Favorite marinades?

[jdesigns]

I love Kikkoman's quick and easy "Garlic and Herb" marinade.


Anyone got a good cajun marinade? I am looking to inject it into my turkey.

[dgoldbe2]

Cayenne Pepper
Salt
(Or Tony Cachere's if you can find it).

That is pretty much all you need to make it Cajun.
That, and you need to fry it. If you burn your house down, all the better

Fried Turkey.
Mmmmmmm, Good.



I do a couple of different marinades depending on my mood.

I just did a quick Tequila, Lime, Cilantro thing on both Chicken and Shrimp for dinner tonight.

I also usually do a Soy/Ginger/Onion/Garlic/Honey thing on Skirt steak.

But mostly I do rubs on meat before grilling.

[FineExampl]

Luger's steak sauce makes a killer marinade!

Or a nice garlic teriyaki.

Or a good dry rub works well also.

John

[WNAB911]

Just plain old italian salad dressing on chicken and steak!

[AmyJane]

Originally Posted by WNAB911

Just plain old italian salad dressing on chicken and steak!

I LOVE using italian dressing as a marinade..especially on steak. Marinate it for 24hrs and YUM! Its awesome on shish kebab too!!! MMMM!!!!

[WNAB911]

Cybergreen - we are going to get along too good!

[jdesigns]

Originally Posted by dgoldbe2

Cayenne Pepper
Salt
(Or Tony Cachere's if you can find it).

That is pretty much all you need to make it Cajun.
That, and you need to fry it. If you burn your house down, all the better

I am guessing that I would do this as a rub, rather than an injectionable marinade, right? Is there something that I could mix this with to make it injectable? I would guess something like water maybe? Thanks!

[hyakugojyuuichi]

Originally Posted by WNAB911

Just plain old italian salad dressing on chicken and steak!

Italian dressing is the best!

[dgoldbe2]

Originally Posted by jdesigns

I am guessing that I would do this as a rub, rather than an injectionable marinade, right? Is there something that I could mix this with to make it injectable? I would guess something like water maybe? Thanks!

An injection is different than a marinade (technically). You can use water, chicken stock, or vegetable stock.

While I find salt and cayenne to be good enough for me, you could add some other seasonings to the mixture to make it more "authentic" (as interpreted by various chefs:

Here is one option:

1 (16 ounce) bottle Italian dressing
1/2 cup cayenne pepper
1/2 cup black pepper
1 cup Creole seasoning
2 tablespoons garlic powder

The italian dressing is to get some acid into the marinade to tenderize the meat. Plus you get some onion and garlic (which you will add some more).

If you can't find a pre-mixed Creole seasoning, you can make your own:

2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons dried oregano leaves
2 tablespoons dried sweet basil
1 tablespoon dried thyme leaves
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon white pepper
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon celery seed
5 tablespoons sweet paprika

It will add some flavor, and since there is only 1 tbs of cayenne, and 1 tbs of black pepper, it is not that spicy (thus the addition of more cayenne above)

I personally would not use italian dressing. I occasionally like to throw a couple of steaks in a zip loc bag and do them that way, but I like turkey, and personally find that too much.

I would substitute the italian dressing with a vegetable stock, and add onion powder, more garlic powder, paprika, celery seed. Hell, probably just increase the amount of each of the seasonings a little at a time until I got a flavor I liked. Depending on how salty your stock is, you may need to add some salt.

If you are going to marinate a turkey breast (I don't know how you would do an entire turkey), replace the stock enough vegetable oil to ensure that the meat is covered, and to provide a substance for the seasonings to be suspended in.

If you decide to make any of these seasoning mixtures, use a food processor to combine the dry ingredients, and pulverize them into uniform sized pieces. You could use a stick blender or a whisk to combine the dry and liquid ingredients together to get a good mixture.


Another possibility is to brine the turkey

1 cup salt
1 gallon vegetable stock
1 gallon iced water
Probably at least 3 tablespoons of cayenne (or use the seasoning mixture above, increasing the amount until the desired flavor).

I am not too sure how that would work with these powdered seasonings. When I brine a turkey I use Ginger, allspice berries, peppercorn, and brown sugar in addition to the salt plus some other stuff. Things whose flavors will permeate the water.

The idea with the brining is that the salt will draw out the moisture that is in the turkey, and replace it with the seasoned water. I don't know if it will work with the cayenne.

If you go this route, keep the turkey in the brine for at least 24 hours, and go straight from the brine to the oven (don't let the bird dry before roasting).