Archived Article By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published January  , 2008 The Miracle Of Marinating Way back in year one of my restaurant-reviewing toil, I wrote a column about all the franchise steak houses around town. (It was cool back then to root around in the lower strata of the restaurant world.) Conclusion: the best was the Steak & Ale. I based that largely on the strength of one dish. It's still there: the Kensington Club steak. The name is just another one of those fake ye olde England bits of atmosphere. And although I've asked, I've never been able to determine exactly what cut of beef that it. (I think it's a top sirloin, but I'm not sure.) These days, they're telling us it's Certified Angus Beef, which is a reliable mark of quality. But what made that steak good was its marinade. It's primarily pineapple juice, with a few other spices. The resulting steak tastes only vaguely like pineapple (I don't think you'd guess that ingredient if you didn't know it was there), but has a great texture--tender, but without being mushy. Also, the flavor offered something that I'm sure the unmarinated steak wouldn't have been able to. (As you can learn by ordering the other steaks at Steak & Ale.) Since that day, I've kept my palate tuned for marinated dishes, particularly those involving meat. Especially when the meat presented challenges--like the gamy taste and lack of fat in venison, or the toughness in the secondary cuts used in some ethnic dishes. But I think marinating brings a whole new flavor dimension too, even to excellent meats. (See the first entry in today's Pursuit of Excellence.) It's a highly underrated cooking skill, and one with an incredibly wide range of options: what do you put in the marinade, how long you let the food marinate, etc. Marinade ingredients fall into four categories: 1. Fat enhancers. Olive oil is the most common. 2. Tenderizers. Acidic ingredients do this best: fruit juices, wine, vinegar, soy sauce. The ultimate is pineapple juice, which contains an enzyme that breaks down the parts of meat that makes it tough. (It was the secret of the Kensington Club steak.) Milk products can also tenderize--notably yogurt and buttermilk. 3. Flavoring agents. Garlic, sugar, pepper in any form, mustard, Worcestershire, herbs, honey--there are a million of them. 4. Moisturizing agents. The biggie here is brine--the salt water we talk about incessantly from Thanksgiving to Christmas. The salt water causes proteins the release their water content, and turns often-dry ingredients like chicken, turkey and pork into very moist meats. So, when you marinate, the whole trick is to make up your mind about what properties you'd like to add to this piece of food. Then go crazy. Marinating is a big, mostly forgiving world, open to much improvisation. © 2008 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com