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Mexican Marinade
If you would barbecue in person, either above or below the Rio Grande it is well to marinate your meat first, especially if you want to make sure, for instance, that an 8- or 10-pound roast of beef will not only come out tender but be seasoned all the way through. The following recipe does for about 8 pounds: 2 CUPS WHITE WINE (OR CIDER) I BAY LEAF I SPRIG THYME JUICE I LEMON I ONION, MINCED I GARLIC CLOVE, MINCED I SPRIG ANY OTHER
A working marinade rather than a finished dish: an acidic liquid with aromatics, sized for a large roast destined for slow pit or grill cooking. A few points on quantities and handling.
- The proportionsRead as 2 cups white wine or cider, 1 bay leaf, 1 sprig thyme, the juice of 1 lemon, 1 minced onion, 1 minced garlic clove, and a sprig of any other herb (the list breaks off mid-item). Roman numeral-style ones stand in for the figure 1 throughout.
- Cider means sweet ciderCider probably means sweet cider -- In American cookbooks cider usually means unfermented apple cider rather than the alcoholic drink sold under that name in Britain, though the wine substitution leaves some room for doubt. Either liquid supplies the acid; unfiltered apple juice is the closest supermarket equivalent.
- Two cups will not cover 8 poundsUse a heavy zip-top bag or a snug non-reactive container and turn the roast several times so every surface gets wet. A wide dish simply wastes the liquid.
- Time itSix to twelve hours in the refrigerator is generally enough for a large beef roast, and overnight is a common approach. Long soaking in lemon and wine tends to leave the surface of the meat pale and soft rather than tender.
- Marinades do not penetrate farDespite the promise of seasoning "all the way through," acid and aromatics travel only a few millimetres into muscle. Salting the roast separately, a day ahead, does more for interior seasoning than any soak.
- Refrigerate, and treat the used liquid as rawMarinate cold, never on the counter. If you want to baste with the marinade, bring it to a full boil first and stop basting well before the meat comes off the fire.
- No salt in the listNo salt in the visible list -- Season the roast with salt and pepper before it goes on the fire; the marinade as printed here carries none, though the ingredient list breaks off.
- YieldEnough for about 8 pounds of meat, as the recipe states. Scale directly if you are cooking two roasts.
Marinating before open-fire cooking is old on both sides of the Rio Grande, and the border kitchens this recipe gestures at have a deep tradition of it: adobos of chile, vinegar and garlic, and escabeches in which acid both flavours and preserves. What is striking here is how European the seasoning is - white wine, bay, thyme, lemon - which places the recipe less in a Mexican village pit than in the mid-century American outdoor-cooking books that borrowed a regional name for atmosphere. Those books appeared in numbers after the Second World War, when suburban patios, portable grills and a taste for cooking large cuts of beef in the open air turned barbecue into a national hobby, and writers reached for Texan, Mexican and Argentine labels to give the pastime a pedigree. The underlying logic is sound whatever the label: an acidic bath with aromatics softens the surface of a big roast and gives the outer layer flavour that dry rubs alone will not.