Peppery beef marinade – Recipe test drive

I could hold off no longer: even though it was poison meat from the grocery store, laden with bovine growth hormone and fed pesticides with a side of grain, I had to buy it. I had to find out what all the fuss was about flat iron steak. Since I know it’s kinda-sorta similar to flank steak, I figured we’d try a marinade and see how it fared.

I love it when Keith and I crave the same thing, and the stars aligned and we both wanted a marinade that was red wine and soy sauce based. This recipe for peppery beef marinade would certainly do the trick, or so we thought.

First of all, don’t let the actual name of the recipe fool you … there’s really nothing peppery about it, unless you add tons of freshly ground pepper, which we did. A dash does not a peppery marinade make, or so says Yoda.

Flat iron steak? Deliciously meaty tasting, tender, delightful. We figured because of the denseness of the meat’s grain that it doesn’t take marinade well, because the peppery beef marinade wasn’t bursting with flavor.

The story doesn’t end there, folks. We decided part two of our peppery beef marinade experiment was in order, so we got a trusty flank steak (this time naturally raised from Whole Foods, thank you very much) so that we’d really be able to evaluate the marinade recipe.

Verdict? I’ve never met a more tasteless marinade. Oh, flat iron steak, how could I have been so wrong in assuming it was you, when all along it was the lousy marinade recipe? Can you ever forgive me? You know you can’t stay mad for long.

I do think I know the problem with the marinade, though. If there was more acid and less oil, and also more garlic and onion, it would probably be pretty good. I’m not sure why beef needs all of that olive oil for a marinade, and it did cross my mind briefly as I was making the marinade, then I blew it off. Never blow off your foodie intuition; lesson learned.

Some of the best marinades I have ever made have been in The Art of Grilling: A Menu Cookbook that we’ve had for years. So I went back to take a look to see if I could find the common thread of greatness in the beef marinade recipes from this book. It seems that a few things come into consideration:

• Soy sauce is not considered an acid, and nearly all of the marinade recipes in this book include two different kinds of acids (orange juice and vinegar, red wine and vinegar, etc.)
• There is much less oil in the good marinade recipes.
• There are about 1/3 more “chunks” in the marinades in the book: more garlic, more onion, lots of fresh herbs.

It would be really easy to tweak the peppery beef marinade recipe:

• half the amount of oil
• substitute red wine vinegar for 1/3 of the red wine
• add half an onion
• add at least three garlic cloves
• use about 3-4 times more ginger, and make it fresh
• add some fresh cilantro and basil
• use a ton of freshly ground pepper (we did this anyway)

So the author of this recipe isn’t too far off. Or perhaps he’s right on if you don’t have any taste buds that need carressing.

Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Jun 13, 2009 @ 10:00 EST5EDT