Main CourseMarinating Meat - Mouth Watering And Cheap!
Want to know how to marinate meat to be so tender it melts in your mouth?
Then your first ingredient needs to be vinegar, or something acidic based, such as canned tomatoes, or tomato juice. But personally, the secret ingredient here is vinegar. You only need about 1/2 cup of it, and you can dress it up with all kinds of herbs and spices. This is the part where you use your imagination.
If the meat is quite thick, then you need to "open up" the meat either by stabbing it with a fork, or with a meat pounder. Place the meat in a casserole dish, that will let the marinade sit on the meat. Don"t use too big a dish, or the meat will not absorb the marinade.
Once you have come up with your vinegar based marinade, then you cover the meat and refrigerate for at least two hours before you use it, with a minimum of 30 minutes, but I find two hours to be a great number. If the meat is really tough, you could leave it in the fridge overnight.
If you absolutely can not stand vinegar, then you can use tomato juice, or lemon juice or even wine. Or try some of the flavored vinegars, such as red wine vinegar,
If you have meat that is tough, and you are not planning on barbequing it, then get out the slow cooker or crock pot. It is amazing how tender meat can get from slow cooking all day in the crock pot.
If you choose to use the crock pot or slow cooker, then you can still use a vinegar marinade, but personally, if I am slow cooking the meat, it will most likely be a stew I am making. In this case I would place the meat in it, then cover with canned tomatoes and lots of herbs and spices and other vegetables, such as onions and carrots.
Get everything ready the night before, and leave it in the refrigerator, then in the morning, just before you go to work, get the crock pot going on very low, and head out to work. When you come home your house will smell divine and your dinner with be so tender you would not believe it was that same tough cut of meat you had that morning.
Marinating meat, is a great way to keep your grocery bills down. You can get the cheaper cuts of meat, and still get the same great taste. You just have to plan a bit more, but it is well worth the savings.
Many people are dusting off their crock pots, and using them again. You can even purchase "already to heat up in the crock pot instant dinners", but you can make the same thing yourself. Plus a crock pot takes the same energy as a light bulb. So, if you are trying to cut back on expenses, especially groceries, then get out some of those great marinating recipes, you can have a different taste each night from the same cut of meat. That should get your mouth watering!