Rubs > Marinades

Tools of the trade.

Over the summer, I had a friend ask me how to address a common problem:  he found his chicken dinners less and less inspiring.  This is nothing to be ashamed of.  It can happen to anyone.  The best solution is to spice it up...literally.

I can relate to running out of inspiration.  For those of us who restrict foods because of food-reaction, diet, or food-quality reasons, it's good to have an arsenal of flavorings ready.  I've come to eating hamburger steaks very often during the week because it's a satisfying carb restricted meal, and because I can afford the grass-fed ground beef - more than steaks, anyway.  So, I've been relying heavily on different spice rubs for the burgers.

Costco BBQ rubbed hamburgers.

As a general rule, I think rubs, both dry rubs and wet rubs, also called pastes, are far superior to marinades.  Dry rubs taste great when you cook the meat immediately after applying the rub, but they also get better with time.  Putting a dry rub on meat the night before is spectacular.  Marinades, on the other hand, seem to need an unnecessary amount of time to do their work.

The most important thing, though, is that rubs consistently accomplish what they are supposed to do - impart a desired flavor.  Marinades are alluring, they immediately make you think of garlic infused chicken breasts or  juicy lemon-pepper fish, but they rarely come through for me.  My marinades always result in bland-tasting, albeit well salted, meat that doesn't brown well due to the extra moisture.  Rubs always deliver.  Jerk rub will taste like a Jamaican vacation, and an herbed garlic paste will make your palate sing.

Now, that's not to say that marinades never work.  They just don't work as often as I would like them to. So instead of marinading the same old chicken, here are a few of the rubs that I like to employ.  Also great on pork, and some will work on beef (Jerk rub and Costo BBQ rub).

Multi-pepper rub (during last minute of grilling, brush maple syrup on meat to add a touch of sweat):

3 tbsp sweet paprika
3 tbsp ancho chile powder
1 tbsp ground black pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Multi-pepper rubbed pork tenderloins.  Finished with maple syrup.

Herb-garlic paste:

3-4 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp dijon mustard
3 garlic gloves, minced
1 tbsp fresh thyme, minced
1 tbsp fresh rosemary, minced
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp pepper

Jerk Rub:

2 tbls brown sugar

1 ½ tbls ground coriander

1 tbls ground ginger

1 tbls garlic powder

1 ½ tsp ground allspice

1 ½ tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp ground nutmeg

¾ tsp ground cinnamon

And don't forget, you can always buy rubs at the store.  I like Costco's mesquite rub - smokey, spicy, and sweet.  Yes, it's very strong.  So it's great to use on pork and beef, or dark-meat chicken, rather than fish or white meat chicken, and it does well with a healthy dose of lime juice after cooking.

Costco Mesquite BBQ seasoning.

Hopefully my friend will recover from his chicken-woes.  Although I can't help him with his first resistance to using rubs, as astute as the observation is, that raw chicken is gross to touch.

Cheap to chic grass-fed beef

I've been fairly consistent about getting my weekday ground beef from the farmers market, but I wanted to get something different for saturday night.  I enjoy staying home for a nice saturday dinner for several reasons:  I have more control over the quality and quantity of my food, my girlfriend doesn't have to worry about gluten contamination, and I am more comfortable about eating medium-rare beef.  The latter is especially appealing after recently reading Fast Food Nation.  Eesh   But I have to make sure that I can out-do any steak house.

The more enticing cuts of grass-fed beef can be prohibitively expensive for a graduate student.  So to lower the cost, I was looking for something esoteric.  A shoulder clod* costs much less than steaks and is even cheaper than some other roasts, AND it happened to be on sale.  You just have to deal with the toughness of the cut.

Shoulder clod (far) and neck bones (near; a previous post...)

The entire goal of this recipe is to cook low-and-slow while still achieving medium rare, as both will improve tenderness.  As you'll see, wrapping the nearly finished roast in aluminum foil and a kitchen towel will allow the roast to finish cooking (medium-rare) and maintain enough heat to continue tenderizing the meat.  You'll sacrifice the texture of the crust, but it's well worth it.

Roast Shoulder Clod

1. Use a 2.5 lb shoulder clod roast.  Pat the roast dry and season liberally with salt and pepper, and a bit of garlic powder.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap and store in the fridge for 12-24 hours (although I only did 3!).
2. Preheat the oven to 225°F**, and let the roast rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
3. Heat some beef tallow, or other high-heat cooking fat, in a heavy-bottomed pan. Sear all four sides of the roast.        
4. Place beef on a baking sheet and roast for 90 minutes, or until internal temperature reaches 135°F (for medium-rare).  Remove from the oven and wrap roast in heavy-duty aluminum foil, and then wrap in a kitchen towel.  Allow roast to rest like this for another 30 minutes. 
5. While resting, open a nice Cab that you essentially forgot that you had.  And fry-up some gluten-free squash blossoms, for good measure.

     5.  Slice as thin as possible.  Impossibly thin if you can...

Serve with some market vegetables.  Make sure to arrange food in a pretentious "man, I gotta' blog about this meal" sort of way.   

*From what I can tell, the shoulder clod that I bought was only part of a true shoulder clod.  Technically, beef clod refer to an entire beef shoulder.  Similar to the Boston Butt of a pig.

**I'm aware that it is generally a poor idea to rely on the oven in the summer, especially if you don't live in mild California.  This should work just as well on a grill or in a smoker.  However, if using a grill, roast meat on the unlit side of the grill and do your best to maintain this low temperature; this will mimic an oven.  

This post was submitted to Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday

Red Coconut Curry

    While I prefer to, and really enjoy, eating low carb dinners during the week, I am definitely limited by price.  Furthermore, I'm at least making an effort to reduce my factory-farmed meat consumption, so  I've been turning to beans, veggies, and rice since they're so much cheaper than grass-fed meats.  My strategy is to eat lower glycemic grains and plenty of fat in order to reduce the carbohydrate burden of my meal.  This seems to work well for me as long as I eat little fruit and virtually no sugar through the week.  This week's dinner is a great example of how I try to accomplish this.
     I had leftover brown rice and plenty of beans that I cooked over the weekend stored in the fridge.  I have a good supply of canned sardines from Trader Joe's.  I wouldn't have imagined ever saying this, but sardines represent my ideal food; they're a fatty source of protein (omega-3s), are low in pollutants (they're small size reduces bio-accumilation), and aren't over fished (tuna get more culinary attention than the humble sardine).  I made a big pot of curry, and served several hot ladles of it over sardines and some beans and rice.

Coconut Red Curry:

1. Sauté julienned onions and red peppers in coconut oil and olive oil (ran out of coconut oil!)
2. Add sugar snap peas, deseeded jalapeno, and garlic and sauté for one minute
3. Add two cans of unsweetened coconut milk, 1.5 Tbsp red curry past, and 1 Tbsp fish sauce. 
4. Stir together then simmer for 5-7 minutes.

Oh! Don't forget the garnish:  bean sprouts, lime juice, and a mixture of chopped basil and cilantro.

And add Siracha until it hurts so good.