Common Nonsense...

[Marlene]

Marinades tenderize or penetrate.

I guess you're the expert, "marinade," but is this really a myth? Don't milk, yogurt or buttermilk marinades tenderize chicken, at least a little bit?

I didn't think so. I thought there had to be some sort of acidity type thing, hence the vinegar or soy sauce in a lot of marinades. But hell, what do I know. I used to put oil in my pasta water

[fresco]

And I'm pretty sure a papaya-based marinade, or, as chinese cooks have been known to employ, a bit of baking soda, would tenderize meat to the point of mush.

[bloviatrix]

i believe heston blumenthal (was it on the Q&A here?) did an actual study and found that the vegetables don't absorb any salt, so adding salt isn't neccessary.

Doesn't Thomas Keller suggest heavily salted water, because you don't lose the boil when the vegetables are added?

[Dave the Cook]

Use marinades for surface flavoring -- if that's what you expect from them, you're less likely to be disappointed.

Papain marinades (like you find in papaya, fresh pineapple and Ac'cent) don't tenderize so much as they degrade the protein. If it's not carried too far, the effect works quite well. Let it go too long and, like fresco says, you get mush.

Oil and vinegar (or other acidic marinades) don't penetrate much more than a quarter of an inch, if that. And again, you're degrading tissue, so "tender" is misleading.

The one exception is a marinade with a high salt component, which will bring water-soluble proteins to the surface of the meat and promote browning.

If you want to tenderize your meat, use a brine. Or a mallet.

[Dave the Cook]

i believe heston blumenthal (was it on the Q&A here?) did an actual study and found that the vegetables don't absorb any salt, so adding salt isn't neccessary.

Doesn't Thomas Keller suggest heavily salted water, because you don't lose the boil when the vegetables are added?

He might suggest it (and I'm sure others have), but he would be wrong. Adding salt (in reasonable amounts) to water affects the boiling temperature by only a fraction of a degree.

[Wolfert]

Turks have been marinating chunks of tough goat and sheep in yogurt for centuries. If it doesn't work why do you think they continue to do it? Also, grated onion is often rubbed into the flesh to tenderize some cuts..

Edited December 19, 2003 by Wolfert (log)

[Dave the Cook]

Turks have been marinating chunks of tough goat and sheep in yogurt for centuries. If it doesn't work why do you think they continue to do it?

1) It does work. It just doesn't work in the way that most people think it does. I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear. I would like to hear about the subsequent cooking technique.

2) They like the taste.

Also, grated onion is often rubbed into the flesh to tenderize some cuts..

I haven't heard of this before. Can you provide more detail?

[docsconz]

Adding salt to boiling green vegetables preserves the greenness. That is how you get nice deep green broccoli and green beans for example. It has to do with making the water more alkiline. Conversely adding acid such as lemon juice degrades the green color. You wind up with yellowish veggies.

[Wolfert]

sis kebab, for example, as prepared at the hotel divan in Istanbul. I watched the chef take finely grated onion, pack it into a cloth bag, and squeeze the juice over the cubes of meat. Garlic, spices and oil were added then the meat was mixed in and left overnight. The following day, it would be threaded onto skewers and grilled.

by the way, in Syria women soak veal breast in water with a pinch of baking soda to tenderize or so they say. In fact, baking soda is added to the water when rehydrating air-dried octopus in Tunisia.

[guajolote]

Adding salt to boiling green vegetables preserves the greenness. That is how you get nice deep green broccoli and green beans for example. It has to do with making the water more alkiline. Conversely adding acid such as lemon juice degrades the green color. You wind up with yellowish veggies.

heston says this isn't true either

Because of this, I needed to learn exactly why the salt and boiling water played such an important role in cooking green veg?

Most books that talked about the addition of salt said that it helped "fix" the colour.

This meant nothing to me as it did not explain what was happening.

Certainly the salt did nothing for the seasoning of the veg as they needed seasoning again before serving.

I then decided to test the theory that salt raises the boiling temp of the water and found that the difference really was miniscule.

I then decided to cook some brocolli at home in unsalted tap water. I cooked the florets until very soft and noticed that they were still vibrant green.

Coming to terms with the fact that salt is not necessary in cooking water to retain the green colour in veg is pretty difficult for a chef; after all, this is one of the moast biblical lores in the kitchen!

[Wolfert]

If found the following in my notes:Science seems to support the yogurt partisans. Not only is the acid in yogurt far milder than the acids in wine, lemon juice or

vinegar, but it also contains calcium, which McGee says activates enzymes in meat that break down the muscle fiber. "It's conceivable that the calcium in yogurt may result in the same sort of tenderizing that you get when you age meat," he said. That's a good thing.

[Dave the Cook]

I'm pretty sure that salt won't make water more alkaline, anyway. At the most it can buffer pH change in alkaline tap water.

[guajolote]

I'm pretty sure that salt won't make water more alkaline, anyway. At the most it can buffer pH change in alkaline tap water.

could you show us the equation please?

Edited December 19, 2003 by guajolote (log)

[Dave the Cook]

If found the following in my notes:Science seems to support the yogurt partisans. Not only is the acid in yogurt far milder than the acids in wine, lemon juice or

vinegar, but it also contains calcium, which McGee says activates enzymes in meat that break down the muscle fiber. "It's conceivable that the calcium in yogurt may result in the same sort of tenderizing that you get when you age meat," he said. That's a good thing.

Thanks, Paula. This is good to know.

Note that this is quite different from marinating as it is commonly done in the US, which is usually in some form of a vinaigrette.

[Wolfert]

I answered your query about the grated onion. i'm wondering what you think about it.

[nessa]

I don't think that salt or lemon makes the veggies change color, its how long yah cook em. I generally steam mine, no salt, no vinegar, very briefly and they turn bright green. If I'm boneheaded and leave the cover on too long, or forget about them, the continue to cook and turn yellow and brown and naturally, get revoltingly well done. I have added lemon lots of times and it never made one iota of differenct to the color.

[marinade]

[i guess you're the expert, "marinade," but is this really a myth? Don't milk, yogurt or buttermilk marinades tenderize chicken, at least a little bit? ]

Lactic acid (in dairy) is actually a double whammy. You have an emulsified combination of fat and low level ph acid. The interesting thing about the way lactic acid seems to behave is that it leachs elements out. Sort of a reverse osmosis.

When I was testing for my book I ran a series of ph tests on liquid acids using distilled vinegar as a constant and did readings on other vinegars, citrus, wines, and dairy in 1/4 cup ramekins. Then I brougth them to a boil, cooled them to room temp and retested for cook off. I did this to test for ingredient substitutions mostly but found that the distiled and feremeted liquids had the lowest ph (highest acidity) and the citrus the weakest and didn't hold their own over cookoff.

As far as gatting more "surface" flavor from a marinade, I've had some luck by letting the marinade meld it's ingredients for a day or so before adding the "protein" but most folks pull the ingredients from the pantry and fridge, mix it and immediatly add the cut of food to it. Result being a lighter hit of flavor from the ingredients. BTW does anyone want to hazard a guess as to which type of wine has the most acidity?

[Marlene]

BTW does anyone want to hazard a guess as to which type of wine has the most acidity?

White?

[Dave the Cook]

I answered your query about the grated onion. i'm wondering what you think about it.

I think I'd have to try it. Maybe it works, though at the moment I don't know why, and your answer doesn't attempt an explanation. In fact, you only say they do it "to tenderize," but you don't say that, in your experience, it's an effective treatment. (I'd bet it tastes good, though.)

As this thread demonstrates, people do a lot of things 1) because they've always done them, or they were told to do them by some authority; 2) because they work, but for reasons that are not what they thought they were; 3) because the technique has a pleasant effect, even if it's not the one intended.

[ludja]

white wines grown in cool regions? chardonnay?

[nessa]

BTW does anyone want to hazard a guess as to which type of wine has the most acidity?

I'm guessing a red due to the tannic acid from the skins. Cab maybe?

[fifi]

On the veggie cooking thing... Adding salt shouldn't affect the pH of the tap water appreciably. I suspect that different cooks might get different results depending upon their tap water. I don't really know how much variation there might be in tap water but I suspect that it could be a lot. And how does softness/hardness affect the results? How about the presence of other trace elements? What, if any, variation of reactions with the chlorophyl in the veggies occur?

Damn. This could get complicated.

[fresco]

BTW does anyone want to hazard a guess as to which type of wine has the most acidity?

White?

Specifically, Reislings.

[Marlene]

BTW does anyone want to hazard a guess as to which type of wine has the most acidity?

White?

Specifically, Reislings.

That's good. I have a whole storeful of Reislings here

[fresco]

Plus, they're a damn good deal these days.