Tip - First Cook Your Marinade

LA Times 5/3

First, Cook Your Marinade

Why you shouldn't marinate in raw wine.

By THOMAS KELLER and MICHAEL RUHLMAN, Special To The Times


Marinating meat in wine is one of the most frequently misused kitchen
techniques today, in home kitchens, cookbooks and professional kitchens.
It's not that the wine is so bad, it's that you must be absolutely sure to
cook the alcohol out first.

Marinating does not tenderize meat, and alcohol doesn't either. Only
slicing, pounding and cooking can tenderize meat. In fact, alcohol will, in
effect, cook the surface, keeping the meat from absorbing the marinade. If
you cook off the alcohol first, the meat will absorb the full flavor of the
fruit of the wine.

There's another great perk: Cooking off the alcohol gives you the
opportunity to introduce other flavors into your marinade. Sauté aromatic
vegetables--thin slices of carrot and thinly sliced onion, smashed
garlic--until wilted, then add fresh herbs, peppercorns, a cup or so of red
wine, and simmer.

To get rid of the last bit of alcohol, try to light the simmering wine.
Carefully hold a match to the liquid to ignite the alcoholic fumes. It
won't explode. A weak dark blue translucent flame will flutter over the
surface. It's fire, so keep your shirt-sleeves out of it.

The liquid should be moving, but not so rapidly that the rising steam blows
out the fire. When the flame dies, almost all of the alcohol will be gone
and the wine will have begun to absorb the flavors of the vegetables and
herbs. Depending on how much alcohol was in the wine and how long the
marinade has simmered, the wine may not light at all. Your nose should be
the final arbiter. If you no longer smell harsh alcohol, it is sufficiently
cooked.

Let this cool and then add your meat to it. It's a wonderful all-purpose
marinade for braised short ribs, leg of lamb or virtually any kind of meat
that is enhanced by marination.

The final benefit of the wine marinade is that it can become the base for a
sauce for the meat. When the meat has marinated at least 24 hours, remove
it from the liquid, then pass the marinade through a fine mesh strainer
into a small sauce pan, the smaller the better.

Bring the marinade very gently to a simmer. The albumen from the meat will
begin to coagulate and rise to the surface, forming a kind of "raft"--the
term for the combination of egg whites and meat used to clarify stock for
consommes--that will clarify your wine. Don't boil this or the protein will
emulsify into the marinade, clouding its appearance and flavor. Skim this
raft off the wine, and strain the wine once more through a fine-meshed
strainer.

This liquid can now be added to a little veal stock, minced shallot, fresh
herbs, salt and pepper and reduced into an elegant sauce. Or, if you are
braising meat, it can be added with its vegetables to the stew pot as part
of the cooking liquid.

We can't stress enough the importance of using good wine for the marinades.
Don't use anything called cooking wine and don't use jug wine. The bad
flavor will permeate the meat and remain in your finished sauce. Use a
robust Zinfandel, Merlot or Pinot Noir.

Other important points:

Be sure that whatever meat you're marinating is completely covered by the
marinade.

Allow plenty of time for the marination, especially if you're marinating a
large piece of meat like a roast or a leg of lamb, at least 24 hours and as
many as 48.

Be sure you've cooked off all the alcohol. You should smell only the wine
and aromatics and not feel a harsh burning sensation in your nose.

Be sure to let this marinade cool to room temperature before adding it to
you meat, or it will start cooking your meat. Letting it cool also gives
the liquid more time to pick up the flavors of the vegetables and aromatics.