Marinades

I find myself doing less cooking at home since I don't get home from work much before dinner time.  Though my wife has been going to night classes so she's not home to make dinner, which means I get to cook those nights.  Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time to put dinner together so I have to do quick things.  I've found a couple of marinades that that set in quickly and taste pretty good.

Used to be I would pour the marinade in a ziploc bag, toss in the meat, squeeze out as much air as I could and leave it in the fridge.  Then we picked up a FoodSaver vacuum sealer, does the same thing but does a better job of getting the air out.  The point is to get maximum contact between the marinade and the meat, this way more of the flavor sinks in.  I'm told the acid in the marinades is supposed to tenderize the meat as well, but I doubt I'm letting them soak long enough for that to really happen.  Anyway, if there's air in the bag you need to submerge the meat in the marinade, with the vacuum seal you can use a lot less and get the same effect.

This first one is pretty generic:

• 1 Tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon soy sauce

After a good half hour of soaking thin sliced chicken breast tastes pretty good.  I've done it on fish and it tastes good there too, just soak it a bit less 20 minutes is enough.  Since the ingredients are used in equal parts its really easy to scale the recipe.

This second one has a stronger flavor to it, but still generic enough to work on a number of different meats:

• 1/4 Cup lemon juice
• 3 Tablespoons soy sauce
• 1/2 Tablespoon sugar
• 1/4 Teaspoon rosemary
• 1/4 Teaspoon black pepper

I like it more on pork chops, but I've done it on fish with stronger flavor like flounder.  Same deal as before, if the meat is thin sliced about a half an hour, fish needs more like 20 minutes.

I've never tried these on an overnight soaking, they'd probably be ok for that too.  Just not sure if it would overpower the flavor of the meat too much.  Not that these taste bad, just it's nicer when they work with the taste of the meat and not replace it.