Sources :
- The great steak marinade experiment: pre-game
- The great steak marinade experiment: the results are in
I'm looking to add to the collective knowledge with a steak marinade experiment. As a texture eater, I'm a big fan of the fillet. While I like my fattier cuts with salt and pepper, I like to flavor leaner cuts.
I recently tried this marinade recipe and it the flavor was fantastic:
- 1/3 cup soy sauce
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
- 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
- 1 1/2 tablespoons garlic powder
- 3 tablespoons dried basil
- 1 1/2 tablespoons dried parsley flakes
- 1 teaspoon ground white pepper
The marinade is designed for grilling and the recommendation is that you let it marinade for up to 8 hours before grilling.
I want to perfect this marinade for sous vide, and I'd like some input before I begin my test. Here are some of my initial thoughts:
- For the purpose of this test 'sous vide' includes vacuum sealing with a sous vide supreme sealer, cooking at 132 for 90 minutes on a Sansaire immersion, and searing over wood fire charcoal that's as hot as I can get it.
- Normally I would leave out the olive oil on tougher cuts because it works against the acids for tenderizing, but because sous vide fillet is already so tender, it may work in my favor to keep it. I'll try batches with and without and see if there are any differences.
- Blend the marinade or just whisk it together? I tend to use my Ninja (I seriously love that thing more than anything else in my arsenal. Couldn't stand my Vitamix, love my Ninja. Go figure.) to blend my post-cook pot roast gravy for consistency and I'm not sure if it would help or hurt with this marinade. I have no idea if there is wisdom either way.
- Test 1: Marinade for 4-6 hours not under vacuum, remove from marinade, sous vide.
- Test 2: Marinade for 30 minutes under vacuum, leave in marinade, sous vide.
- Test 3 & 4: Repeat the process on my other favorite cut: Skirt Steak (not flank).
The results are in regarding wet marinades and sous vide: Just don't. Period.
I have gone through about 12 fillets, 8-10 top sirloins, 8-10 boneless short ribs, and about 4 pounds of tri-tip in the past two weeks trying various wet and dry marinades. I have somewhat of an addictive/compulsive personality and I tend to do something until I understand it completely. I'm nowhere near understanding sous vide completely, but I do have some feedback on my experiments.
This all started to answer the question of how I could use my favorite wet marinade. Do I marinade it right before sous vide? Do I marinade it for a few hours then cook it sous vide? Cook it in the marinade or dry it off? Does it make a difference if I use a fattier cut as opposed to my favorite leaner cuts?
My answers to the questions I had going into this follow, but I'll also share a number of other lessons I learned along the way as well regarding imparting flavor on your sous vide cooked meat.
- I won't be using a wet marinade for sous vide cooking steaks again. Braised beef is another story (and holy mother of yum does sous vide do braised beef something special), but that's for another post.
- If you're adding anything in with your marinade that is meant to tenderize beef, use MUCH less than any recipe calls for or that expensive cut of beef is going to be more mush than succulent goodness.
- I found the best results doing wet marinade was when I marinaded the beef for 6 hours, removed it from the marinade, dried it off, re-vacuum sealed it, then cooked it sous vide.
- I haven't looked into why this is, but the flavor from wet marinade just don't seem to penetrate the meat or stick with the meat cooking sous vide.
- Vacuum sealing wet marinades requires you to use much more of your vacuum roll if you don't have a chamber vac because you need the extra time for the unit to seal before the liquid gets to the sealing strip and cools it down before the seal is complete. This was annoying.
- The biggest surprise in all of this was that I found there to be no discernible difference between eating it right after cooking and searing compared to cooking, shocking and freezing, then bringing it back up to temperature. This has been true for all meats (except fish or shell-fish, I have not frozen either yet). In fact, my time spent testing these theories has led me to now cook all of my food in batches (chicken, pork, beef, veggies) and freeze it all to be brought back to temp later on.
There are a number of things I learned in addition to how (not) to wet marinade beef for sous vide cooking:
- Dry rubs are AMAZING when cooking sous vide. As in 'holy shit, this is amazing' good.
- Sodium should be used sparingly on beef unless you're going for a tougher texture. I've read that this is due to the salt curing the meat while it is held at a low temp, and that makes sense from my experience.
- Umami (MSG) and/or Porcini Powder makes a fantastic substitute for salt in dry rubs. Anything more than a little sodium really changes the texture of beef while it's cooking sous vide. Also, if you read the letters 'MSG' and think it's bad for you, I encourage you to do some reading. You've been told a lie your whole life. Also, Porcini powder is amazing, but make sure it actually comes form Porcini mushrooms. If it's a lot cheaper than the other stuff, it's probably some other mushroom and it's not nearly as delicious.
- Do NOT use fresh garlic cooking sous vide. Instead, granulated is your friend. I fortunately didn't find this out the hard way, but there is plenty of info on it out there.
The best method I have found cooking beef, and this has been true for every cut so far, is to do the following:
- Very lightly coat your meat with olive oil. Not like you're grilling or using cast iron, but JUST enough to cover it ever so slightly. Seriously, the only thing you want to do here is allow your dry rub to stick to your meat long enough to get it into your bag.
- Apply your dry rub liberally. For about 4 good size cuts of beef, I'll use anywhere from 4 to 10 tablespoons of dry rub.
- I have found that adding two smaller pats on either side of your meat leaves a nicer looking cut (instead of having a butter pat indent in the middle) and gives it more uniform coverage. I haven't tried any other kind of fat yet, but I can't wait to get my hands on some goose fat.
- While I have read numerous places that there is no need to rest your meat while cooking sous vide, it has been my experience that letting it rest for 5 minutes or so between the water bath and the sear results in a noticeably juicier steak.
- If you're going to cook a cut that was frozen before it was prepared, boil some water and throw it in there for a minute, take it out and dry it off. This will give you enough malleable surface to apply your oil and dry rub, and it has the benefit of killing surface germs.
- Save that juice, it is gold, my god is it gold. The juice from the pouch is amazing for sauces. I always deglaze my skillet and use the renderings to make a sauce, but the juices from a sous vide cooked steak is on an entirely new level. If you don't have a fat separator, they're really useful. Protip: You can get a particular style batter dispenser and it doubles as a fat separator, or vice versa. Just make sure it's rated for the temp you'll be using it for. While I have used the cooking juices with various reductions, I have also just reduced the juices and maybe throwing in some butter and corn starch and it's been heavenly.
Here are a few of my favorite dry rubs, adapted for sous vide:
Montreal Style:
- 2 tbsp. Paprika (I prefer Hungarian now)
- 2 tbsp. Black Pepper
- 1 tsp. White Pepper
- 1 tsp. Umami
- 1 tsp. Cayenne Pepper (optional, you can use red pepper flakes as well)
- 1 tbsp. granulated garlic
- 1 tbsp. granulated onion
- 1 tbsp. granulated coriander
- 1 tbsp. dill
Mexican Style:
- 2 tbsp. Chili Powder
- 1 tbsp. Black Pepper
- 1 tbsp. Oregano
- 1 tbsp. Dried Cilantro
- 1 tbsp. Cumin
- 1 tbsp. granulated Garlic
- 1 tsp. Cayenne Pepper
- 1 tsp. Umami (instead of salt)
- ~4 tbsp. lime juice (enough to turn your rub into a paste).
Tex Mex Style:
- 4 tbsp. Ancho Chili Powder
- 2 tbsp. Paprika
- 2 tbsp. dried Oregano
- 2 tbsp. dried Coriander
- 2 tbsp. dried Mustard
- 1 tbsp. Cumin
- 1 tbsp. Black Pepper
- 1 tsp. Umami (instead of salt)
- A lime or two to cover the steaks in instead of olive oil.
Pepper Cream: * tons of pepper. Coat your steak in pepper. Use the coarsest setting you have on your grinder and get cranking. * heavy cream * marsala wine * butter * Directions: reduce some marsala wine, then pour your peppery juices in and reduce some more. Add butter until it melts. Now add your heavy cream and reduce until it's as thick as you want. I don't have exact measurements because it varies depending on what I'm in the mood for. The amount of Marsala you use is going to dictate how much butter and heavy cream you use.
TLDR: Don't bother with wet marinades, dry rub reigns king in the land of sous vide beef.