I saw this marinade recipe for preparing beef brisket on one of those really popular recipe free-for-all web sites that are open to the public….and I shuddered. The reason? To my way of thinking the ingredients in this marinade first destroy the product flavor and texture and then re-constitute it with phony flavor substitutes.
Here’s the recipe:
FOR THE MARINADE
1 whole Lemon, Juiced
1 can (10.5 Oz. Can) Beef Consommé
8 teaspoons Dried Onion Flakes
4 teaspoons Beef Bouillon
1 teaspoon Onion Powder
½ teaspoons Celery Seed
5 cloves Garlic, Minced
¼ cups Red Wine
¼ cups Soy Sauce
First off – the acids are a big problem. There are three in this recipe.
- Lemon Juice
- Red Wine
- Soy Sauce
I wouldn’t normally categorize red wine as an acid – because I don’t generally use alcohol as a marinade, instead I prefer to incorporate it into the finishing sauce. When you combine wine with the lemon juice it turns to vinegar – so acid it is. Acids tenderize – actually acids break down the proteins and sugars in the food. Leave meat too long in the marinade with that much acidic content and you’ve nearly got mush. All of this acid doesn’t have a counter balance for flavor. I expect the meat placed in this marinade will come out tender, oh yeah, so tender you could eat it without teeth!
Next is the use of added beef flavor to flavor a beefy tasting cut of meat.
- Beef bouillon (dry)
- Beef consommé (canned)
Both of these products have a limited place in a kitchen that needs shortcuts. Although I’m not a fan of their taste (the canned consume is never that good, really is it?) I can certainly see how they can be short-cuts on a busy night. But when you are taking the time (several hours in the case of this recipe) to marinade – why add them? What positive impact could they have on a cut of beef that is – well – a cut with the quintessential ‘beef’ flavor? I’ll tell you why they are here. If you use that much acid and destroy the texture and leach the flavor out of the beef – then you need to add some flavor back in it. The end result is not a true flavor of that particular piece of meat but a homogenized version of beef. Think steam-table taste.
Too much salt!
If you added up all the salt in the bouillon, consommé and soy sauce – oh man, you’ve got a whopping amount of salt going on. And it’s not the good flavored salt, it’s that insidious hidden “sodium” that only adds to hypertension not flavor!
The spices are, well, poorly chosen.
- Dried onion flakes AND onion powder? Why not just chop up some real onions folks? It’s cheaper and the taste is real!
- Celery seed? Are we making corned beef here or grandma’s soggy brisket?
Fresh Garlic.
At last the recipe makes some sense!
But it needs more.
In fact, how’s about you just take about a dozen cloves of garlic and smoosh them all up with some kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper – mix them in a little grape seed oil and rub it all in nice and good on the brisket? Forget the rest of it!
Slowly & indirectly cook that beautiful piece of beef in your smoker or grill at about 195F degrees for a couple hours with some hickory or mesquite (or other wood you like) for a little touch of smoke flavor to it. After about 2 hours wrap it really tightly in some foil and continue to cook until the internal temperature is 195F degrees as well. Remove it and place in an insulated container (an empty oven, cooler or even a microwave will do) – still in the foil and wrapped in towels to rest for an hour or two.
That brisket is gonna taste like beef. The real beef flavor of the meat. The connective tissue and collagen will have rendered and flavored it like you can’t believe. And it’s gonna be so tender — but will have what I call a good “tooth” to the bite. Not mushy, not tough, but a good “tooth.” And the garlic-salt-pepper will combine with the smoke to make a tasty crusty surface that you will savor in each cross-grain thinly sliced piece.
Oh yeah baby! That’s what I call DEE-LISH-US!
Happy Grilling!
