Steak Marinated in Onion Water –
what’s that all about?
Everything old is new again – in ye olden times the Turks would marinate their meat in onion water – it tenderises the meat and imparts a nice oniony flavour. Apparently this old technique is coming back in to vogue with top chefs swearing by it, so we tried it ‘mythbuster’ style – we had a control to refer back to – and went to work. Here’s what we found.
Juice a few white onions (they have to be white onions.) By juice I mean you pulp them up and squeeze out the juice. Marinate the steak in the onion juice for about two hours. The meat will go grey as the onion juice gets to work tenderising it.
After two hours the job is done – take from the tray and throw on the barbecue. We decided to take a ‘Nordic’ approach and thinly sliced some steak, skewered it and put it straight on hot charcoal – just like a caveman would (see photo above – cool serving idea but the bowl gets hot!).
The result! It is slightly more tender compared to the control piece we had but, more importantly, it takes on a beautiful oniony flavour. The onion sugars caramelise beautifully on the outside.
So there you have it – something to try for your next barbecue.
Chef Darren was experimenting with a similar traditional idea from Bali using pork and paw paw leaves. He juiced the leaves and marinated the pork to tenderise it. Sadly, he forgot to have a ‘control’ piece to compare it to but all our Balinese Hindu friends swear by it.
