Saturday, September 13, 2008

easiest, tastiest steak marinade

I am on a house cleaning purge - perhaps instead of spring cleaning, I am fall cleaning. One place that needs some love is my cookbook bookcase. I am always ripping out recipes or being given recipes that I think "I will make one day" - I am sure many people have this as well.

Years ago a former colleague gave me this recipe. Photocopied from a book. Unfortunately I have no idea what the source is, so apologies to the creator. But in an effort to clean the shelf, random papers must go, and this needs to be added to the blog for posterity.

When I think of this recipe I think of the word, umami. The kitchen even smells great when the steak is marinating! No picture, but just know that when this all comes together and you cook your steak perfectly it is a great addition to a meal from the grill!

Ingredients
1 cup dark soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
2 cloves finally minced garlic cloves
1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger
(sometimes I used ground ginger from the spice rack and that works fine too)

freshly ground pepper to taste
1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar (or juice from 1/2 a lemon)
1 Tbsp cornstarch (or tapioca starch)

Directions:
  1. Mix all the ingredients together in a non-reactive dish.
  2. Add the meat, turn to coat and marinate for 10-30 minutes. Turn meat half way through to ensure equal marinating. Do not marinate overnight, as this is a fairly salty marinade.
  3. Cook steaks to the doneness you like. Be sure to allow them to rest for 4 minutes and the quickly return to grill to heat up for 30 seconds or so.
** Enough for 4 steaks

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