# "Stabbing" meat to marinate?



## lyndalou (Feb 13, 2012)

I ran across a recipe for a marinade for steaks. It calls for stabbing the steak all over with a fork so the marinade can permeate the meat. I have never done this before. Have any of you? Wouldn't it make the juices run out of the beef?


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## Andy M. (Feb 13, 2012)

lyndalou said:


> I ran across a recipe for a marinade for steaks. It calls for stabbing the steak all over with a fork so the marinade can permeate the meat. I have never done this before. Have any of you? Wouldn't it make the juices run out of the beef?



It's OK to stab a raw piece of meat.  Just don't do it after it's been cooking.


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## jonnyjonny_uk (Feb 13, 2012)

It's funny to read this now because I read a recipe that said to stab the steak before marinading and I tried it on Saturday and trust me the steak was still nice and juicy and had soaked up all the flavours from the marinade So I would say yes, go ahead and stab!


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## Katie H (Feb 13, 2012)

Andy's correct.  You'll be fine.  The stabbing (puncturing) of the meat allows for the marinade to get into the fibers of the meat.  You'll have a tasty end product as a result.


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## HistoricFoodie (Feb 13, 2012)

A fork certainly works---so long as it's long-tined. Even more efficient is to take two forks and line them up back to back. Then, holding them by their handles, start stabbing.

If you're going to do this often it might pay to invest in a Jacard. That's a special tool designed specifically for the purpose. There are several knock-off brands available less expensively. Check Bed Bath & Beyond and see what they have.

Technically the process is called "pinning," although many call it jacardding, after the name of the tool. It's usually used to tenderize tougher cuts of meat, rather than tender ones. 

But, for only occasional use of this technique, forks work fine.


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## CharlieD (Feb 13, 2012)

They even sell special tool to do the stabbing in the restaurants.


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## lyndalou (Feb 13, 2012)

Thanks everyone. I'm about to attack that hunk of meat.


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## Katie H (Feb 13, 2012)

HistoricFoodie said:


> A fork certainly works---so long as it's long-tined. Even more efficient is to take two forks and line them up back to back. Then, holding them by their handles, start stabbing.
> 
> If you're going to do this often it might pay to invest in a Jacard. That's a special tool designed specifically for the purpose. There are several knock-off brands available less expensively. Check Bed Bath & Beyond and see what they have.
> 
> ...



We have a 48-blade jaccard tool and love it.  Have had it for many years.  One of the things I like to do is to pierce chicken, pork, whatever, then slip the food into a heavy-duty zipper-lock bag or, better yet, a vacuum sealable bag and put the bag into the freezer.

The food gets a good dose of the marinade AND I don't have to remember to put it into marinade on the day I plan to cook and serve it.


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## GLC (Feb 13, 2012)

Some thoughts on attacking meat. 

_Will _stabbing meat with something like fork tines really get more marinade into the interior? Think about it. Here's the mass of meat sitting in marinade. The marinade will penetrate some small distance into the meat. How far? In an experiment with green food coloring added to the marinade (oil, vinegar and a little salt), it was clear that penetration through the surface after 18 hours was less than 1.8-inch. Some marinade made it into a crevice but only filled the crevice and hardly penetrated into the meat around that crevice at all. 

My view of poking at it with a fork is about like one of the sillier episodes of CSI where they used resin to mold the shape of a knife blade by pouring it into the knife wound. (Maybe it was the technical consultants' day off.) The wounds don't stay open when the instrument is tapered. The jacard strikes the middle ground between the ineffective fork tines and the destructive effect a blunt rod. If you hope to get marinade more than that tiny distance beyond the surface, you're going to have to make significant holes in the meat, cuts that you can see stay open. And something like a jacard that can do enough to mean to tenderize it will also get marinade to the interior. I think it's most true that the jacard did the real tenderizing, and the marinade added flavor. 

The best comment I've seen about marinade is to think of it as sauce, because it's not going to go much beyond the surface. But if you want it as much inside as possible, you can't be timid or treat the whole surface or use ineffective weapons. 

None of this applies to brining where the correct salt solution can indeed penetrate and cause meat to take up the solution, and an over concentration of salt can pull water out of the meat to it's detriment.


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## CraigC (Feb 13, 2012)

"Stabbing" is an absolute must for something like conch for a preparation like cracked conch. If you have a realy good relationship with a butcher, you might get them to run it through the cuber. I've never used a jacard. Think it would handle conch?


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## Andy M. (Feb 13, 2012)

CraigC said:


> ... I've never used a jacard. Think it would handle conch?



It handles tough beef cuts.  Should have no issues with conch.


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## Greg Who Cooks (Feb 13, 2012)

GLC said:


> _Will _stabbing meat with something like fork tines really get more marinade into the interior? Think about it. Here's the mass of meat sitting in marinade. The marinade will penetrate some small distance into the meat. How far? In an experiment with green food coloring added to the marinade (oil, vinegar and a little salt), it was clear that penetration through the surface after 18 hours was less than *1.8-inch*. Some marinade made it into a crevice but only filled the crevice and hardly penetrated into the meat around that crevice at all.


 
I suspect you may have made a typographic error, and that you meant *1/8-inch* rather than *1.8-inch*.

Also, I'm curious if this was your experiment or did you read it somewhere?



GLC said:


> My view of poking at it with a fork is about like one of the sillier episodes of CSI where they used resin to mold the shape of a knife blade by pouring it into the knife wound. (Maybe it was the technical consultants' day off.) The wounds don't stay open when the instrument is tapered.



I had to quit watching the show entirely because so much of it is too fanciful, such as your example. Or imagine the top CSI dude driving a Hummer tricked out with red lights and siren... Yeah that's gonna happen... 

I wonder if your conjecture is true or not. (I certainly don't know.) It seems to me that many of the tools described above are used to tenderize meat rather than to encourage marinade penetration. I believe that things like a cuber are intended to break the fibers more than anything else. I'm speculating here, I don't know what is correct. It seems logical that you would need some pressure to force the marinade into the holes.


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## MrsBlueEyzz (Feb 13, 2012)

GLC said:


> Some thoughts on attacking meat.
> 
> _Will _stabbing meat with something like fork tines really get more marinade into the interior? Think about it. Here's the mass of meat sitting in marinade. The marinade will penetrate some small distance into the meat. How far? In an experiment with green food coloring added to the marinade (oil, vinegar and a little salt), it was clear that penetration through the surface after 18 hours was less than 1.8-inch. Some marinade made it into a crevice but only filled the crevice and hardly penetrated into the meat around that crevice at all.
> 
> ...



 Thanks for sharing this. I find this very interesting. I was always told not to poke any holes in the meat. I can see from previous one that it makes sense not to do it after it is cooking as well. Do you find this applies to all meat and seafood?


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## Andy M. (Feb 13, 2012)

A steak cuber does in fact break muscle fibers to tenderize meats.  

If you use a meat tenderizer (Adolph's), you are instructed to fork the meat after sprinkling on the tenderizer powder to introduce some of it into the meat.  I suspect the holes do close up some but it's probably a little better than doing nothing.


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## CharlieD (Feb 13, 2012)

Even if marinade doesn't penetrate the meat, stabbing meat with fork will help to tenderize the meat on its own. Obviously you are not going to marinade a premium cut meat, it just doesn’t need it. But tougher cuts will definitely benefit even if it is only a drop below surface.


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## CharlieD (Feb 13, 2012)

We should start a laughing thread about CSI; there is so much nonsense there


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## Greg Who Cooks (Feb 13, 2012)

MrsBlueEyzz said:


> I find this very interesting. I was always told not to poke any holes in the meat. I can see from previous one that it makes sense not to do it after it is cooking as well. Do you find this applies to all meat and seafood?



I'm going to tackle this one although I'll admit I'm no expert and I'm speculating a bit, and I might have a misunderstanding of the process.

When you cook meat the heat causes the pressure inside to build up and forces juices out of the tissues and into the spaces between. When it cools down the juices can be reabsorbed. That's why when you take a roast out of the oven you let it rest for 10-15 minutes before carving.

If you poke holes in your meat the juices are going to drain out and drip into your pan, your barbecue flames, or whatever you're cooking in. If you don't poke holes the juices will be retained inside the meat and reabsorbed.

Anybody please correct me if I'm wrong.




CharlieD said:


> We should start a laughing thread about CSI; there is so much nonsense there



I'll get right on it, partly because it might be interesting, partly to save the current topic from drifting.


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## HistoricFoodie (Feb 13, 2012)

Perhaps I wasn't clear on this.

A jaccard is used to tenderize touch cuts by actually cutting the connective tissue. It is nothing more than a series of knives (well, more like lancets). Depinding on model, there are from 16 to 48 of them. A cuber, as somebody mentioned, tenderizes by breaking the fibers. A fork works by separating them, making it easier for them to break down while cooking.

It's ridiculous for a home-cook to even consider a cuber. They're just too expensive, and would hardly ever get used. I mean, how often does anyone make Swiss steak, for instance. But a jaccard is both affordible and useful. 

But, a point thought I had made, is that none of these techniques is either useful or necessary with a good steak, which is a tender cut to begin with. But they're ideal for things like flank steak and other bottom cuts.

Whether any of this has anything to do with how well a marinade penetrates deponent sayth not. But I see no reason to marinate a regular steak in the first place.


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## Greg Who Cooks (Feb 13, 2012)

I think the crux of the issue is whether piercing a steak by whatever means is beneficial to marinade penetration. And based on that is the inherent assumption that marinade penetration is good. But is it?

As HF says, nobody is going to use any of those devices on a nice, juicy, tender steak. They are used mainly on tougher cuts to tenderize them. Steak lovers buy tender cuts of steak that don't need that and IMO would probably suffer because of it.

I sometimes marinate my steak and sometimes not. I think what I'm doing is a surface treatment, and maybe to a 1/8 inch depth as suggested in an earlier post. This would be in the area sometimes referred to as the "crust," the part that gets browned as you cook it.

I think it might even be undesirable for the marinade to penetrate the middle which will become the pink, more rare area of the steak after you've cooked it. The crust provides the flavor in each bite and the center provides the juiciness. (IMO) I'm not sure what the marinade is adding here. I think it's just fine to have the marinade season the crust and see no need for it to penetrate to the middle.

Marinades are also used to tenderize meat. I suggest that a more tender cut of meat should be chosen for use as steaks, cuts that are already tender and don't need tenderizing. Perhaps stabbing might apply to roasts but the topic OP says we are discussing steaks.


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## GLC (Feb 13, 2012)

Yeah. I did mean 1/8-inch. And I read of someone else's experiment. It was pretty graphic and very clear how far the marinade penetrated. I thought it was striking that it wasn't gradual. It clearly wasn't slowly permeating the mean. After all that time, it seemed to have reached some limit. I guess that might have to do with the specific amount of salt, which was nowhere near brine levels. 

Of course, when we're talking about one or another cut of beef being tender or not, we're really talking about whether it can be tender when cooked hot and fast on account of low collagen, usually the lesser used muscles which are understandably not as tough. And those naturally tender cuts get dry and tough with long cooking as they loose water and have little collagen to sort of self baste from the inside as it dissolves. 

CSI - The odd thing is that the job portrayed in the show doesn't exist. Well practically. In large agencies, forensic scientists don't do much field collection, crime scene techs just fetch and carry and are low level employees, and neither goes back out and makes arrests. And while in small agencies, you can actually do all of it, you don't have many resources. I actually did have as close as it comes to the TV CSI job. I was a detective, and we have to do our own scene technical work, and I was an analyst in a couple of forensic fields. But you'll not find a serologist chasing crooks or even scraping mysterious body fluids off the floor. Nor does anyone, no matter how big, have the resources to build a huge artificial lightening machine to experiment with a car as the television bunch did.


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## HistoricFoodie (Feb 13, 2012)

We're right on the same page, GLC. 

And yet......on one of the trailers for Iron Chef America, Morimoto is jaccarding a whole chicken. I've never seen the actual episode, so don't know what eventually happens to the bird. But I've always wondered.


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## GLC (Feb 13, 2012)

Maybe it was destined for marinade, since chicken is prone to drying. Otherwise, that would be one tough old chicken to need tenderizing and should have been soup.


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## Caslon (Feb 13, 2012)

I too have been wary of stabbing an uncooked steak to tenderize.  I thought that once poked full of holes, all the juices would have a way to drain out while being cooked.  I assume the stab holes close up a bit before broiling?  

I try and work the powdered tenderizer into the meat.   What would I use in liquid form that wouldn't flavor the steak, just tenderize it?


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## Greg Who Cooks (Feb 13, 2012)

I lost a whole post here, regarding the use of papain (tenderizer, enzyme). Due to my crappy Internet connection. I'll try to reconstruct it tomorrow. Short answer: papain and water slurry, tenderizer but no taste.


On a visceral level I like the idea of stabbing steaks. Think "Norman Bates."


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## buckytom (Feb 14, 2012)

while it is true (in my experience) that stabbing a hunk of meat will only help a marinade penetrate a litte way into the meat, that's all you really need and is more marinade absorbed than had you not done the stabbing. therefore, it does work but just not on the level that most people are picturing. that is that the marinade goes as deep as the stabbing device goes. 

a good example of the amount a marinade penetrates meat would be sauerbraten. a 3 or 4 day marinated sauerbraten will actually have a visible ring of how deep the marinade got, a lot like a smoke ring.

if you really want your marinade throughout a piece of meat, you can inject the marinade directly into the center of the meat with a marinade syringe. 

another trick is to coat the meat first, then stab the rub or marinade in. stabbing, adding marinade, then vacuum sealing also helps marinade to penetrate.


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## lyndalou (Feb 14, 2012)

Thanks all. Some really good information. I think I'll get a marinade syringe and try Bucky's suggestion next time. I really didn't get the flavor I was hoping for by just stabbing the steak.


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## Caslon (Feb 14, 2012)

If I marinate a steak long enough for a greek sandwich, the steak turns almost white as chicken.  I freaked out a bit seeing that the first time, but not after it cooked up superb. I haven't marinated my steak to whiteness in years.

There was a taco drive thru that got converted to a greek drive thru that went outta business. They sold the best greek kaboob (not gyro) sammies.  The beef in the sammie looked like chicken, it wasn't. It was beef.   yum


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## Greg Who Cooks (Feb 14, 2012)

The new white meat! Who would have known?  How long was that marination anyway? And what are the guidelines on marination maximum times? (I generally marinate beef no more than 1-2 hours, if even that.)


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## buckytom (Feb 14, 2012)

cas, you should ask the proprietors of the place you question what exactly they are serving. 

i've found that almost every greek or yuogoslav/turkish place that i've ordered from substitute meat generously. often, they mix pork, beef, and lamb fat while it is marinating and call everything a mixed lamb grill as the cheaper meats pick up the lambey flavour, then they charge you for lamb.

btw, acids will "cook" most proteins until white, so the marinade must be acidic.


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## Caslon (Feb 14, 2012)

I'm just saying, if you marinate beef long enough, it turns white, looks like chicken and makes a killer greek sandwich.

That drive thru went outta business, but it was unique of them to have that.  A greek drive thru. I was bummed when it went back to being a mexican fast food drive thru again.  

Greek food is stellar with me.  That drive thru was anyways.


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## Bolas De Fraile (Feb 15, 2012)

The only time I marinade steak is when I use the vacpak sous vide method.The vacpacking forces the marinade into any meat quickly without disturbing the texture


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## TATTRAT (Feb 15, 2012)

Caslon said:


> I'm just saying, if you marinate beef long enough, it turns white, looks like chicken ...



If my beef ever turned white, and looked like chicken, I think it would be WELL past its' prime.


In regards to stabbing meat for a marinade, I am in the "only marinate cheaper cuts", and dry season better cuts camp.

A lot of cheaper cuts already come "needled" these days to break down some of the connective tissues that make them tough. these cuts lend themselves well to marinades, and I treat as such.

If I have a bunch of 18oz rib eyes, the only time they are getting cut into, is after cooking/resting, and then eating.


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## zebulin (Apr 28, 2012)

*marinading*

I am a marinading fool! I like to marinade food for atleast 2 days and it always come out tender and delicious


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## Cerise (Apr 28, 2012)

CharlieD said:


> Even if marinade doesn't penetrate the meat, *stabbing meat with fork will help to tenderize the meat* on its own. Obviously you are not going to marinade a premium cut meat, it just doesn’t need it. But tougher cuts will definitely benefit even if it is only a drop below surface.


 
That has always been my understanding, as well.

If you want to get all "Norman Bates" (lol), try...

*Psycho Chicken*

Original Psycho Chicken Recipe - Food.com - 105446


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