.” Anonymous

By Meathead Goldwyn

Catherine O’Leary was a humble Irish immigrant living on Chicago’s near Southside. Late in the night of Octover 8, 1871 her barn caught on fire, and the conflagration spread on the wings of high winds through thousands of wooden structures. More than 2,000 acres were destroyed and 90,000 were left homeless. The Chicago Tribune reported that the cause of the Great Chicago Fire was Catherine’s cow Daisy kicking over a lantern. Years later the story’s author admitted he made up the story, but Mrs. O’Leary’s cow continues to take the rap. So I have named this rub after her to help rehabilitate her rep.

This is specially formulated for beef roasts like prime rib, Baltimore pit beef, tri-tip, or tenderloin.

Most spice rubs are a mix of herbs and spices and we rub them into the meat before cooking. This rub starts out that way, but then we transform it into a thick paste. The idea is, by mixing them in water we can extract more flavors and get them into the little pits and cracks on the surface of the meat. Normally marinades and rubs don’t go very deep into the meat, but they can change the composition of the surface, and the use of water fills the microscopic gaps on the surface with flavor, and enhances browning and crust formation.

As background for this recipe, please read my article on the Science of Rubs.

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Beef Rub Recipe

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Makes. 5 tablespoons of dry rub, enough for a 10 pound roast.

Takes. 15 minutes.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons dried rosemary leaves
• 2 teaspoons dried thyme or oregano
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon American paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon chipotle or cayenne powder

About the rosemary. You can leave the leaves whole or break them a bit with your hands. I throw them into a mortar and pestle and crush them just a bit to release their flavors. If you have fresh, double the quantity and coarsely chop it.

About the chipotle. Don’t be a wuss. This is only 1/2 teaspoon for 10 pounds of meat, and it is all on the surface, not the interior. Like a viola, you don’t notice it, but take it out of the orchestra and something is missing.

Optional. Add 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish.

Method

1) Mix everything together in a bowl. Store in a jar for use later or proceed to the next step if you plan to use it now.

2) Dry brine the meat hours in advance. When it is time to use the rub, you can use it straight, or mix 1 part of the dry rub with 1 part water to make a paste.

3) Pat the meat dry with paper towels, pour the paste on and rub it in. You can cook right away.

 

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Simon & Garfunkel Spice Blend & Baste

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Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,

Remember me to one who lives there,

She once was a true love of mine.

Simon & Garfunkel

By Meathead Goldwyn

In 1966 Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel popularized their modified version of this haunting 16th Century English canticle on their album named “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme”. This is the first verse, and the rest of the song tells the tale of a soldier asking a favor of a friend who is going to Scarborough Fair.

The Fair was a large harvest season market on the east coast. The young swain asks the friend to find his old girlfriend and ask her, if she wishes to be his true love, to perform several impossible tasks, including the planting of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme on an acre of land she must plow with the horn of a lamb and then harvest the crop with a sickle of leather. The last two verses go like this:

Love imposes impossible tasks,

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,

Though not more than any heart asks,

And I must know she’s a true love of mine.

Dear, when thou has finished thy task,

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,

Come to me, my hand for to ask,

For thou then art a true love of mine.

This is one cocky dude, no? We do not know if he knew much about women (we think not), but he clearly knew something about cooking. Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme are said to represent bitterness, strength, faithfulness, and courage, and they also make a pretty good all purpose rub for pork, turkey, and chicken (click here for my recipe for Simon & Garfunkel Chicken). I also sprinkle it on grilled asparagus, sauted veggies, and even scrambled eggs.

I make up a batch of my Simon & Garfunkel Rub, store it for months, and sprinkle it on everything on sight, especially poultry. It goes on chicken, turkey, grilled potatoes, even on the outside of baked potatoes, grilled asparagus, in omelets, you name it. Let me know what you like it on.

As background for this recipe, please read my article on the Science of Rubs.

Recipe

Preparation time. 10 minutes

Makes. About 1/4 cup, enough for about 8 large whole chickens

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon dried crushed parsley
• 2 tablespoons dried crushed sage
• 1 tablespoon dried crushed rosemary
• 1 tablespoon dried crushed thyme
• 1 tablespoon dried crushed oregano
• 1 tablespoon dried crushed basil
• 1 tablespoon dried crushed bay leaf
• 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon sugar

Make a wet rub. Mix a tablespoon or two of this dry rub with the same amount of vegetable or olive oil an hour or so before cooking to make a wet rub. Use oil, not water, because most of the flavors are oil soluble, not water soluble.

Optional. At one time I had included 1 tablespoon dried crushed hot red pepper (cayenne or chipotle) in this recipe. I have removed it because I decided I like the recipe better without the heat. If you want a capsaicin jolt, go for it.

Method

1) Measure everything and dump it into a blender. Put the lid on the blender (very important), and run it on medium for a few seconds, turn it off, and run it again. Continue pulsing about until you have a powder. Dump the whole thing in a jar and label it.

2) How to use this stuff. Lightly coat your chicken or potatoes or asparagus or whatever with vegetable oil or olive oil, sprinkle on the rub liberally, even if you are a conservative. If time permits, let the seasoned meat sit in the fridge for an hour or three. The oil is important because many of the flavors in the herbs are oil soluble and the time in the fridge helps the flavor permeate. If the food has not been been brined, then sprinkle with salt. If it has been brined, then skip the salt.

3) Grill, smoke, or roast.

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Dolly’s Lamb Rub And Paste

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Dolly the lamb (July 5, 1996 to February 14, 2003) was the first cloned mammal. She was produced by Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell and other scientists at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, Scotland. Wilmut said “Dolly is derived from a mammary gland cell and we couldn’t think of a more impressive pair of glands than Dolly Parton’s”. So naturally I have to name my lamb rub after them.

Rosemary and garlic are the classic seasonings for lamb and mutton, with good reason. Forget the mint jelly, please. Now if you want to chop up a bit of fresh mint, go for it. But remember lamb is very much like beef, a hearty red meat. You wouldn’t put mint jelly on a roast beef would you?

Makes. Enough for a 6 pound shoulder or leg of lamb

Takes. About 10 minutes to prepare

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoon dried rosemary leaves, broken or crushed a bit by hand
• 1 tablespoon whole mustard seeds
• 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon ground bay leaves
• 10 cloves of garlic, peeled and pressed, or minced
• 6 tablespoons olive oil

About the bay leaves. These are usually sold whole, so you’ll need to grind them yourself in a spice grinder, blender, food processor, or coffee grinder.

Method

Mix everything together in a bowl and let it rest at room temp for about an hour so the oil can extract the flavors from the herbs and spices. Dry brine a leg of lamb, rack of lamb, or lamb shoulder a few hours before cooking time, overnight is better. You want the salt to have a chance to soak in and it won’t dissolve well in the presence of the oil-based paste. Then coat the lamb with the paste and you can cook right away

 

 

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Make Yer Own Signature American Chili Powder, Pahdna

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“You know how to make Mexican chili?” Stosh inquired. “Stick an ice cube up his keister.”From the novel I sailed with Magellan by Stuart Dybek

By Meathead Goldwyn

American chili powder (with an “i”) is to Southwestern American cuisine as curry powder is to Indian cuisine. Chili powder is an American spice blend made with ground chile peppers and other herbs and spices, and curry powder is also a blend of spices. Like curry powder, the actual blend can vary significantly from producer to producer. Both carry some heat, but there the resemblance ends. The flavors are very different.

The best American chili powders have multiple layers of heat and complexity that come from different kinds of chiles. It can be used in many recipes, from tacos to barbecue sauces, but it is the core of Chili Con Carne (chili with meat), the classic cowboy chuck wagon trail stew.

This is important, especially to readers in other countries: American chili powder is very differerent than chile powder (with an “e”) in Mexico and most other countries.

In most other countries, chile powder is simply ground hot red chiles, usually just one cultivar, but occasionally more, and it is much hotter than American chili powder. In Mexico, if you mix chile powder with other herbs and spices it is called salsa en polvo.

Here’s a simple recipe that beats the snot out of anything you can buy in a jar. It is a great opportunity for you to make your own signature spice blend. Want to add more garlic powder, I won’t stop you. Dried chipotle? Scotch bonnets? Why not?

Salt is almost always a large component of commercial American chili powder, but I have left it out. This way you can use it on brined meats without oversalting it. Remember, you can always add salt, but you can’t take it away. Click here to learn more about why you should not add salt to spice blends.

As background for this recipe, read my article, The Science of Chiles. Ancho is a dried poblano and is the backbone of most American chili powders because they are mild and have a unique raisiny/pruney/chocolatey flavor. Pasillas are dried chilaca and they area bit hotter that poblano, and chocolatey, but they are harder to find so if you can’t locate any, just add more ancho. Sweet paprika is made from very mild red peppers, similar to the bell peppers we use in salads. Alas, most of the paprika in the grocery has little flavor. Look for a high quality fresh Hungarian or Spanish paprika. Feel free to swap out the other chiles for your favorites. Just be careful not to go too hot. If you want more heat, you can always add it by mixing in 1/2 a teaspoon of chipotle powder. Chipotle is a dried smoked jalapeño and it is hotter than pasilla. The secret to award winning Chili Con Carne is a American chili powder that is complex and balanced.

You can buy powdered chiles, but the results are better if you grind them fresh. The size and weight of the average pod can vary significantly from store to store and from season to season. To help you plan, here are some conversions that are sorta average.

• 1 ancho weighs about 1/4 ounce before stemming and seeding, and makes about 1 tablespoon and 2 teaspoons
• 1 pasilla weighs about 1/4 ounce before stemming and seeding, and makes about 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon
• 1 guajillo weighs about 1/8 ounce before stemming and seeding, and makes about 2 teaspoons
• 1 chipotle weighs about 1/8 ounce before stemming and seeding, and makes about 2 teaspoons

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Signature American Chili Powder Recipe

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Preparation time. 40 minutes

Makes. About 1/3 cup

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 tablespoons ancho chile powder
• 1 teaspoon pasilla chile powder
• 1 teaspoon guajillo chile powder
• 1 teaspoon sweet American, Hungarian, or Spanish paprika
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teapoon cumin powder

Method

1) Cut off the tops of the chiles with scissors and shake out the seeds. Poke around in the chile with a knife to get the rest. With the scissors cut the chilis lengthwise into two halves, and then into chunks about 1″ square. Put them into a medium hot frying pan for about 2 minutes, then shake the pan to flip as many as possible and toast them for another 2 minutes. This brings out the flavorful oils, a process called blooming.

2) Grind the chunks in a spice grinder, coffee grinder, blender, or food processor. I usually use my coffee grinder, but if you do, remember to clean it thoroughly when you are done or you’ll spend the night on the couch (don’t ask me how I learned this). Let the cloud of dust settle in the grinder for several minutes before you remove the top or your cries of pain will be heard blocks away (don’t ask me how I learned this).

3) Pour all the powdered ingredients in a bowl or jar and stir them all together. The blend will still be useable for about a year, but the freshness and potency slowly declines

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Seasoned Salts & Pickle Salts

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“A wise woman puts a grain of sugar into everything she says to a man, and takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her.” Helen Rowland

By Meathead Goldwyn

Our dining table is always set with a pepper mill, a table salt shaker, and a small bowl with Seasoned Sea Salt. It is easy to make and the large grains really add a spark to potatoes, pastas, pizza, veggies, and just about everything else that needs salt. This blend also makes a nice rub for beef roasts.

But you don’t have to stick with my recipe. Feel free to create your own house blend with your favorite seasonings. Start with 1 part seasoning mix and add 6 to 10 parts large grain salt.

Another fun technique to make pickle salts. Just take pickle juices, dehydrate them in a dehydrator or by leaving them in a non-reactive pan to evaporate. Then scrape them up. You can use them like this, or grind them in a mortar and pestle, coffee grinder, or blender. Try making them from dill pickles, sauerkraut, pickled mushrooms, pickled peppers, onions, whatever you can find!

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup sea salt
• 2 teaspoons of dried herbs such as oregano, thyme, or rosemary, your choice, your blend
• 1/4 teaspoon powdered garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon powdered onion
• 1/4 teaspoon well-dried orange or lemon zest

About the sea salt. Technically all salt is sea salt since it all comes from the sea. But most salts labeled “sea salt” are large grain, and they dissolve more slowly. You can go to smallere grains such as kosher salt or table salt. If you do, because they are so concentrated, cut back on the herbs. But this is one of those recipes where you can adjust it to your taste. Click here to learn more about the different types of salt.

Method

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and store. We put it in a little pewter bowl on the dining table with a little tiny spoon. You can use it right away, but I find it is better after a week of aging so the aromatic herbs can penetrate the crystals.

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Ras El Hanout Spice Mix

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By Meathead Goldwyn

Ras el Hanout, which is Arabic for “head of the shop”, is a spice mix often used as a rub for meats, especially lamb and goat in North Africa and the Middle East. Every spice shop, every restaurant, every home has its own recipe, and it can contain dozens of ingredients. This version contains all the usual suspects. Some recipes use saffron and rose petals, but I think they will just get lost, and saffron is the most expensive food in the world.

It is also used as an ingredient in sauces and marinades, and to flavor rice or cous cous. Some say it is an aphrodesiac. Let me know if it works for you.

As background for this recipe, please read my article on the Science of Rubs.

Ras El Hanout Recipe

Makes. 1/3 cup

Preparation time. 5 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder (not garlic salt)
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 2 teaspoons ground cardamom seeds
• 2 teaspoons ground cayenne or chipotle pepper
• 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon turmeric

Optional. 1 teaspoon ground cubeb berries, hard to find, but its exotic licorice flavor really amps it up.

Method

Mix and store in an tight jar in a dark place. Before you use it, salt the meat, then put the spices in a small frying pan over a medium heat, no oil, and toast the mix for no longer than a minute. Turn off the heat the moment it becomes highly aromatic. Most of the spices are oil soluble, so lightly oil the meat before you sprinkle it on. Use it generously, but not thickly. It is great on grilled meat, but you can also use it on stew meat or braised meat if you brown it first.

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Chinese Five Spice Powder

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If you want to add an Asian accent to a dish, there are three ingredients, any one of which will do the job: Hoisin sauce, sesame oil, and five spice powder. Five Spice Powder is a blend of cinnamon, cloves, fennel, star anise, and Szechwan peppercorns. Some recipes also contain ginger, nutmeg, and licorice. If you don’t want to bother making your own, it is available in the spice or Asian section of better super markets, and Penzeys.com has a good one and so does AsianFoodGrocer.com.

As background for this recipe, please read my article on the Science of Rubs.

Basic Recipe

• 1 tablespoon cinnamon powder
• 1 tablespoon clove powder
• 1 tablespoon fennel seed powder
• 1 tablespoon Szechwan peppercorn powder
• 1 tablespoon star anice powder

 

Optional. Some commercial blends can’t count and add black pepper, ginger, nutmeg, and licorice. I usually add 1 teaspoon each of ginger and nutmeg.

Method

If you have only whole cloves, fennel seed, Szechwan peppercorns, or star anise, you can grind them in a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle. I use a coffee grinder. Whole seeds grind down to much less volume, so use about 1.5 times the quantity before grinding. In other words, if you don’t have fennel seed powder, start with 1 1/2 tablespoons of fennel seeds, and grind them to powder. You might need 2 tablespoons of star anise seeds to make 1 tablespoon of powder. You don’t have to be precise in making this blend.

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Poultry Seasoning

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By Meathead Goldwyn

This is an easy all-purpose spice mix for chicken, turkey, and even pork (pigs can fly, can’t they?). They sell it in bottles, but you can make it yourself easily, and modify the ingredients to your taste. Each bottler has its own proprietary mix, but sage is the main ingredient in all of them. Here’s my recipe.

As background for this recipe, please read my article on the Science of Rubs.

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons dried crumbled sage
• 1 tablespoon dried crumbled thyme
• 1 tablespoon dried crumbled marjoram
• 1 tablespoon dried rosemary, whole leaves
• 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon celery seeds
• 1/4 teaspoon cloves, powdered

Method

These can be dried storebought herbs. Mix them together in a spice grinder, coffee grinder, or mortar and pestle. Grind into a powder, and store in a tightly sealed glass bottle.

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Pickling Spice Recipe

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By Meathead Goldwyn

This is a versatile spice mix with just about every seed on the spice rack thrown in. It is used for pickles of all sorts, from cucumber pickles to pickled eggs, corned beef, even pickled pigs feet.

 

Foods are often simmered in pickling spices and water, such as pork chops, sauerbraten, New England boiled dinner, and corned beef and cabbage. You can use more or less of these ingredients to your taste.

Makes. About 3/4 cup

Preparation time. 10 minutes

Required

• 2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns
• 3 inches cinnamon sticks, total length
• 2 tablespoon dill seeds
• 1 tablespoon hot red pepper flakes
• 1 tablespoon mustard seeds, any color
• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds
• 1 tablespoon celery seeds
• 4 bay leaves
• 1 tablespoon dried thyme leaves
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons whole allspice berries
• 1 teaspoon whole cloves

Optional

• 1 tablespoon mace
• 1/2 teaspoon cardamom seeds (or 1 tablespoon pods)
• 1 tablespoon juniper berries
• 2 star anise pods

Method

Put the cinnamon sticks and peppercorns in a plastic bag and smash them with a meat tenderizer or a hammer. Crumble the bay leaves into flakes about 1/8″ size. Mix all the ingredients together and store in a tight jar

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Marietta’s Fish Rub

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“Don’t tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.” Mark Twain

By Meathead Goldwyn

In 2012 I had the pleasure of working closely with Marietta Sims. She has a great biography and serious culinary chops. She came in two days a week and tested recipes, offered great suggestions, prepped food for photography, and kept me in my place. We worked together for several weeks trying to perfect an herb blend for fish, with my ideas leading us down several wrong paths. She got this one on the right track and polished it highly. I’ve used it on a wide variety of fish since then and it works wonderfully. So I asked her to write about it:

“I have fished since I was a child. My Dad taught me how to fly fish and we caught flashing rainbow trout in cold mountain streams in the Rocky Mountains. We caught coho and steelhead salmon in Lake Michigan; walleye, bluegill, bass, and the elusive large Northern pike in the boundary waters of Minnesota. I have caught a bit of bounty from the ocean while aboard charter boats and catfish while cruising down the Mississippi river on a lazy afternoon in a houseboat. I have used everything from a piece of bacon on the end of a bamboo pole to chum while fishing with many lines attached to downriggers. I have dusted fish in corn flour and fried in bacon grease, cooked it in foil packets on a campfire, grilled, sautéd, baked, broiled, in stews both French and Italian.

“I don’t fish much anymore but I still love to eat it, so I go to a market where they carry a nice variety of very fresh fish. Most is frozen right on the fishing boats. It is thawed out at the store and placed in display cases or kept frozen and put in the freezer cases. Always check to be sure that on whole fresh fish the eyes are not sunken in or cloudy. Fish should smell fresh, like the ocean, and not that funky, fishy smell that makes so many people dislike fish. Gills should be bright red.”

If the fish isn’t perfectly fresh, submerge it in milk for an hour or two. It will pull out much of the funk. Whatever fish is your pleasure, this flavor enhancing herb mix is not the only fish rub in the ocean, but it is mighty good.

As background for this recipe, please read my article on the Science of Rubs.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon dried chives
• 1 tablespoon dried tarragon
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• 1 tablespoon dried chervil
• 1 tablespoon freshly ground dried green peppercorns
• 1 tablespoon dried lemon peel, ground
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder

 

About the peppercorns. If you can’t find green, you can substitute black. The taste is significantly different but it works fine.

About the herbs. This recipe calls for dried herbs so you can mix a batch and store it. You can use fresh, but they taste very different. Use 2 to 3 times as much fresh as dried because dried is more concentrated.

Method

1) Crush all the ingredients so they are about the same size. You can crush them in a mortar and pestle, or in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Combine all of the ingredients and store in a glass jar with a tight fitting lid. It will keep for a few months.

2) When ready to use, salt the both sides of the meat lightly. We want the salt to hit the moisture and dissolve and get sucked in. If you can, salt it at least an hour in advance. Now sprinkle the rub on the flesh side of the fish. For a filet about the size of a business envelope, use about 1 teaspoon. If you plan to eat the skin, season it too. Then oil the fish with olive oil. It will help dissolve the oil soluble flavors in the herbs. Cover, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

 

 

Pastes, wet rubs, and slathers

Pastes come in two classes: Water based and oil based. Most are just dry rubs mixed with water or oil. They have the advantage of sticking better and can be layered on thick. Most herbs and spices dissolve well in water. Oil has the advantage of helping keep food from sticking to the grates.

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Genovese Pesto

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“Italians were eating with a knife and fork when the French were still eating each other. The Medici family had to bring their Tuscan cooks up there so they could make something edible.” Mario Batali

By Meathead Goldwyn

Probably invented in Genova, Italy, where fragrant fields of basil grow abundantly, the aromatic herb leaves were originally made into a paste with a mortar and pestle, hence the name. Today we use the food processor or blender. Pesto is one of the world’s great and most versatile sauces, and making it is quick and dirty. It is a classic on pasta, but it also makes a superb spread on toast for a fresh tomato sandwich, a scoop into any spaghetti sauce brings it to life and adds depth, and toss some in with potatoes and go straight to heaven (click here for the recipe for pesto potatoes).

The quality of the ingredients in this recipe is crucial. Fresh basil is essential. High quality extra virgin olive oil is essential. Good Parmesan cheese, not the stuff from the green box, is also essential.

Pine nuts have become obscenely expensive in recent years, especially the good ones from italy, so you can substitute green pistaccios, sunflower seeds, unsalted cashews, and blanched skinless almonds if you wish.

As background for this recipe, read these articles, The Science of Herbs & Spices, The Science of Chiles, the Science of Garlic, and The Science of Salt.

Recipe

Makes. A bit more than 1 cup, and that’s a lot

Takes. 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 3 cups firmly packed fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
• 6 kalamata olives
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 3 large garlic cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon table salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

 

About the basil. A little Thai basil or mint instead of 1/2 cup of the basil adds depth and complexity, but don’t use a lot.

About the olives. You can use any type of olive, but green olives work best. Try not to use the canned, salt cured olives if you can get others. If you can’t find them, kalamatas, which are black, will do fine.

Method
1) Remove the seeds from the olives. Coarsely chop the garlic first because blenders and food processors often don’t do a good job on them.

2) Dump all the ingredients except the oil into a blender or food processor and let ‘er rip until everything is chopped fine, but not homogeneous.

3) Slowly drizzle in the oil while the blades are on a low setting until, presto, pesto, you have a paste. The fragrance is heavenly. It can be kept in a tight jar in the fridge for a week before it starts to brown. If you need to keep it longer, top it with olive oil as a seal. Or freeze it. It freezes very well

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Mayo with Mojo

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By Meathead Goldwyn

Talk about convenience. Mayonnaise is a condiment in practically every American fridge because it so conveniently moistens and flavors so many dishes. Mayo is simply an emulsion of oil and egg with a splash of lemon juice.

But one reason so many people prefer Miracle Whip (have you eve noticed that the world can be divided into two camps, mayo and Miracle Whip?), is because mayo can be a bit bland. In fact, when we make dishes with mayo, like potato salad, we usually add herbs and spices.

Mayo is a blank canvas on which you can paint a huge range flavors. There are infinite ways to make your own signature mayo and never have to break an egg. Here are a few blends to try. As background for this recipe, read these articles, The Science of Herbs & Spices, The Science of Chiles, the Science of Garlic, and The Science of Salt.

Mayo With Mojo

I’ve used this blend mostly in potato salad, deviled eggs, egg salad, and as a sandwich spread. It can also be slathered on fish, chicken, corn on the cob, or potatoes before you grill! It locks in moisture and crisps nicely. Click here for my recipe for Potatoes With Mojo.

Riff on this!

Make your own Mayo Mojo by mixing mayo with any of my rub recipes, with just a few drops of sesame oil (killer on chicken breast sammies), chipotle in adobo, whatever. Here are some ideas. There’s a lot of room for creativity!

• Anchovies
• Avocado
• Bacon
• Balsamic
• Basil
• Capers
• Charmoula
• Chili powder
• Chipotle in adobo
• Chipotle powder
• Chives
• Cilantro and lime
• Citrus juices and zest
• Curry
• Dijon mustard
• Garlic, raw or roasted
• Ground peppercorns
• Harissa
• Hoisin sauce
• Honey mustard
• Horseradish
• Mango chutney
• Olives
• Parmesan cheese
• Pesto
• Pickles
• Pickled peppers
• Roasted red bell peppers
• Salsa
• Sesame oil
• Sriracha
• Sundried tomatoes
• Thyme
• Wasabi

 

Makes. About 1.3 cups, enough for 3 pounds of Potatoes With Mojo

Takes. 15 minutes to mix, and at least 2 hours minimum to age.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons dried onion flakes, a.k.a. dried minced onion
• 1 tablespoon sweet red pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons celery leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1/3 cup distilled vinegar

 

Optional mix-in. I almost always add 2 teaspoons of sun dried tomatoes, minced fine. 1 pinch cayenne or other hot pepper flakes. That’s the red flakes in the photo above.

About the onions. Don’t use powdered onion. Go for those little onion chips. They have been de-fanged. They have a nice concentrated flavor without the bite. I often add fresh onions to my egg salad and potato salad. They add a different dimension.

About the celery leaves. You can use 1/2 teaspoon celery seed instead.

About the garlic. Just because there’s onion, doesn’t mean there has to be garlic. Resist the temptation.

Method

1) Mix all the spices in a small bowl. Now mix the spice mix with the mayonnaise and the vinegar and let it sit in the fridge for at least 2 hours. This is crucial. The flavors in the mix are oil soluble and mayo is 70 to 80% oil. In those 2 hours the flavors will work their way into the mayo and the dried flakes and seeds will suck in the mayo and soften.

2) You can now use the mayo as a sandwich spread, in potato salad, egg salad, tuna salad, whateverrrr. Try this: Spread it on skinless chicken breasts or mild white fish, and grill.

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Chipotle Mayo

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Try this on chicken salad.

Ingredients

• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons of liquid from a can of chipotle in adobo sauce or more to your taste

About the chipotle in adobo. Try to find it. Once you open the can you can put the rest in a jar and it will keep for months in the fridge. If you can’t find it, try Sriracha, a garlicy Asian style hot sauce.

Method

Just blend the two in a bowl with a fork.

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Harissa Hot Pepper Paste Recipe

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By Meathead Goldwyn

Harissa [hah-REE-suh] has become my favorite hot sauce. I use it on everything from fajitas to stews, soups, couscous, fish, and meats. It’s great mixed in mayo, ketchup, and barbecue sauce. Use it full strength or thin it with olive oil. So versatile. So good.

Here you see store-bought red harissa from a can, and my home made, from home-smoked jalapeños and pablanos. Most of my home-grown chilis were green, so the color is greener than the commercial harissa, but I think you can tell from the picture which version my guests liked best.

Here’s a bowl of my smoked jalapeños. They are made by simply cutting fresh home-grown green jalapeños in half, discarding the stems and seeds (why does this expression sound familiar?), and smoking at about 200°F until dry, but still pliable. Keep the temp under 212°F, boiling temp, in order to dehydrate rather than roast.

Beware of double salt jeopardy!

Rubs and spice blends are a great way to add flavor to meat. Rubs almost always contain salt because salt amps up flavor and helps form a crust (click here to read about The Science of Salt). Brines are also a great way to add flavor as well as moisture (click here to read about The Science of Brines). Meat that is labeled “enhanced” or “flavor enhanced” or “self-basting” or “basted” has been injected with a brine at the packing plant. Kosher meat has also been treated with salt at the plant. You can use a rub on brined or kosher meats, but beware of double salt jeopardy. A salty rub on top of brined or kosher meat can make it unbearably salty. If you use brined or kosher meat and then a rub, you should make your own rub and leave the salt out of the blend. Also, be aware that the drippings from a brined meat or a meat rubbed with a salty spice blend will probably not need salting, so if you make a gravy from drippings, be sure to taste before you add salt. Remember, you can always add salt, but you can’t take it away.

If made properly, it is a very deep, rich, complex paste, much more interesting than any bottled hot sauce. You can buy it in cans, jars, and even tubes, but it is easy to make.

The ancient recipe may be from North African, or the Middle East, or maybe even Albania, and there is no single definitive recipe. A few years ago, harissa was unknown in the US except in Middle Eastern and North African communities. Nowadays it is hard to pick up a cooking mag without reading a recipe that calls for it.

As background for this recipe, read these articles, The Science of Herbs & Spices, The Science of Chiles, the Science of Garlic, and The Science of Salt.

Recipe

Makes. 2 cups

Preparation time. 30 minutes to soak the chilis, and 20 minutes to assemble the rest

Ingredients

• 1 roasted red bell pepper, with the skin removed
• 2 ounces ancho chiles (dried poblanos)
• 2 ounces chipotle chiles (dried and smoked jalapeños)
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground caraway seed
• 1 teaspoon Morton’s kosher salt
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

 

About the peppers. Smoked red jalapeños are called chipotles, and can be bought dried or in a can with a sauce called adobo. You can use either. Anchos are usually only available in dried form. Chipotles and anchos are easy to find in any store that serves a Latino community, or online. You can even use any other hot chili that you want.

Method

1) Cut the bell peppers in half and grill them over high heat until the skin blackens. Put them in a bowl and cover for about 10 minutes. The steam will make peeling the skin easier. When they cool, peel or scrape off the skin with a serrated knife. Don’t worry if you don’t get it all off.

2) Wear gloves and break off the stems of the dried anchos and chipotles and trash them. Cut them open, scrape out the seeds, and trash them too. Put the rest in a bowl and cover with boiling water for 30 minutes, then drain.

3) Blend everything in a food processor. Taste and adjust as you see fit. Don’t be afraid to add more oil if it is too thick, but be careful with the lemon juice. Add enough to brighten the flavor, but too much can happen fast. Put it in a jar and refrigerate.

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Charming Charmoula Herb Paste

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By Meathead Goldwyn

Charmoula (a.k.a. chermoula) is an all-purpose North African herb paste used as a marinade, sauce, relish, dip, and spread. It can be used as a sauce for meat or couscous or pasta, or as a spread on pita bread, or as a marinade. There are many different ways to prepare charmoula. Some are raw, some cooked, some coarsely chopped, some pureed.

There are five components to charmoula: olive oil, greens (usually cilantro or flat leaf parsley), acid (lemon juice or vinegar), aromatics (garlic, onions, shallots, leeks), and spices (such as ras el hanout).

As background for this recipe, read these articles, The Science of Herbs & Spices, The Science of Chiles, the Science of Garlic, and The Science of Salt.

Makes. 1 1/2 cups

Preparation time. 30 minutes

Ingredients

• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 2 large lemons)
• 3/4 cup olive oil
• 1 cup cilantro leaves and flat leaf parsley, de-veined and lightly packed
• 6 cloves crushed garlic
• 1 teaspoon ras el hanout
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

About the cilantro and parsley. That’s 1 cup total, your call on how much of each. If you can’t find flat leaf parsley or cilantro, you can use basil, mint, other parsleys, and other mild herbs.

Method

1) Scrape off the zest of one of the lemons, just the thin yellow exterior, trying to not get the white pith, and add it to a bowl.

2) Cut the lemons in half and squeeze out the juice into a separate bowl. Then strain it into the bowl with the zest.

3) Chop the greens finely and add to the bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl and stir. If you wish, you can add the whole thing to a food processor and puree it until smooth

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Marinades, Brines, Injections

Salting and Brining: Flavorize, Moisturize and Tenderize

“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.” Isak Dinesen

By Meathead Goldwyn

If you like your meat juicy, tender, and flavorful, there is one simple ingredient that can improve all three: Salt.

A revelation: Brines don’t go far until heated

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Research by the AmazingRibs.com science advisor Dr. Greg Blonder on brines is fascinating. He took a pork loin about 3″ in diameter and submerged it in a strong brine, colored it with a dye, and refrigerated it for an hour. As you can see, the brine penetrated only 2 mm, a bit more than 1/16″. It didn’t pull the larger dye molecules past the surface. And the weight of the meat increased very little. His tests of less concentrated brines produced even less penetration and weight gain.

So then he decided to see how penetration would be impacted by time using a milder brine, like the type cooks use. So he took a 12″ long section of pork loin and soaked it in a 6% brine for 24 hours in the fridge. Periodically he lopped off a cross section and treated it with an indicator. detects the Cl part of NaCl. Here’s how far the salt penetrated:

30 minutes: 3-4 mm (just more than 1/10″)

1 hour: 5-6 mm (just under 1/4″)

2 hours: 7 mm (just over 1/4″)

4 hours: 10 mm (2/5″)

8 hours: 13 mm (1/2″)

24 hours: 17 mm (2/3″)

That’s right, after 24 hours the salt still hadn’t traveled 1″ deep in the pork. Now that actual penetration can vary on different meats. Chicken is more porous and it will probably penetrate further, and fish more porous still. But you get the picture. When you brine, the salt remains pretty close to the surface, and this is good because it binds water and helps combat overcooking in the zone that overcooks most easily.

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Another revelation: Brines penetrate during low temp cooking

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He then took a pork loin and rubbed it with a high concentration of a curing salt, a salt with an additive that would react with a chemical he put on some coffee filters. It sat for an hour in the fridge. He washed it off and cooked it at 230°F. When the internal temp hit 100°F he cut off a slice, applied the filter paper, and you can see the result below, a nice thin pink kiss. As the internal temp rose, you can see that the salt migrated further and further inward, far faster than it does when simply soaking in brine, forming thicker kisses.

“Brine diffusion is an exponential process with the most dramatic movement early on. This is why a 30 minute soak is nearly as effective as a two hour soak. More penetration takes place during cooking than during the brining process because the heat excites the sodium chloride ions ” says the scientist.

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Yet another revelation: Osmosis plays little role in the process

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Almost all the cookbooks tell us that salt is pulled out of the brine and into the meat by osmosis, a well known phenomenon we all learned about in high school when we were not napping and passing notes. Osmosis plays a role, says the AmazingRibs.com science advisor Dr. Greg Blonder, but it is of far less importance than another process, diffusion, and in some cases osmosis can even be a hindrance.

I asked him to explain the difference between osmosis and diffusion, and here is the metaphor he used.

Imagine that the other night you had dinner at a nice restaurant where you ordered a wonderful garlic shrimp entree. You couldn’t finish it so they put the leftovers in a plastic doggie bag for you. When you got home you put the bag in the fridge. Before bed, when you had your milk and cookies, the fridge smelled fine. But the next morning, as you grab the milk for your cereal, the fridge had a faint scent of garlic shrimp. Later that day night the scent was stronger, and it got stronger the next day. After a while the smell even got into your milk. That’s because the scent molecules could get through the semi-permeable plastic bag and the plastic milk bottle. This is sort of what is happening with osmosis, vastly simplified. Molecules in a highly concentrated solution bust through a semi-permeable membrane to get into a less concentrated solution until the two reach equilibrium.

Now imagine that for some inexplicable reason you decide to eat the shrimp after a few days. When you open the bag the odors, no longer blocked by the plastic bag, waft quickly from one end of the room to the other. That is like diffusion, and that is how most of the salt in a brine enters meat (it is really air currents that move odor molecules, but this is a metaphor and not a physics test).

That lean pork loin chop you are brining is not wrapped in a plastic bag. True, the meat cells are encased by membranes which are semi-permeable, but they are not simply packed together in a dense and unavoidable phalanx. Salt gets into the meat simply by going through wide open pores, sliced muscle fibers, capillaries, intracellular myowater and other channels which allow the saline solution to march inward much more quickly and efficiently than by osmosis. The osmosis is simply outflanked.

Now that doesn’t mean there is no osmosis at work at all, says Blonder. “In the early stages of brining, salt ions do leapfrog from cell membrane to cell membrane. Inside the cell they encounter water and other large molecules, and the fluids are already about 0.1% salt. The larger molecules can’t leave through the cell wall so as the salt enters the internal pressure rises like a balloon. Eventually, the osmotic pressure gets so high the salt ions are either pushed back out as fast as they enter, or the cell ruptures. In other words, the amount of osmosis in small and osmotic pressure sometimes opposes the diffusive motion of ions from the surface into the meat.”

Blonder can only speculate why conventional wisdom says that osmotic pressure is the driving force. “Perhaps this is because because the word ‘pressure’ sounds, well, so forceful compared to random, aimless diffusion.”

For more technical discussion on the topic, read Blonder’s article on brines on his website. For more on osmosis, click this link to visit a college website that explains it in detail with cool animations.

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Brining vs. pickling vs. curing

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There are two other variations on the theme of brining: Pickling and curing.

Pickling is a brine that is higher concentration and it is strong enough that it can discourage microbial growth and preserve the food. Pickling brines often include sugar, spices, vinegar, and the soak can last for a wek or more because it can take that long for some of the larger molecules to dissolve and enter the meat. Obvious examples are pickled cucumbers. Click here to read more about pickling and the different types of pickles.

Curing is a high concentration brine for meats that usually includes a salt with nitrites. Nitrites are effective in killing the stubborn botulism bacterium. Like pickling, curing often lasts days, even weeks, and can include sugar and spice and everything nice. Curing can be done wet, with the salt dissolved in watere, or dry, just applied to the surface. Because the salt content is so high dry curing can dehydrate the meat. A classic example is bacon or corned beef. Click here to learn more about nitrites and nitrates.

Salt, which is another name for the mineral sodium chloride (NaCl), is probably the oldest way to flavor food and essential to all living things (click here to learn more about The Science of Salt and the different types of salt). Our bodies require salt, and the only way to get it is to ingest it.

Here’s how salting and brining can significantly improve your cooking, how to make wet brines, and how to use them. I’ll even throw in a little mythbusting and some cool science about how salting works.

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Salt and juiciness

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When we are cooking meat, a significant amount of water evaporates from the surface and some is squeezed out by cells and connective tissues that contract under heat. Lean cuts, like chicken breasts, turkey breasts, or pork loins can dry out easily when heat is applied, especially if you overcook them the tiniest bit. So you are faced with the problem of how to heat these meats to proper temps without making shoe leather. Surprisingly, salt can help.

Meat proteins are complex, long, and coiled. When sodium and chloride ions get into the muscles, the electrical charges mess with the proteins, especially myosin, so they can hold onto moisture more tenaciously. As a result, less is lost during cooking.

When my favorite food mag, Cook’s Illustrated did a test, they discovered that a chicken soaked in plain water and another soaked in a brine both gained about 6% by weight. When they cooked both as well as an unsoaked bird straight from the package, the chicken straight from the package lost 18% of its original weight, the chicken soaked in water lost 12% of its pre-soak weight, and the brined chicken lost only 7% of its pre-soaked weight. Add to that the 6% water gain of the brined bird, and you have a hen that is 11% more juicy than straight out of the package.

The problem is, if you have ever brined meat, the osmotic pressure in a brine actually draws meat juices out. That’s why a clear brine turns milky in a short time. These meat flavored juices are replaced by salt water. Worst trade since the Saints swapped eight draft picks for Ricky Williams in 1999.

According to research the AmazingRibs.com science advisor Dr. Greg Blonder conducted for us, the brine and the moisture it retains are concentrated near the surface unless the meat is brined for a long time (see below right).

This counteracts one of the biggest problems of cooking. The meat on the surface is hotter and is almost always overcooked and dry by the time the center is properly cooked. The added moisture near the surface helps the area that needs the most help.

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Salt and tenderness

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Salt and flavor

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Salt is a flavor amplifier, it suppresses the impression of bitterness, and it actually expands your taste buds. Many of us sprinkle salt on meat when it is served because it just makes meat taste better. Brining helps bring the benefits of salt to every bite, not just the surface.

On the other hand, and there is always another hand, too much salt can make food unpleasant. So the trick is to not make the brine too salty and not leave the meat in too long. Overbrining is just as bad as overcooking. If you overbrine, you then are, essentially, pickling or curing the meat. That’s how corned beef is made, soaking beef brisket in salt and flavored water for a week or more.

Many brines also include sugar and spices, but few of them penetrate very far in the short times usually involved, like a few hours. The molecules are just too large and many do not dissolve in water. Instead, they stick to the surface much like a dry rub. Yes, if you soak in a sweet and spicy brine for days, some can work their way in, but that is closer to pickling, and the rate of ingress is very slow. Sugar, for example, can dissolve and move inward, but it takes days since their molecules are so large.

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Sugar in the brine

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Although sugar molecules take days to penetrate meat, adding sugar to a wet brine in about the same quantity as the salt, does have some benefits. According to the AmazingRibs.com science advisor Dr. Greg Blonder, sugar sticks to the surface and aids in the browning by speeding up the Maillard reaction, especially at lower temps. “Without absorbed sugar working in tandem with muscle protein, you would have to overcook a porkchop by hours to provide enough time for browning to occur.”

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How to bring salt to the game

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Brines do not penetrate very far in short periods, the rate of penetration slows with time, but, surprisingly, speeds up during cooking (see sidebar).

There are several techniques that you can use to bring the benefits of salt to meat: Wet brining, marinating, dry brining, and injecting. This page will focus on wet brining. Click the links below for more on the other techniques.

Wet brining. Somewhere back in time, a primordial hunter felled a dear and it tumbled off a cliff into the ocean. By the time he and his buddies clambered down to the beach and pulled the waterlogged carcass up on shore it had soaked in the seawater, a brine about 4% salt, for several hours. They butchered it and schlepped the salted meat back to the camp where the women waited with a wood fire smoldering (yes, the first pitmasters were women). Dinner that night was memorable.

You can replicate the process by following the wet brine recipes here. But I’ve gotta tell you, I no longer wet brine anything. It is a lot of work, a waste of ingredients, and it just dilutes the meat flavor.

Marinating. Another solution (get it?) is to soak the meat in a flavorful marinade. Add salt to your marinade, and you have a brinerade. Read my article on marinades for more on the subject.

Dry brining. I prefer dry brining to wet brining. Dry brining is simply sprinkling dry salt on the meat in advance of cooking. The salt absorbs moisture from the meat which dissolves the salt (NaCl) into sodium (Na) and chloride (Cl) ions. They then penetrate the meat and work their way towards the center.

The good news is you know exactly how much salt was added and diffused into the meat, it requires less space, and uses much less salt. This is a matter of guess work in a wet brine. The bad news is that it is hard to be sure the salt got into every nook and cranny uniformly. A problem with a turkey, less of an issue on a steak. Read my article on dry brining for more on the subject.

Rubs. Another form of dry brining is to apply a spice rub and salt a few hours before cooking or even a day in advance. It is a good strategy to work the rubs under the skin of chicken and turkey.

Injecting. Another effective method is to inject meats with brine, broth, even butter, or another flavorful fluid. If you do it right, you can add moisture and flavor. If you do it wrong your meat tastes totally weird, or you get pockets of liquid and hunks of dry meat.

Commercial meat packers inject brines into turkey, chicken, fish, and pork with rows of tiny needles like the ones at right from a Ruhl Brine Injector. These systems drive the brine deep, there is no waste, and it is fast.

Nowadays it is getting hard to find chicken or turkey that has not been pumped up with a brine. Injection is faster than soaking in a brine and also means processors can inflate the weight by 10% or so and charge the same for salt water as they do for muscle. Meat that is labeled “enhanced” or “flavor enhanced” or “self-basting” or “basted” has been injected with a salt solution at the packing plant. Kosher meat has also been treated with salt at the plant. Do not brine these meats. You risk making them too salty.

Injecting has become omnipresent on the barbecue competition circuit. Almost everyone does it. Read my article on injecting for more on the subject.

If you are interested in the process from a commercial standpoint, here is an article from the book Cooking by Hand by Paul Bertolli.

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What to brine

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Wet brining works best on salmon, chicken breasts, turkey breasts, and pork loin chops. Chicken thighs, turkey thighs, other cuts of pork, and white flaky fish usually are moist enough from fat that they don’t need wet brines. I never wet brine red meats unless I am making corned beef. The added water tends to dilute their rich flavor. And beware, wet brines can make poultry skin soggy and harder to crisp.

Lately I dry brine almost all my meats including all my steaks and chops, both beef and lamb, as well as many veggies. They almost all can benefit from the flavor boost and water retaining properties of salt. And dry brining helps poultry skin crisp while wet brining softens it. Dry brining is as simple as putting salt on the food and tossing it in the fridge for an hour or so.

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Beware of skin and fat caps

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Wet brining is a good method, but keep in mind, chicken and turkey skin is more than half fat, loosely attached to the meat, and a semipermeable barrier that blocks some but not all salt penetration at first. Blonder says that “When you brine a skin-on poultry, little moisture or salt makes it past the skin into the meat because it is high in fat. But, the skin will absorb salt, and in the oven, release the salt into the meat”. See the sidebar “Another revelation: Brines penetrate during low temp cooking” for more on this fascinating mechanism.

Some other meats have a fat cap which is thick enough to block salt penetration. If there is skin or fat cap, the wet brine will enter and penetrate the nonskin side more easily.

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Beware of double salt jeopardy

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Rubs and spice blends are a great way to add flavor to meat. But rubs almost always contain salt because it amps up flavor and helps form a crust. You can use a rub on home-brined or factory-brined meats, but beware of double salt jeopardy. A salty rub on top of brined meat can make it unbearably salty. If you use brined meat or kosher meat and then a rub, you should make your own rub and leave the salt out of the blend. That’s why I leave salt out of several of my rub recipes like Simon & Garfunkel Rub which is formulated for for chicken and turkey. This way you can dry or wet brine and use the rub without oversalting.

Also, remember that the drippings from a brined meat will be slightly salty, so if you make a gravy from drippings, be sure to taste before you add salt. Remember, you can always add salt, but you can’t take it away.

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Making a wet brine

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Most wet brines are 5 to 10% salt by weight. The typical cookbook brine recipe calls for 1 cup of table salt to 1 gallon of water for a 7.7% brine by weight.

The problem is that there are different types of salt: Table salt, kosher salt, pickling salt, sea salt, etc. Some experts recommend you not make a brine from table salt because it has small quantities of other compounds such as iodine mixed in, but I think too much is made of this. I can’t tell the difference in taste in the cooked food and the iodine is said to be needed by humans. So I say good old table salt will do.

But the size and shape of the grains is different for each type which means the air spaces between each grain is different which means that the actual amount of salt by weight can vary drastically from one type to another if you measure by volume. For example, one tablespoon of table salt has almost twice as much NaCl as one tablespoon of kosher salt.

Furthermore, if you mix a cup of water with a cup of table salt, you don’t get two cups because of the air in the salt. You get more like 1.75 cups. If you use Morton’s kosher salt you get more like 1.5 cups because there is more air. Read my article on the Science of Salt for more info about different salts.

But a pound of any of these salts contains the same amount of NaCl. For that reason, salt is best measured by weight, not volume. When you are making a brine, go by weight and you’ll never go wrong. At this juncture, permit me to recommend my favorite new toy, the OXO Good Grips Scale with Pull-Out Display. It is also valuable for measuring flour, sugar, chopped onions, and other foods which also have the problem of airspaces that make it difficult to measure by volume.

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The Simple Blonder Brine (6.4%)

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This is my standard simple all purpose brine for everything except salmon. For salmon I have a different recipe. I know all the cookbooks and websites throw all kind of goodies in their brines, like apple juice, pepper, garlic, and more. But even if you soak pork, poultry, or other meats overnight very few of these large molecules get past the surface. A few may stick to the exterior, but all the rest go down the drain when you are done (the exception being seafood). It is far more effiecient, and cheaper, to sprinkle seasonings on the surface of meat than to soak the meat in a dilute solution.

Try this experiment: Stir 1 tablespoon each of garlic powder and black pepper in a cup of hot water and let it sit for 30 minutes. Then pour it through a coffee filter, you get a dark potent liquid, but if you dry out the residue in the filter you discover that about 2/3 of the original weight is left behind. In other words, only about 1/3 dissolves. The rest is wasted. A colossal waste when you consider that a gallon of amped up brine can have three or four tablespoons each of salt and pepper. Instead, when the meat comes out of the brine, sprinkle a little salt and garlic on the surface and away you go. If you want apple juice flavor in your turkey (why, I don’t know), then inject it. Now that is effective and efficient. If you want garlic, sprinkle it on the surface. Same effect.

Recipes that use fruit juice, wine, beer, or even soft drinks instead of water, have a potentially hazardous side effect: Acidity. Acid can make your meat mushy, especially if you leave the meat in it for long.

So we recommend a really simple brine: Salt and water. That’s all you need to get juicier, tastier meat.

In general you want the total wet brine to weigh at least two to three times the weight of the meat so there is enough salt to do the job. This means that if you have 1 pound of meat you should make 2 to 3 pounds of brine. A pound of water is about 2 cups. So if you have 1 pound of meat, you need 4 to 6 cups of wet brine.

Blonder realized that one of the problems in making a wet brine is that all recipes must specify which kind of salt you must use. But if the recipe calls for Kosher salt and you only have table salt, you need to use a conversion table because kosher salt is made of flaky crystals and 1 tablespoon contains about half the salt as a tablespoon of table salt.

1 cup Morton’s table salt = 1.8 cups Morton’s Kosher Salt

Substitute one for the other without converting properly and you could badly oversalt your food. It gets weirder because different brands of salt have different volumes.

But Blonder knows that a pound of salt, regardless of type, regardless of volume, contains the same amount of sodium chloride. So if you don’t own an accurate scale, here’s a foolproof method he devised using Archimedes’ Principle of displacement:

Add one cup of hot water to a two cup measuring cup. Then pour in salt, any salt, until the water line reaches 1.5 cups. That will be about 1/2 pound of salt by weight. “You’ll end up pouring in nearly two cups of Morton’s kosher salt — it seems like it will never end — but once it enters the measuring cup, the water infiltrates the voids between the grains of salt, and compensates for the lower density” he says. “Then dump this slurry into a gallon of cold water and away you go. Easy to remember. Impossible to screw up.” This recipe results in a 6.4% brine.

Makes. 1 gallon, enough for 6 pounds of meat. 2 gallons will handle most turkeys depending on the diameter of the container

Takes. 10 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup hot water in a 2 cup measuring cup

1/2 pound salt, any type (but you don’t need a scale)

1 cup table sugar

1 gallon cold water

About the salt. Any salt will do, table salt, Morton’s kosher salt, “sea” salt. Step 1 below shows you how to get it right without a scale regardless of the type of salt you use. Click here for more about the Science of Salt.

Scaling this recipe. To make smaller quantites, cut all the ingredients in proportion.

Method

1) Add one cup of hot water to a two cup measuring cup. Then pour in salt, any salt, until the water line reaches 1.5 cups. The water will swallow up almost exactly 1/2 pound regardless of whether you use table salt, kosher salt, pickling salt, or sea salt. Pour the slurry into a very clean non-reactive container large enough to hold the meat and 1 gallon of water. Then add the sugar. Chose your container carefully. It needs to be food grade, large enough to hold the meat and the brine with the meat submerged, and it cannot be made of aluminum, copper, or cast iron, all of which can react with the salt. Do not use garbage bags or a garbage can or a bucket from Home Depot. They are not food grade. Do not use a styrofoam cooler. It might give the meat an off flavor and you’ll never get the cooler clean when you’re done.

Zipper bags work fine. For large cuts get Reynolds Brining Bags, Ziploc XL, and XXL bags. If you brine in a zipper bag, periodically grab the bag and squish things around and flip the meat so the brine can get in from all sides. Place the bag in a roasting pan to catch leaks. You can also use bowls, pots, and Tupperware.

A 5 gallon drink cooler will handle turkeys and whole raw hams. If the cooler is larger, you may need to scale up the brine recipe to make sure the meat is submerged.

The beauty of using a cooler is that you don’t need to put it in the fridge. To keep the brine and the meat safe, toss in a gallon zipper bag filled with ice. Or two. The bags should be tight so that when the ice melts it doesn’t dilute the brine. Don’t use bags of ice from the store because they often have holes and leak and they are dirty. People often walk on them in the factory and on the delivery truck (I know, I worked in and ice factory in college – best job in Gainesville, FL).

Another option is to fill a quart juice or soda bottle with water and freeze it. Then screw on the cap. Wait until after the bottle has frozen because water expands when it freezes and it can blow off the cap. Wash off the outside of the bottle thoroughly and toss it in the brine.

2) Submerge the meat in the brine and refrigerate. Keep the brine under 40°F, adding more ice when necessary. If you can see unmelted ice, it is probably below 40°F. You may need to weight the meat down to submerge it. If you cannot submerge it, make sure you turn it periodically and extend it’s time in the bath. All you need is 1 to 2 hours for meats 2″ thick or less. For a piece of meat 3″ thick or more, go 8 to 24 hours. Brine turkeys breast side down. Move the bird around and get the air bubble out of the cavity. Most of the brine will enter the meat through the cavity, since the skin is like a water-resistant jacket. But keep in mind, brines move very slowly at refrigerator temp. When you cook, they move fast if you cook low and slow.

3) When it is time to cook, remove the meat, rinse with cold water to wash excess salt off the surface, and thoroughly pat dry with paper towels. Patting dry is important or the surface might steam and not brown properly.

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The Science of Injecting Meat: No Wait, No Waste, More Flavor

“I think everybody should have a great Wonderbra. There’s so many ways to enhance [breasts].” Christina Aguilera

By Meathead Goldwyn

Related articles

• The Science of Salt
• Wet brines
• Injecting meat
• Dry brines
• Marinades
• Rubs

Butterball 2-Ounce Stainless Marinade Injector

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This heavy stainless steel injector (above) holds 2 ounces of fluid and has a 2 1/4″ needle with two staggered holes on the sides. This is a good all purpose injector and the one I use the most. It works for thick meats like turkey breasts as well as thin meats like chops. There is a comfortable three-hole finger grip, and a removable lid to make cleaning easy. The silicon gasket provides a really good seal.

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Eastman Stainless Marinade Injector

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This Italian job is stainless steel with 12 holes on the 6″ needle for deep and thorough distribution of payload. You can insert, squeeze, and remove. But beware, with this many holes, it is not good for thin cuts. The liquid will squirt out of the upper holes if they are not in the meat.

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Spitjack Injector Gun

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This is a serious tool for competition barbecue. It comes with two 5.5″ heavy-duty needles, one with numerous holes in the sides. It has a 2 ounce capacity and you can adjust the dose of injection with a dail. With this one you can just insert it into thick meat and squeeze, you don’t have to pull it out slowly as you squeeze as you do wit the others.

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NoCents 1 Gallon Injector

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Many competition cooks and caterers use big pumps like this one (at right). They are especially useful for injecting whole hogs or injecting lots of food for the concession booth at the state high school soccer championship tournament.

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The Pork Injector

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This motorized “Auto Pump Injector System” is the state of the art and can really save you time and hand cramps if you have a lot of meat to inject. You make up your injection, pit it in a bucket or bottle, and lower the intake tube into the liquid. Then just insert the needle, squeeze the trigger gently, and slowly withdraw the needle to disperse the fluid. In minutes the whole job is done.

They sent me one to test, and it worked great, but I don’t cook as many pork butts and briskets as competition cooks do, so I promptly passed it along to Scottie Johnson of CancerSucksChicago.com, a team AmazingRibs.com co-sponsors. He has won the Jack Daniels World Championship Barbecue, no small accomplishment. He said “It’s awesome. I fumbled around a bit at first, just because it was such a new procedure for me. Once I had it going, the ease of the flow and not having to refill a major plus. Normally your hands get wet and slippery during the process but this device eliminated all of that. No grabbing paper towels to dry my hands during the injection process. I can see where it would be really super for doing a whole hog or in a restaurant or catering situation.”

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Butterballing a turkey

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If your bird has had a salt solution injected at the factory (most do and they will say so on the label) you can still amp it up and add richness and flavor by injecting melted butter into the breasts. This is especially effective because breasts are so lean. Yes, that’s how Butterball got its name. Alas, they no longer use butter.

Melt 1 stick of butter (4 ounces) over a low heat. If the bird is salted, unsalted is best, but the small amount of salt in salted butter won’t make things too salty. If the bird is unsalted, then use salted butter and dry brine.

I usually inject only the breasts because dark meat is moister, but you can give it a shot or two if you wish. Because the meat is pretty full of natural water to begin with, it will not absorb much butter. You can shoot her up the day before or at the last minute. It won’t make a big difference.

If there is butter left, add it to the gravy. It has been contaminated by the needle, so do not put it back in the fridge. Resist the temptation to put it on the skin because it will turn to a thick goo and you will be unable to properly rub on the spices and herbs.

You don’t need a Wonderbra to enhance chicken and turkey breasts or any other meat for that matter. Rubs, mops, marinating, brining, and sauces can deliver a lot of flavor to the surface of meat, but if you really want to enhance meat, to get flavor deep into it, the solution is injecting (see my articles on marinating and brining).

Many meat processors routinely inject meats like turkey, chicken, and pork at the factory. Injecting, or enhancing as food processors call it, is a sure fire way to get the flavor and juiciness down deep. And it is the only way to get fats, herbs, spices and other large molecules deep into meat. You don’t have to worry about oversalting, there’s no waiting — you can do it at the last minute, you have less waste, no huge containers are needed, there are no refrigerator space problems, and there are few safety issues.

The secret to injecting is to go easy. A good guideline is to shoot for 1 to 2% salt and skip the big flavors like garlic, pepper, and herbs that mask the natural flavor of the meat. I have judged pulled pork and brisket at barbecue competitions where the meat was gushing juice, but it didn’t taste like meat. It tasted like apple juice and garlic. I want pork that tastes like pork, beef that tastes like beef, and turkey that tastes like turkey.

The best solutions are salt water, salted butter, or stock. And you don’t need much. Muscle is 75% water and it is saturated. There isn’t much room in there for more liquid. Your injection will go in between the muscle fibers and bundles, not within the fibers, so you won’t need much.

To inject, you need a gizmo, and something to put in it.

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Gizmos

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There are a number of injection gizmos on the market ranging from simple hypodermics to pumps that look like something used by the Orkin man. For home use, a good sturdy specialty meat injector hypodermic will do.

The needles for this purpose are different than normal hypodermics. They aren’t open at the tip because a large opening at the tip gets clogged with meat easily. Meat injectors have holes in the sides of the needles, and the tip is a sharp point.

A good injector has a really sharp tip, and a sturdy connection between the needle and the body, but the needle should be easy to remove. The plunger should have a sturdy connection to the body of the syringeand a good tight gasket between it and the interior of the syringe. I prefer a silicone gasket. It should be easy to break down and clean, and you should be able to store the needle inside the syringe. It should be at least two ounces capacity and made of stainless steel. The inexpensive plastic syringes I’ve owned lastic tended to crack with age or burst under pressure. Brass, copper, and aluminum are not good for this purpose since they can react with the salt.

The problem everyone has with injectors is filling them. Most of us mix the injection and stick the needle into it and suck it up. But the position of the holes in the needle insures you don’t get it all, and this can be aggravating when you are using just a half stick of butter for a turkey breast.

My friend, social media consultant Alex Hambrick, of Ngage Inc. (a barbecue competitor and a very inventive problem solver), sent me this solution: Make the injection and pour it into a plastic water bottle. Shake it all up to mix it. Take a lighter, heat up the end of the injector needle, and slide it through the cap of the water bottle. Pull the plunger on the injector all the way back so the injector is filled with air. Put a piece of electrical tape over the hole and poke the needle through the tape into the hole. The tape acts like a gasket. Push the plunger down injecting air into the bottle. This pressurizes the bottle slightly and counteracts the vacuum effect making it much easier to withdraw liquid. Now turn it upside down, and withdraw the liquid, just like the nurse did when she gave you your flu shot. This bit of cleverness lets you pull all the fluid out.

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What to put in them

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Many BBQ champs use commercial products such as Butcher BBQ Brisket Marinade whose ingredient lists include flavor enhancers monosodium glutamate (MSG), hydrolyzed vegetable protein, autolyzed yeast extract, disodium inosinate, and guanylate. Papaya extract tenderizes, sodium phosphate is good at improving the ability of proteins to hold water during heat stress, and xanthan gum is added as an emulsifier to hold them all together for injecting uniformity. Some traditionalists think this is way too Barry Bonds. But Butcher’s Blends win trophies, and I’ve tasted the product and been impressed.

When I inject I use a brine that no more than 2% salt by weight. It will diffuse to a lower concentration within the meat, enough to enhance flavor and bind water, but not enough to give the meat a cured flavor. If I add flavor, I try not to go crazy. You can add oils, herbs, spices, sweetners, syrups, sauces, stocks, broths, colorings, pretty much anything. But be thoughtful. Do you really want your turkey to taste like Dr. Pepper? If you use herbs or spices, grind them fine. Don’t use dark liquids like soy sauce or Worcestershire on light colored meats like chicken or turkey. Don’t go crazy with sweeteners. Here are the recipes I use.

Makes. About 1 quart

Serves. This makes enough to inject about 30 pounds of meat

Pork Brine Injection

2 tablespoons kosher salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon Worcestershire

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 cup apple juice or low sodium pork, chicken, or beef stock

3 cups water

Beef or Venison Brine Injection

2 tablespoons kosher salt

1 tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons Worcestershire

4 cups water or low sodium beef stock, or a mix of both

Poultry Brine Injection

2 tablespoons kosher salt

1 tablespoon sugar

4 cups water or low sodium chicken stock, or a mix of both

Add umami. You can add 1/2 teaspoon of MSG such as Ac’cent.

Add herbs and spices. You can add herbs and spices such as garlic and pepper, but they can overwhelm the meat’s natural flavor.

Add oil. After you have used a brine injection, if you want you can go back and inject a small amount of oil. You can’t mix the oil with the brine since it floats to the top. If you don’t have canola you can use another neutral flavored oil like corn oil. Olive oil can be strong flavored. You can try butter, but it tends to coagulate and gather in blobs. The blobs disperse somewhat during cooking, however.

Method

1) Mix all the ingredients in a bottle and shake vigorously before injecting. Pour into a narrow container so you can suck fluid in through the needle. In a wide bowl it is hard to get the holes below the water line and you then need to unscrew the top, pour it into the syrings, spill it everywhere, screw on the top, inject, and repeat. I bought a V-shaped flower vase for the job.

2) Insert the needle and go all the way to the center. Press the plunger slowly and ease the needle out. Insert the needle about every 1.5″ apart and leave behind about 1 ounce per pound. A little liquid will follow the needle out of the hole, but if it comes spurting out, use less pressure. We want to avoid pockets of liquid.

3) You can cook right away, but if you let the meat rest for an hour or more, even overnight, the injection will disperse more evenly through the meat. Then dry the surface with a paper towel and apply your rub and cook

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Dry Brining, Easier And Less Wasteful Than Wet Brining

“One thing I like about Argentina, they only cook with salt. That’s it.” Robert Duvall

By Meathead Goldwyn

Dry brining is a technique popularized by the late Chef Judy Rodgers of San Francisco’s famous Zuni Cafe. It is different from wet brining, where we submerge the food in a salt water solution of 5 to 10% salinity. It is different from injecting, where we pump the meat with a brine with a needle. Since discovering it I almost never wet brine anymore.

Rule of thumb

1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt per pound, refrigerate for one to two hours. You do not need to rinse off excess salt. It will all be sucked into the meat.

Related articles

• The Science of salt
• Injections
• Wet brines
• Marinades
• The science of rubs

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With dry brining we simply salt the meat a few hours before cooking. No more than you would use at table. Rule of thumb: 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt per pound of meat. Sounds simple, but something complex and wonderful happens.

Salt does several things to the food. First of all, it amps up the taste because salt is a flavor enhancer. But if you do it properly, it doesn’t make the food taste salty. For more on the subject of how salt impacts food, read my article on The Science of Salt.

But something else happens. Salt is made of sodium and chloride ions that carry electrical charges. These ions attack the proteins, causing them to unwind a bit, a process called denaturing. These altered proteins have a greater ability to retain water, so meat that has been treated with salt remains moister through the cooking process.

You can see it working in the pictures here. In the top picture the meat has been sprinkled with Morton’s kosher salt. The salt draws water out of the meat. The water dissolves the salt. See how the meat has become shiny with moisture and the fat has become splotchy in the middle picture?

Then, in the bottom picture, the meat re-absorbs the moisture (and much of the juices that have leaked out) bringing the salt in with it. Notice how the color of the fat has changed where the salt has soaked in.

Now watch the whole process in time lapse photography in the bottom frame. When it is time to cook there is noneed to rinse of the salt, it should all be inside the meat.

Once inside the meat it doesn’t go far. As with wet brining, it stays near the surface, but that’s where the moisture is needed because that’s were we apply the most heat.

How does this work? The AmazingRibs.com Science Advisor, Dr. Greg Blonder, explains: “Salt is hygroscopic, which is a fancy way to say it absorbs moisture from the environment. Water is a “V” shaped molecule. It has two positively charged hydrogen atoms on one tip of the V and one negatively charged oxygen on the other making H2O. This asymmetry creates an electric field, kind of like a small magnet. The polar nature of water is why it’s practically a universal solvent.

“When water in the air stumbles in very close to the NaCl crystal, the salt feels the attraction of the water’s weak electric field, grabs it, and then breaks apart into a positively charged sodium ion and a negatively charged chloride ion. When we sprinkle salt on a steak, water molecules, some from the air, but most from the meat, are captured on the surface of the salt crystal, and eventually, accumulate into a pool of briny liquid. Then, as the salty slurry diffuses into the meat, there is less salt on the surface to attract moisture, and the juices return to whence they came. Contrary to popular myth, there is no osmosis or cells breaking.”

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How much salt for steaks, chops, and burgers?

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It is really hard to give you an exact amount since salt tolerance and preference is really personal. As a rule of thumb, add what you would add if the food was served to you at the table. Obviously roasts will need more than thick steaks which will need more than thin steaks. Sprinkle a little more on thick parts like the breasts on a turkey. Leave the meat uncovered on a rack in a pan. This is especially important for poultry because we want the skin to dry out a bit. Just be careful that vegetables and other raw foods do not come in contact with raw meat. And don’t rinse it off before cooking. After a few hours most of it has gone in and is well past the surface anyhow.

Here’s a rule of thumb: Sprinkle about 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt per pound of trimmed meat. It ‘s a bit hard to measure so here’s how I do it. I use kosher salt which is a larger flake than table salt and it still dissolves easily on the moist meat. Don’t use large grain salts like sea salt. They won’t dissolve easily. I sprinkle from about 8″ above so it is evenly distributed. Do not oversalt, especially on burgers, where too much salt will gel the meat proteins and make for a dense patty. Then back in the fridge. Put it on a wire rack in a pan in the fridge so air will surround the meat. After as little as an hour or two, you’re ready to cook. No need to rinse the meat, all the salt gets sucked in.

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For roasts

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The thicker the cut the longer it takes for the salt to move to the center, so you want to start the process earlier. For bigger cuts of meat like prime rib, the same ratio, about 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt per pound of meat. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate 12 to 48 hours.

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For chicken and turkey

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Surprisingly, the AmazingRibs.com science advisor Dr. Greg Blonder has proven that salt penetrates chicken and turkey skin (I am doubtful about duck and goose since there is such a thick layer of fat under them). So go ahead and sprinkle salt right on the skin. It will help make the skin crispy. Breasts need more than thighs because they are thicker. 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt per pound, refrigerate for two to four hours minimum. Overnight is fine.

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For wet cooking methods

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It has always been a slap my forehead experience when I read a recipe for braising or slow cooking or stewing that says “Salt and pepper the meat and then put it in the liquid.” Do they really think the salt and pepper won’t wash off? But if you dry brine stew meats overnight or for a few hours, the salt will get into the meat. Osmosis will pull some out, but not all of it, and while it is in there it will denature the proteins.

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Timing

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As a rule of thumb, cuts under 1″ thick need only an hour or two for the salt to get in, but 2 to 4 hours will give deeper penetration. Thicker cuts like turkey breasts need 4 to 6 hours for the salt to get deep, and thick roasts, 12 to 48 hours.

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About rubs

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Rubs are aromatic and savory spice and herb mixes that are applied to meats to flavor them. Most contain salt which can help pull the flavorings into the meat. So put them on well in advance. The salt will penetrate deep. The other stuff does not penetrate more than a fraction of an inch. Click here to read more about the Science of Rubs.

 

 

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The Secrets And Myths Of Marinades, Brinerades, And How Gashing Can Make Them Work Better

“Some marinades are as goofy as a dog in a tutu. Just what is wrong with the unadulterated taste of beef?” Meathead

By Meathead Goldwyn

Most marinades are thin water-based liquids that foods swim in before cooking. But marinades themselves are bathed in myth and mystery.

Related articles

• The Science of Salt
• Wet Brines
• Dry Brines
• Injections
• Rubs
• The Science of Herbs & Spices
• The Science of Chiles
• The Science of Garlic

Marinating at work

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Below are cross sections of lean meat. They were all soaked for 18 hours in a simple marinade recipe: 3/4 cup of canola oil, 1/2 cup of distilled vinegar, 1 tablespoon of table salt, and 10 drops of green food coloring. Some of the coloring in these cross sections is caused by the knife traumatizing the muscle as it moved through. The food coloring has large molecules, but not as large as herbs, spices, and sugar, and it reacts differently with protein, but these models demonstrate how difficult it is for foreign objects to invade fortress meat.

1) Beef sirloin. As you can see the dye significantly colored the surface, but it barely penetrated. There is a slight discoloration that extends an average of about 1/8″ caused primarily by the denaturing of the proteins by salt and acid. Where there were cracks and cuts in the meat, the dye got in deeper.

On some beef cuts, where the fibers are more loosely packed and run parallel to the surface, like skirt steak and sirloin flap, marinade will move in a bit further, and in the case of skirt steaks, which are rarely more than 1/2″ thick, a few hours of marinating can get it close to the center.

2) Pork chop from the loin. Again, most of the marinade is on the surface with a small amount penetrating a fraction of an inch, and salt going deepest to denature the proteins.

3) Chicken breast. You can see the marinade entered where there are cracks on the bottom, but not much got in anywhere else.

4) Pounded chicken breast. This breast has been pounded so it is at most about 3/4″ thick. I have photographed the place where two muscles meet, the tenderloin(left) and the pectoral (right). The connection is very thin and as you can see, although most of the marinade is on the surface, it has had an impact on the meat edge to edge. Also, the underside cracks when pounded, and marinade enters there.

5) Salmon steak. As with the others, slight penetration of large molecules, best in cracks. Some denaturing of proteins from the salt, oils, and vinegars.

6) Whitefish steak. No real dye penetration, but about 1/4″ denaturing from salt and vinegar.

7) Florida lobster tail. Lobster tail and shrimp are highly susceptible to marinade penetration. They really drink it up in a short time.

8) Yellow squash. Zero penetration through the skin, and unlike the meats, the dye doesn’t even discolor the skin. But unlike the meats, there is excellent penetration through the cut ends. If you marinate slices of squash, you can count on it going through.

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Gashing helps marinades work

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Think of marinades as a spice mix. What marinades do best is find their way into cracks and crevices on the surface of meats producing a flavorful baked on spice blend, much like a dry rub. When it dries out during cooking, it leaves behind the flavors.

They work best on thick cuts of meat like roasts where the food bakes for a long time on the indirect side in a 2-zone system and the marinade can dry out, leave its flavor on the surface, and then brown.

In general, it is best to think of marinades as a spice blend. Where they differ from normal spice blends is that you can get exotic flavors that can’t normally find on your spice rack, such as flavors from liquids like wine, juices, coconut milk, soft drinks, liqueurs, etc.

Help marinades by gashing the food. Since marinades don’t penetrate very far into most foods, give them a hand. Gash your food. Cut slices into the surface, rough it up, give the marinade cuts, cracks, and pits to enter. There is also more surface area to brown and more surface area coated with baked on marinade.

This meat was gashed in a cross-hatch pattern with a knife before marinating. As you can see, the marinade has penetrated as deep as the gashes making 1/2″ cubes of flavored meat. This is a great technique for use with marinades.

Gashing even works on veggies like the yellow squash below.

Conclusions

Although not definitive, this study indicates that large flavor molecules as found in dyes and the herbs and spices in marinades do most of their work on the surface, within 1/16″ of the surface, or in cuts in the surface. It shows that salt penetration goes deeper, so marinades should always contain salt. Read more about this in my article on brines. The exception to the rule are lobster and it’s smaller cousin, shrimp.

This means that marinades are best on thin cuts of meat. Gashing the surface with a knife or stabbing it with a fork will help the marinade to get in deeper, but it also pushes bacteria down in. If you cook to safe temp with the aid of a quality digital thermometer, this is not a problem. Read more about this in my meat temperature guide.

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Some rules of thumb

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Always marinate in the refrigerator and cover the meat so it doesn’t drip on other food. Never reuse marinades.

Smaller and thinner pieces marinate faster, so consider cutting some meats into serving sizes.

Turn the meat every few hours.

Marinate fish for 30 to 60 minutes at most, depending on the thickness. Chicken, turkey, and pork need a minimum of 2 to 3 hours, but 6 to 8 hours is optimal.

Most beef needs 6 to 24 hours The most tender steaks, like filets and ribeyes, need only an 1 to 2 hours (but frankly, I never marinate these, they are so good nekkid with just salt and pepper).

Lamb tenderloins, lamb rib chops, and lamb tenderloins need only 15-30 minutes. Click here for a great marinated lamb loin chops recipe.

Zipper or resealable bags are great for marinating and they need less liquid than bowls or Tupperware. When you are done, you can throw them away. No cleanup. If you use pots, use stainless steel, glass, or ceramic. Never marinate in aluminum, cast iron, or copper. They react with the acids and salts.

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I do not recommend vacuum marinators

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There are several companies that make devices in which you place the food and then create a vacuum. In theory the vacuum sucks the marinade in. I do not recommend them because the vacuum can also suck in microbes. If you don’t cook the food up to about 165°F, well past well done, you run the risk of a tummy ache, or much worse.

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Industrial marinades

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You have probably noticed more and more meats in the grocery that are pre-marinated and “enhanced” which can include injection. A nice idea, more or less. It makes cooking dinner quick and easy, you don’t have to start the marinade the day before because the marinade has had days to work. The marinade has probably been formulated by a meat scientist and will not only tenderize and help retain moisture, but chances are it tastes pretty darn good.

On the down side, you may not want the additives and preservatives in your diet, and the meat might not be the freshest. So you are paying meat prices for water and additives.

According to the Amazingibs.com beef scientist, Dr. Antonio Mata, “The level of marination in retail branded products range from 8% to 22% by weight. Some cooked deli items contain up to 60% enhancement. There is a whole array of ‘functional’ ingredients that the industry uses to improve the retention of the marinade: phosphates, salt, starch, alginates, soy isolates, etc., etc., etc. USDA labeling regulations are not consistent. Any beef product that has been ‘enhanced’ must indicate on the label the level of enhancement but this does not apply to poultry products.”

Marinades usually have a number of ingredients such as salt, oil, flavorings, and acidic liquids (SOFA). The molecules of each are different sizes and some are attracted to the chemicals in meats and some are repelled by them. Some can flow easily into the microscopic voids between muscle fibers, some are too large.

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Marinade myths

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Let’s debunk some myths about marinades, and then we can get into how to make them and how to make them work. Some facts:

Myth: Marinades penetrate deep into meat. Marinades are primarily a surface treatment, especially on thicker cuts. Only the salt penetrates deep. Period. End of story.

Meat is a protein sponge saturated with liquid. About 75% of meat is water. There’s not much room for any more liquid in there. Think of a sponge. When you are wiping up a spill, as it gets fully loaded you just can’t get any more liquid in there.

Marinades, unless they are heavy with salt, in which case they more properly are called brines, do not penetrate meats very far, rarely more than 1/8″, even after many hours of soaking. Especially in the cold fridge where molecules are sluggish.

Salt penetrates because it is a smaller molecule than water but, most importantly, because it reacts chemically and electrically with the water in the meat. But molecules like sugar and garlic are comparatively huge. Water is three atoms, two hydrogens and an oxygen, H2O. Salt is made of just two atoms, sodium and chloride, NaCl. Sucrose is C12H22O11, that’s 45 atoms. Garlic’s active ingredient is allicin, C6H10OS2, and it has 18 atoms, and garlic powder is even larger and more complex than that.

As research by the AmazingRibs.com science advisor Dr. Greg Blonder has shown, it takes salt almost 24 hours to penetrate meat 1″ deep (see my article on brines).

On top of this, most marinades have a lot of oil in them. And meat is mostly water. As we all know, oil and water don’t mix. That oil is just not getting past the microscopic cracks and dents in the surface.

Sugar can move inward a bit after days of marinating, but most ingredients go no further than the surface. There are important exceptions: Fish, shellfish, eggplant, and mushrooms, for example, absorb marinades more rapidly and deeply (see the photos at right). But for most meats and veggies, the benefit of marinades is that they flavor the surface. We are often bamboozled into thinking the marinade has soaked in because the knife, fork, and liquid on the plate are full of marinade flavor, because the flavors on the surface get on our tongue, and they get pushed down into the meat by our teeth.

Try this experiment: Marinate a 2″ thick porkchop as long as you like in whatever you like. Since your marinade probably has some salt in it, take another 2″ chop and just salt it. Cook them side by side, bring them in and rinse them off to remove as much surface flavor as possible. Then cut off the outer 1/4″ of both. Be very very careful to not let the juices from the outsides touch the center. Now have a friend serve you tastes of both without telling you which is which. Hard to tell apart, aren’t they? They both taste like plain ol’ pork. You might taste salt, but no sugar, garlic, pepper, or whatever.

If you marinate thin slices of meat, say 1/2″ thick skirt steak, the flavors may penetrate 1/8″ on either side and so it will get close to the center, especially since skirt steak has loose fibers running parallel to the surface, but not thick pieces. Think of prime rib. The outside crust really tastes like the seasonings while the center tastes like plain old beef.

But in most cases it is good that marinades don’t penetrate very far. If that red wine marinade you used on your flank steak penetrated all the way, would you and your guests prefer purple meat to bright red?

But let’s not demean surface enhancement. A touch of sugar can help with browning and add flavor and color. Spices and herbs on the surface can make wonderful aromas and moist surfaces attract smoke. And oil can conduct heat to the surface and help with browning and crust formation.

Myth: Marinades tenderize. Tenderizing is a process of making the proteins softer, both the proteins in the muscle fibers and in the connective tissues that sheath the fibers and connect them to bones (see my article on meat science). This softening is called denaturing. Since marinades do not penetrate very far they cannot denature the protein bonds much beyond the surface, so there is little tenderizing beyond the surface. In fact, some ingredients, especially acids, such as vinegar and fruit juice, can make some surfaces firmer, and some surfaces mushy. In some cases acid can even reduce water holding capacity. This can be good if you are trying to form a dry crust.

Myth: Marinades improve everything. Water based marinades such as wine, beer, soft drinks, and juices keep the surface wet so when they go on the grill or in a pan, the water evaporates, steaming the meat, and steam can impede browning and crisping of the surface and prevent the formation of the crust or bark we love. Crisp brown meat has more flavor, and one of the main reasons we like to grill (see my article on the maillard reaction, caramelization, and why brown is beautiful). On the other hand, the wet surface can help prevent dehydration and the drying effect of the grill, producing moister meat.

Myth: You can use just about anything in a marinade. If marinades contain sugar, they can burn and ruin the food. Sugar is less of a problem for low slow roasting over indirect heat with convection airflow. And oils can drip off causing flareups and soot deposits on the food. You can use sugar and oil, but judiciously.

Myth: Longer is better. Actually, longer is worser. The problem is that acids in marinates mess up proteins, faux cooking them. That’s how ceviche is “cooked”. Fish is marinated in citrus until the proteins get all unwound and the color changes and they sorta cook. The longer meat sits in an acid, the mushier it becomes.

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Some better ideas

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Injecting is much more effective in driving flavor down towards the center of the meat. Another excellent option is a spice rub. A blend of spices and herbs, it delivers more flavor per square inch than any marinade. And then there is a sauce. Pack in lots of flavor with a sauce which goes on just before serving. A great way to bring the brightness of herbs and the other usual flavors in marinades to the table with little effort is a board sauce. Or you can use all of these methods!

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Making a brinerade

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A brinerade is a new word from the clever folks at Cooks Illustrated magazine to describe a marinade that has enough salt to do double duty as a brine, and in my humble opinion all marinades should be brinerades.

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SAF

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The best marinades usually contain three working components: Salt, acid, and flavoring, and if you remember the acronym SAF, you can create your own easily.

S is for Salt. Salt is the most important ingredient because it is a flavor enhancer and it is good at penetrating meat and altering proteins to hold more of its water during the trauma of cooking. Soy sauce is a great source of salt. Shoot for about 6% salt by weight. My article on wet brines will explain how to get there.

A is for Acid. Citrus marinades were probably among the first, historically. They have it all, acid, sugar, flavor, aromatics. Acid can denature protein on the surface and make the surface of the meat mushy so use them judiciously, no more than 1/8 of the blend, and only for their flavor.Typical acids are fruit juice (lemon juice, apple juice, white grape juice, pineapple juice, orange juice, and wine work well), vinegar (cider vinegar, distilled vinegar, sherry vinegar, balsamic vinegar, raspberry vinegar, or any old vinegar), buttermilk, yogurt, and even sugar free soft drinks.

Acidity is measured on the pH scale of 0 to 14. Solutions with a pH of 7 are said to be neutral. Below 7, the solution is acidic. Above 7 it is alkaline. Here are the approximate pH measurements some common solutions for reference. Obviously you do not want to use battery acid or lye. I include them for reference.

0 pH – Battery acid

1 – Stomach acid

2 – Distilled vinegar, lemon juice

3 – Carbonated drinks, orange juice

4 – Tomato juice, wine

5 – Black coffee, beer, yogurt

6 – Saliva, cow’s milk

7 – Pure water

8 – Sea water, wet brines

9 – Baking soda, olive oil

10 – Milk of magnesia

11 – Antacids

12 – Ammonia

13 – Chlorine bleach

14 – Lye, liquid drain cleaner

F is for Flavoring. Typical flavorings include herbs and spices such as oregano, thyme, cumin, paprika, garlic, onion powder, and even vegetables such as onion and jalape–o. It’s a good idea to add some umami. That’s the savory meaty flavor from glutamates found in meat stocks, soy sauce, and mushrooms. It is also a good idea to add some sugar. It aids in browning the surface, but go easy. Too much will burn the surface. You want it to caramelize after the water evaporates without burning.

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Where’s the oil?

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Most marinades contain oil, but oil cannot penetrate meat. Remember, meat is 75% water and oil and water don’t mix. Here’s proof that oil will not penetrate meat. In the image below, I dug a hole in a beef steak anout thimble size and filled it with a nic e greenish olive oil. I took the top picture 33 seconds after pouring in the oil. The bottom picture was after 3 hours, 9 minutes, and 58 seconds. As you can see, not a scintilla of oil penetrated.

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Other tips

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Refrigerate. Keep marinating meats in the fridge.

No alcohol. A lot of folks like to use wine, beer, and spirits in their marinades, but this is not be a good idea. 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.”

Use a nonreactive container. The acids in a marinate can react with aluminum, copper, and cast iron, and give the food an off flavor. So do your soaking in plastic, stainless steel, porcelain, or, best of all, zipper bags. Pour the marinade and meat in the bag and squeeze out all the air possible and the meat will be in contact on most surfaces. Put it in the fridge and flip it over frequently.

What to marinate. Thin cuts are best for marinating.

Now here’s a neat trick. Fresh pineapple, papaya, and ginger have enzymes that tenderize meat. Papain, the enzyme in papaya, is an enzyme in papaya and the main tenderizing ingredient in Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer. These enzymes work fast. Within 30 to 60 minutes the meat is ready for the grill. Alas, pineapple and papaya add very little flavor to the meat in such a short time. Some people like the softer meat, others feel it is mushy. You decide. The enzymes are destroyed by the canning and bottling process, so be sure to use fresh pineapple, papaya, and ginger if you want the tenderizing.

Go nekkid first. Chicken and turkey skin are very fatty and they are a like a condom to marinades. If soaked, they only get soggy and won’t crisp properly. So if the skin won’t get crispy, what’s the point? Get rid of it. Skinless chicken will drink up more flavor. And it’s healthier. And yes, you can get skinless meat crisp. If you must have the skin, cut it into 1/2″ squares and brown it in a pan over medium heat like bacon, and use it as a garnish. Read my article on chicken skin and duck cracklins.

Save money. Some recipes call for marinating in barbecue sauce. Don’t do it. It’s just a waste of expensive sauce because it is too thick to penetrate very far and most barbecue sauces are sweet. They can burn.

Warning. Remember, all uncooked meat has microbes and spores. If your marinade recipe calls for heating it, let it cool thoroughly before using it to discourage microbial growth. Used marinades are contaminated with raw meat juices so if you plan to use it as a sauce, it must be boiled for a few minutes. Better idea: Discard it.

A shortcut. If you don’t want to make a marinade from scratch, just buy a bottle of your favorite oil and vinegar salad dressing. The thinner the better. Salad dressings usually have all the necessary ingredients, although they tend to be too acidic, so diluting it 3:1 with water is a good idea. Just make sure you don’t get the Caesar. It has cheese and anchovies in it. We don’t need no cheese or no stinkin’ dead fish in our pork or steak. And watch out. Some salad dressings have a lot of gums (emulsifiers) and other additives that could burn or make the meat taste funny after they are heated so it is better to make something from scratch (see the recipe below).

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Here’s my recommendation

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Take my spice mix recipes and mix them with oil to make a paste. Let it sit for a few hours so the oils will extract flavors. While it is sitting, dry brine the meat with salt if the mix recipe does not already have salt in it. If it does, skip the dry brining. Then apply the paste to the meat and cook. Start indirect to bake in the spices, and finish direct to create a crust.

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Recipe for a marinade for seafood & veggies: Mrs. Meathead’s Italian Marinade

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This is my standard marinade for seafood and vegetables such as zucchini and eggplant. It works even though it has water base in it because they are highly absorbant. I occasionally use it on pork or c hicken.

It is based on a wonderful, herby oil and vinegar salad dressing that my wife created. I have added more salt to to make it into a brinerade. Best of all, it allows the flavor or seafood and veggies to come through without burying them under strong flavors. Click here to see how to use it to make wonderful Tuscan ribs. Elegant.

Ingredients

2 cups My Wife’s Italian Vinaigrette

2 tablespoons Morton’s kosher salt

3/4 cup water

Method

Pour the vinaigrette and salt into a bowl, whisk, and pour into a bottle. It can be refrigerated for months. Shake well before using

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