For my friend.

Well about a week and a half ago I received a request from one of my friends, a certain Mr. Torok of Egyptian goon squad fame, for a steak marinade. Although I am loath to marinate good meat-I feel that a good cut of meat is flavorful and delicious if cooked properly on its own-I also realize that the bigger/faster/leaner craze in the United States have left us with some very sad cuts of meat compared to the rest of the world (there are exceptions, I like to hit the meat locker in Royal Center, IN for some FANTASTIC local beef and pork, but places like that are the exception and not the rule).

With that said, I had an excuse to create a simple steak/beef marinade that I'd love to use for pan cooking or grilling, on many different cuts of beef. I like to think that when you do marinate something, it is to help intensify the flavors of the meal you are serving and now drown it out. With that said, I made a very simple Asian-inspired marinade to soak my beef in overnight before cooking.

D's Asian-Inspired Marinade

Tools:

Cutting Board

Food Processor

Knife

Plastic Bag you will marinate the meat in

Ingredients:

A thumb sized piece of ginger with the skin peeled off.

1 cup of Blue Moon Beer (You can imagine how I instruct you to dispose of the rest of the Blue Moon)

2-3 large pieces of garlic

1/2th cup of orange juice (Whatever kind of OJ that you like, I am a pulp man personally)

If you have never worked with ginger before, peel off the outer brown skin of the ginger. Place the ginger and the garlic into the food processor and turn it into a liquid paste. After it is ground up, add the beer and orange juice into the food processor an mix it for a few seconds to clean the blades off. Add all the ingredients into the plastic bag and add your choice of beef. (Note: I used chicken as well and was VERY happy with the result). Refrigerate overnight for the best results, but give at least an hour for the flavors to mingle and for the beer to break down the meat and make a more tender cut of beef.

When I grill this, I use a medium hot heat (I can hold my hand near the grill for 3-5 seconds before I have to pull away) rubbed down with a paper towel with oil on it (you have to oil the grill or the meat can stick). Before I put the meat on, I cover both sides with salt (I love sea salt) and pepper (white pepper is nice on steaks) to taste, and then grill it until it is a happy medium/medium-rare.

I hope this is what you are looking for Mr. Torok, it was fun developing a new marinade.

Bien Camino

Note: if you don't have a food processor, it isn't the end of the world. Just chop the crap out of the garlic and ginger and then place it into the plastic bag. Then get out a very heavy rolling pin and mash the crap out of the bag as well, further releasing flavors.