Marinades

[Godless Dave]

Share your marinade ideas here! I need to learn some more. I love to grill, and I love to marinate meat and vegetables before I grill them, but I only know two: simple teriyaki (soy sauce, garlic, and ginger) and A1 steak sauce mixed with beer or whiskey.

[JoeP]

Red wine, plus whatever tickles you: onions/shallots, garlic, bay leaves, erbs. (Actually, not sure about bay leaves in a marinade. I think they need cooking to get the flavour out?)

You can add rice wine or dry sherry to the teriyaki you mention.

What kind of vegetables do you marinate? I'd just drizzle them with olive oil and crushed salt before grilling.

[ApostateAbe]

My typical marinade would consist of any combination of soy sauce, garlic, corn starch (to make the marinade stick to the meat), sesame oil, and cumin. If I were to fix my grill, I could use a few marinades myself.

EDIT: Oh, and I almost forgot cooking alcohol.

[Rene]

Italian salad dressing is a great marinade, especially for chicken.

A YUMMY marinade for Cuban-style pork consists of orange juice, lime juice, oregano, and garlic.

[livius drusus]

EDIT: Oh, and I almost forgot cooking alcohol.

Do you mean any kind in particular? Like wine or sherry or brandy?

[pescifish]

Italian salad dressing is a great marinade, especially for chicken.Ditto on the ease and excellent results from a standard Italian salad dressing. It's good for beef, too.

[ApostateAbe]

EDIT: Oh, and I almost forgot cooking alcohol.
Do you mean any kind in particular? Like wine or sherry or brandy? Typically sherry, but it wouldn't matter.

[JoeP]

EDIT: Oh, and I almost forgot cooking alcohol.
:? That's crazy talk. You can't cook alcohol, it boils away. Try it raw, dude.

[dave_a]

Italian salad dressing is a great marinade, especially for chicken.

A YUMMY marinade for Cuban-style pork consists of orange juice, lime juice, oregano, and garlic.

I don't have any marinade recipes, but I wanted to echo the Italian salad dressing idea. When I make a marinade I generally think of the primary flavor I want and then add secondary flavors or "hints" or accents to it.

Soy sauce is a good base. I don't actually use italian dressing, but it's primary ingredients are vinegar and oil. It is the vinegar that provides the flavor.

Soy sauce and vinegar are the primary bases I use although there are others and I haven't come anywhere close to exploring the outer reaches of damn tasty marinades.

A grilled whole chicken with a base marinade of vinegar is something special. What happens on a hot grill is the vinegar takes on a slightly burnt or smoky flavor. It has to be experienced.

Ok, so what else? Really depends what you like. After the base is applied you can use a secondary base or just go to the herbs and spices. A secondary base would be something like mustard, jalepeno juice or horseradish among many other things. An obvious spice would be salt and the herbs are also obvious, but it helps to know what herbs go best with what meats. Beyond that you just have to blend and try. If you follow basic rules for herbs it is hard to go wrong. While this link (http://www.salescene.com/herbmeat.html) is not a "law" it will serve as a guide to what to use with what for good results.

My rule of thumb for using herbs is to never use more than 3 together unless you are cooking an Indian/Thai dish which is best attempted with someone of Indian or Thai descent helping you. I swear to god I don't know how people can use curry so well when every attempt I have made turns to crap.

One last "secret" to using herbs in a marinade or just using herbs is don't use more than one from each flavor group or it is a waste. There are many anise tasting herbs, many lemony ones, many peppery ones etc. There is no reason to use more than one of a type as you won't taste the difference in the dish.