What's In A Marinade???

Marinating adds and enhances the flavor of meat, fish or poultry. Following are five of my favorite marinades for steak and chicken. These are all tried & true!!

1. Italian dressing. Italian dressing is a simple and flavorful marinade for both steak and chicken. You can use it to marinade your meat for as little as 30 minutes or as long as overnight. Either will fill your meat with flavor. Italian dressing is especially tasty when you are going to grill your steak or chicken. Since there are several variations of Italian dressing, you can chose the one you like best to use as your marinade. If you prefer more flavor try a Robust Italian dressing. Whether you use store brand, your favorite brand or the brand on sale, all will give your meat or poultry lots of flavor.

2. Balsamic vinaigrette makes a great marinade for chicken. Combine 1 cup of balsamic vinegar with 1/8 cup of olive oil. This is a sweet and tangy marinade that is very tasty.

3. KC Masterpiece® Garlic & Herb Marinade. An infusion of garlic, specially selected herbs and sweet red peppers. Use it to add flavor to chicken legs and thighs.

4. LAWRY'S® Sesame Ginger Marinade contains blends Mandarin orange juice and oranges, fresh ginger, soy sauce, toasted sesame, and garlic for an Asian flavor. This is a very savory marinade for both chicken and steak.

5. Lemon basil marinade for chicken. Combine 3 tablespoons of fresh chopped basil ( or 1 tablespoon of dried basil leaves) with 1/3 cup lemon juice, 1 tablespoon olive oil and 4 cloves chopped garlic. (this is enough to marinade 4 boneless chicken breasts). This is a very tasty, yet light flavor for chicken. Tastes great when the chicken is marinaded overnight and then grilled.

Next week we'll talk about grills!!!

It's All In The Flavor

Every BBQ sauce is different, but all have the same purpose: to enhance, rather than mask, the flavor of smoked meat.

Most aficionados believe that sauce is an essential component of real barbeque, it's not just for smoked meat: BBQ sauce can jazz up broiled chicken breasts and other lean cuts of meat or it can stand in for ketchup as a meatloaf glaze.

Although they can't compete on the same playing field as homemade or small-batch BBQ sauces, reviews say that the best inexpensive barbeque sauces are balanced. Some are even complex, with notes of malt, caramel, fruit or molasses. The downside is that many mass-market BBQ sauces contain corn syrup, which can give them a gloppy consistency and an overly sweet taste. And many mass-market sauces contain chemical flavorings, artificial coloring, thickeners and preservatives. 

Let's take a look at a couple of my favorite more commercial sauces you can find in the supermarket. These will easily make your BBQ burst with flavor.

KC Masterpiece Original (*Est. $2 for 18 ounces) - No mass-market BBQ sauce is picked as a favorite more often. Two review sources call it "sweet and smoky," and both note the presence of molasses. This sauce is deep mahogany in color and quite thick, with what Cook's Illustrated calls a "meaty depth." Tasters at one professional review source think the texture is too gloppy, which is due in part to the corn syrup that's listed as an ingredient. Still, reviewers say, it's hard to find a better supermarket BBQ sauce.

Sweet Baby Ray's Original BBQ sauce (*Est. $2.50 for 18 ounces) - My personal favorite comes from Chicago and earns a solid rating from testers, who like its mild spiciness and caramel notes. For many consumers posting to SeriousEats.com and Chowhound.com, Ray's is a staple condiment. Aside from the original version, there are five more flavors of Sweet Baby Ray's, including Sweet Baby Ray's Honey Chipotle and Sweet Baby Ray's Sweet Vidalia Onion. All these versions are available in sizes from 18 ounces up to 80 ounces.

Cattlemen's Authentic Smoke House BBQ sauce (*Est. $2.50 for 18 ounces) - This is another mass-market barbeque sauce that impresses the critics, although not as much as KC Masterpiece or Sweet Baby Ray's. Tasters at TheNibble.com like its strong hickory flavor, but they say it's "not as distinctive or exciting" as expensive, small-batch sauces. Cattlemen's does not contain thickening agents, but it does contain corn syrup and tomato paste, rather than tomato puree. It comes in four additional flavors, including Cattlemen's Award Winning Classic BBQ sauce.

Trader Joe's Bold and Smoky Kansas City-Style BBQ sauce (*est. $2.50 for 18 ounces) - This one earns raves from BBQSauceReviews.com, which calls it "bold, smoky, sweet and yet natural." This sauce contains natural smoke flavor, real sugar and molasses and it's said to be deeply colored and glossy. Its only downside, reviews say, is its thin consistency.

Next week we'll be talking marinades. Stay tuned!

BBQ Pitmasters

If you're a fan of BBQ you really need to check out this show airing every Thursday night at 10pm EST on TLC.



Kind of busy week for me but we'll get to supermarket sauces next weekend.

Kansas City Here I Come

In Kansas City they know BBQ ribs. This is one of my personal favorite barbecue rub recipe for traditional Kansas City-style ribs. Finish them off with a good barbecue sauce and you'll have a fantastic meal. This recipe is mostly brown sugar, so it makes a deliciously, sweet rub. This rub is not recommended for hot and fast cooking because the sugar will burn. So avoid high temperatures when using it.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup paprika
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 teaspoon cayenne

Combine all ingredients together and transfer to an air tight container.

Next week we're gonna get sauced!!! We'll be talking about some of my favorite sauces found right in the supermarket that you can use in a pinch when you don't have time to brew up your own.

Rub-A-Dub-Dub

Rubs are for the most part, dry ingredients (herbs, spices and seasonings) that are rubbed or sprinkled on meat before cooking to enhance the flavor when cooked. A dry rub is a form of marinade, however rub has an advantage over a marinade, in that it forms a tasty crust on food when it is cooked. Rubs are used to provide a higher degree of concentrated flavor to larger cuts of meat like beef brisket and pork shoulder. These cuts of meat will taste very bland without a good sprinkle of rub. Rubs are sometimes used as the basis for a table or finishing sauce for your cooked food, but most often rub's magic is done before the cooking process is over.

Ingredients in dry rubs vary, depending on the kind of food you are using, but some items are more common than others. Salt and sugar seem to appear more often then anything else, andsurprisingly are often the most controversial. Some cooks say that salt drys the moisture out of meat, and everyone agress that sugar burns on the surface of food. If making your own rubs keep these two ingredients in check. Use them in moderation in a way that supports the rub rather then overpowers it. Garlic powder, onion powder, chili and lemon pepper seasonings are also very popular. Secondary seasonings such as dry mustard, cumin, sage, thyme, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger are used to round a rub off nicely.

If you are making your own rubs, use finer ground spices for rubs on thinner cuts of meat, as these break down and and flavor the food faster. Use coarser ground spices for larger, thicker cuts of meat, as these will not break down as fast and will give you more flavor when cooking over a longer period of time.

When applying a rub to meat I don't actually rub the spices into the meat, as the name would suggest. Rubbing causes the pores of the meat to clog up. In addition if you have ever rubbed a rub into a cut of meat, where does most of the rub end up? On your hands!

When applying a rub, add it thoroughly and evenly. Generally you don't need to skimp on the amount, though some dishes benefit from a light touch. Allow flavors of the rub to penetrate the food by covering it and leaving it in the refridgerator for a while. Fish fillets and shrimp usually need to sit for 1-2 hours, big cuts of meat can be left overnight, and other kinds of food are somewhere in between.

Next week I'll share a couple of great Rub recipes with you.

Holy Cow!!! Meat, Meat & More Meat!!!

Beef is first divided into primal cuts. These are basic sections from which steaks and other subdivisions are cut. Since the animal's legs and neck muscles do the most work, they are the toughest; the meat becomes more tender as distance from hoof and horn increases

The following is a list of the American primal cuts, ordered front to back, then top to bottom. The short loin and the sirloin are sometimes considered as one section (loin).

Upper Half

Chuck — one of the most common sources for roasts and hamburgers
Rib — short ribs, rib eye steak and prime rib
Loin — subprimals are:
Short Loin — from which strip steaks are cut,
Sirloin — less tender than short loin, but more flavorful, further divided into Top sirloin and Bottom sirloin, and
Tenderloin — the most tender, from which filet mignon is served, can be removed separately, or left in for T-bone and Porterhouse steaks
Round — lean cut, moderately tough, lower fat marbling, requires moist cooking or lesser degrees of doneness

Lower Half

Brisket — often associated with barbecue beef brisket.
Shank — used primarily for stews and soups; it is not usually served any other way due to it being the toughest of the cuts.
Plate — produces short ribs for pot roasting and types of steak such as the outside skirt steak for, say, fajitas and hanger steak. It is typically a cheap, tough, and fatty meat.
Flank — used mostly for grinding, except for the long and flat flank steak, best known for use in London broil. Once one of the most affordable steaks on the market, it is substantially tougher than the loin and rib steaks, therefore many flank recipes use marinades or moist cooking methods such as braising. Popularity and leanness have resulted in increased price.

Special Beef Designations

Certified Angus Beef (CAB) is a specification-based, branded-beef program which was founded in 1978 by Angus cattle producers to increase demand for their breed of cattle, by promoting the impression that Angus cattle have consistent, high-quality beef with superior taste. The brand is owned by the American Angus Association and its 35,000 rancher members. The terms Angus Beef or Black Angus Beef are loosely and commonly misused and/or confused with CAB; this is especially common in the foodservice industry. The brand or name Certified Angus Beef can't be legally used by an establishment that is not licensed to do so. However, Black Simmental beef may also be included in the certified angus beef program.
-Certified Hereford Beef is beef certified to have come from Hereford cattle.
-Grass Fed Beef has been raised primarily on forage rather than in a feedlot.
-Kobe Beef : Cattle of the Wagyu breed raised and fattened in the hills above Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. During the fattening period, the cattle are hand-fed (using high-energy feed, including beer and beer mash) and hand-massaged for tenderness and high fat content.

Hope this helped you to understand what and why beef selection is important. Next week we'll be talking about Rubs and some of my favorite Rub recipes.

Bar-Be-Que???

Some food historians claim that the word comes from the French phrase barbe a queue, meaning "from beard to tail," the preferred method of spit-roasting entire hogs. Other sources suggest the word comes from 19th-century advertisements for combination bar, beer, pool and eating establishments, playfully dubbed bar-beer-cues.

Perhaps the most reasonable explanation I found stems from the Spanish word barbacoa, which roughly translates as "a wooden rack on which meat is roasted over flames." And you thought you weren't going to learn anything!

Ok, next week I'm going to talk about the different cuts of meat that come from our bovine friends.

Greetings Lovers of the "Q"

Posts coming soon!!! I hope you're hungry.