You Don’t Need to Marinate Everything Overnight
I’m not good at leaving things to marinate: ideas, problems, meat. The problem is, I don’t know what I want to eat until an hour after I’m hungry, which is not the time to start the pre-cooking process. I want to move on to the post process: eating. Nothing will make me “Pass” faster than reading a recipe and realizing that I should have started it yesterday.
Which brings me back to marinating. I come across the phrase “marinate overnight” so often, which fascinates me. What if I’m a light sleeper? What if I’m a night owl and cook it at 11pm? In a world where recipes strive to be so precise that there is a standard definition of “little teaspoon”, how can one go without “marinate overnight”?
I found myself wondering if it even matters? I convinced myself not to bother with a quick marinade at 6 p.m. to have lunch an hour or two later, because it definitely wouldn’t be effective. Only squirrels that go through a full lunar cycle acquire this magical extra flavor, at least that’s what I thought.
I figured it was worth investigating, so in a semi-scientific way, I set up a test to find out if marinating small instant proteins overnight is actually better than marinating them for an hour or two, and if so, how. much better.
Test
I’ve put together an instant protein cut (and one vegetable) that will satisfy anyone: boneless pork chops, chicken breasts (both tasteless on their own, in my opinion), Italian eggplant, and some silky tofu. Marinating large cuts, whole birds and meats with a lot of connective tissue will have to be postponed until the next time. (After all, we are talking about quick dinner options.)
I mixed a few common marinades: a basic Asian mix of soy, hoisin, black vinegar, some oyster sauce and sesame oil; a simple mixture of yogurt and harissa; and fresh herbs, garlic and lemon in olive oil.
I split the tofu and eggplant in half and applied the soy marinade to half of the tofu, then sliced the eggplant and applied the olive oil marinade to half. Each went in his own bag, with most of the air removed. For the meat, I chose almost identical chicken breasts and pork chops and put one each in a bag, spreading yogurt on the chicken and soy on the pork chops. The remaining halves went to their bags (many ziplocks died at the same time), waiting for tomorrow.
I let the sun go down. The moon has risen. I took my edibles, and then, as if by magic or a REM cycle, morning came. Around 13:00 I took out my bags and looked. Everything seemed to be going like clockwork. Then I took unpickled foods and processed them like I had their twins the night before.
After two hours, I pulled everything out. The first set was marinated for about 18 hours, and the second for only two hours. Trying to be as scientific as my ADHD would allow, I decided to cook things up as similar as possible. Chicken and pork chops were placed in a 142℉ sous vide water bath. The eggplant lay on a plate under the brazier. I like raw silken tofu, so I didn’t cook it.
Is a longer marinade good for tofu?
The tofu was…tofu, I expected to see a soy sauce marinade ring, or at least a darker color on the outside of a marinade that had been marinated for 18 hours, but the tofu blocks looked exactly the same on the outside. Oddly enough, marinades didn’t; the marinade in the bag that sat all night looked watery, which made sense since the tofu continues to secrete whey and the salt from the marinade will draw moisture out by osmosis.
Inside, the blocks also looked the same, which disappointed me until I took a bite. While the texture of both samples was almost the same, the flavor of the longer marinade was much, much more flavorful. The tofu didn’t take on any color, but was soaked in salt and umami. The 2 hour marinade was wonderful, it added a bit of pep to the tofu and wasn’t a waste of time. However, as someone who really loves hiyayakko, a dish of room temperature raw tofu processed with ginger, green onions, and mackerel flakes with a bit of soy sauce, the better taste of nighttime tofu made me opt for a longer lasting marinade.
(If things kept coming together, I would have to start visiting a fortune teller so I could plan my marinades accordingly.)
Are grilled vegetables better with an overnight marinade?
Even in the bag, it was clear that the eggplant pieces marinated overnight acquired a much richer color than the vegetable that had lain for two hours. However, the two hour eggplant was completely soaked in olive oil. It all smelled great.
On low heat, they both browned wonderfully. For the test, I made sure the slices were the same size and width, so I fried them for ten minutes on one side and six minutes on the other.
Once cooked, it was hard to tell the difference, even when I cut them open. But the taste told a story. I preferred the texture and taste of a 2 hour marinade. It tasted the same as the night marinade, but the 2 hour eggplant had better texture and more spiciness. Interesting.
Can a longer marinade make boneless pork chops taste like… anything?
Remember, the pork chops were cooked in the same soy marinade as the tofu and then placed in sous vide at 142℉, which is very high for pork chops (but low for chicken and I’m lazy so I split the difference).
When they arrived, they looked exactly the same, as did the texture and color of the interior.
I tried to get portions with the same ratio of meat and fat, and at some point I had to close my eyes and imagine myself as a more serious scientist than a person who giggles when SodaStream makes bubbles, because I could swear a two-hour marinade had more flavor. I checked the bags, I was not mistaken. The two hour pork chop was saltier; it had more flavor of oyster sauce. I couldn’t figure out why as I waded through them trying to identify it. The surface of the 2 hour pork chop had more flavor, as if the sauce held better.
Can an overnight marinade improve the texture of chicken breasts?
I love a yogurt marinade for lamb or chicken when done right, but I just don’t buy chicken breasts; I am a dark meat girl. The breasts are kind of tasteless, but that’s why I chose them. The harissa I added to the yogurt gave it a very nice deep marigold color, and the harissa spices and cool yogurt paired perfectly. Also, yogurt has lactic acid, which breaks down proteins, so I thought it would be interesting to see the difference. In fact, most recipes that use yogurt marinades call for a shorter soak time.
When I removed the breasts, they looked exactly the same. They were also in a 142 degree bath and I expected them to be moist and tender. After cutting them open, they looked the same, and while I was a little fascinated by how they looked ready to be shredded, they weren’t as moist as I had hoped.
The surprise was that I preferred the 24 hour marinade. The taste and texture of the chicken was excellent, it just soaked up more of the flavor inside from the longer marinade and the lactic acid affected the texture of the meat so it wasn’t as mealy as a two hour chicken. He was more gentle, less rough.
Takeaway
Putting aside all other conclusions, the fact is that two hours was enough for each protein to acquire a good taste, and certainly enough to justify the work expended, provided that you have an hour or two. to wait for dinner.
In some cases (eggplants and thin pork chops), two hours is actually ideal, and the extra time is not only unnecessary but can be counterproductive.
However, with tofu in particular, longer exposure did produce a much tastier result. It’s worth checking the limits of tofu marinade – will it get even better after 36 hours? How does it decompose in cooking?
It is also worth noting that the ingredients in the marinade affect the result. Acids can affect protein separately from flavor, such as lactic acid in chicken, which makes meat more tender for a longer period of time.
So, the crystal ball is back in the foot locker and I’m going to stick with my last minute compiled late dinners, but be very careful if the recipe calls for it or I’ll think about it. in an hour or two, there is still time to add extra flavor to these proteins.