On a whim, as my little present to myself, I bought a Weber kettle grill a couple of years ago. My dad has always been a Weber man, and we were planning to grill hot dogs and burgers for two dozen, and so...why not? It was a hundred bucks.
I surprised myself by falling in love with the damn thing, and with what intense heat and smoky charcoal do to food. And so I started, as a scientist will, experimenting with techniques - direct and indirect cooking, coal distribution, rubs and marinades. Marinades, especially. At my friend Dan's spice emporium, Savory Spice Shop, I had access to not only every spice known to humankind, but also his merry crew of food geeks. So I set about figuring out the classic Grilling 101 final exam: turning out a flavorful, juicy marinated steak. Of course, you can make a perfectly good steak with nothing but salt and pepper, but I love the complexity and richness marinating adds to a steak.
My first marinated flank steak was an unmitigated disaster; the idea was fajitas, so I figured I'd go with a chile lime deal and winged it. I juiced four limes, added some red chile powder and cumin and coriander, marinated the steak for 24 hours, then grilled it. Lime juice, I reasoned, would tenderize the steak, and lime juice is also yummy. Yes?
No. One's griller instincts sometimes steer you wrong. The steak was wretched. The surface was mushy. The flavor of lime was overpowering and completely blew away anything else I put in the marinade. No beef flavor was to be found. It was just a mushy wad of burned muscle soaked in lime juice. Major fail, as the internet people say. In consultation with my coworkers, a few cookbooks, and the internet, I began formulating an alternate hypothesis. I learned a few things and immediately felt like a dumbass for winging it. A dozen or so steaks later, I hit on a pretty good marinade formula.
My basic marinade formula is a quarter cup each of oil and and minced aromatics, with 2-3 tablespoons of beer and an optional 2 tablespoons of soy or fish sauce. All of these should come together in a paste, not a liquid. Flavoring a piece of meat doesn't require a gallon of marinade - why not concentrate all the flavors right there on the surface? I grind this in my big, badass cast iron mortar and pestle - one could also use a small food processor or blender- and it comes out like baby food. (Protip: do not feed to babies.) Add the beer as necessary to loosen up the paste.
Apparently, marinades really only affect the first few millimeters of a steak - so yes, the lime juice tenderized the crap out of the surface of the meat, but it did nothing to the interior. So forget about tenderizing the meat; you've got to accomplish that other ways. No, now you're just trying to flavor it as deeply as possible.
To flavor it, you need oil. Oil transfers flavors exceptionally well, because many things that produce strong flavors are oils themselves or otherwise dissolve well in oil. So if you want your marinade to transfer the flavor of your chiles or garlic or pepper or rosemary or what have you, it should primarily incorporate oil, with other liquids playing a supporting role.
Beer is a fantastic partner for your oil as a liquid base. Its flavor is complimentary to many savory ingredients, not particularly sweet, just slightly acidic, and has a bit of body to it. I typically keep some cans of cheap beer like PBR around for this purpose, but whatever you're drinking is fine. You could also use wine as your liquid base. You could also use citrus or other fruit juice, tomato juice, and vinegar. However, remember my disaster and consider how long you're marinating your steak: the more acidic your marinade, the shorter your marinating time needs to be.
To flavor the oil that flavors the meat, you need lots and lots of aromatics. I couldn't even taste the cumin and chile in my first marinade, because I used about a teaspoon of each. No, use a ton. Garlic? 4-6 big cloves. Shallots? 1-2. I've used two tablespoons of chile powder in marinades before. Go big on the aromatics - again, you're just flavoring the surface, so flavor the surface! If they're whole ingredients, they should all be minced fine, to make the pureeing easier. I find that aromatics with big, deep flavors work best - delicate, subtle flavors tend to get lost on the grill, especially herbs but also many spices. A very functional marinade could be made with only garlic, chiles, oil, and soy sauce - more ephemeral flavors can be introduced with a sauce, relish, or rub you add just before or following cooking.
You also need salt. Brining ain't just for turkeys anymore. Salting a piece of meat first draws water out, initially toughening it, but it unwinds proteins and creates microscopic gaps and spaces in the meat. Eventually, osmotic pressure draws that salty meat juice, and other marinade ingredients, back into the meat. My salt component in the marinade is usually soy sauce, fish sauce, or salt added to the wine/beer/citrus juice and dissolved. Soy sauce and fish sauce have the bonus of containing a ton of glutamates, which boost umami flavor and richness, but they have a strong flavor, so only a few tablespoons of these are necessary.
After marinating, I stab the hell out of the meat with a sharp fork - more surface area for the marinade to penetrate, see? After that I salt the meat directly, with a little kosher salt, and spread the paste all over the both sides with a spatula. The flavors are so intense that the marinating time isn't very long - a couple hours will do it, though unlike with an overly acidic marinade, all day won't necessarily hurt.
When it comes time to grill, scrape the paste off - it's already done its duty, and it just turns to crusty charred bits on the grill. A rub could be introduced at this time, if you want to incorporate more delicate flavors. Cumin, coriander, cinnamon, and paprika, especially, benefit from a little direct heat, so consider deploying a followup rub.
I find that the results are truly, deeply flavorful - you can taste spices and herbs clearly even after grilling, and the salt punches up the flavor of the meat very well. It doesn't damage the meat or overpower it like large amounts of acid or salad dressing can, and it's amenable to any cuisine's favorite flavors. And it's pretty darn quick and easy, too - you can get good flavor in only an hour of marinating.
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