Mama's Tip of the Day

Stocking your freezer

One habit that's made life easier at our house is keeping a little library of sauces and marinades in the freezer. It's great when you have time to grocery shop, but not time to prepare a lot of big batches of meals to freeze. This way, you grab all the meat you want, prep and freeze them just the way they are, and you can mix and match depending on your mood on any given night.

For example, right now, there are several batches of each of the following in my freezer:

Pomegranate Chipotle Mop Sauce
Tropical Marinade
Marinade to Tenderize Steak*
Marinade for Chicken and Pork
Apple Ginger Marinade
The Meatman's Marinade #2
Mexican Smoked Chili Marinade
Berbere Marinade**
Mesquite Nutmeg Beef Marinade
White Wine Brine+
Korean Marinade+
Chermoula+


You can double or triple the batches pretty easily, pour 1-2 cup portions into quart-sized freezer bags, and you're ready to go. Many sauces, rubs, and marinades have a high sugar or alcohol content, so their temperature stays a little higher and they don't freeze as solidly as other foods. This can be a little scary if you're not careful (never freeze raw meat in a sauce with high sugar or alcohol content, because the meat itself may not freeze completely, allowing bacteria to grow), but on the plus side, they defrost quickly so even weeknights are no problem.


* Marinade to Tenderize Steak: There are no proportions given in the recipe, so here's my version. 3 cloves garlic, crushed; 1 tsp cracked black pepper; 1 tbsp McCormick's Cajun Seasoning; 1 bottle Harp lager. Throw everything in a blender or food processor, blend until smooth. Wait for the head to settle before bagging and freezing.

** I made a few minor changes to the Berbere Marinade recipe. I used red onion; tripled the red pepper flakes; skipped the cardamom (didn't have it) and fenugreek (hate it). During blending, added extra olive oil to get it really smooth.

+ The White Wine Brine, Korean Marinade, and Chermoula all come from the Kingsford Complete Grilling Cookbook. I prepared the first two just as published, but added a small bundle of fresh mint to the chermoula. I'm not usually a huge cilantro fan, but this recipe was really nice on grilled kebabs.

Pomegranate Chipotle Mop Sauce

If you've been following the blog for a while, you'll recognize this as the same basic recipe as the sauce for Pomegranate Chipotle Slow-Cooker Pork, but it's been revamped a little to become a mop sauce for grilling.


1 16-oz bottle pomegranate juice (plain, no other flavors added)
1 small can mangoes, in their own juice (if you have fresh mangoes, even better. Slice them up, and add 1/2 can mango nectar)
2 chipotle peppers with a heaping spoonful of the adobo sauce
1 large onion, rough chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 pinch allspice
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 heaping tbsp dark molasses
3-4 tsp salt, or to taste

• Place the mangoes, onion, garlic, and peppers in a blender or food processor and blend until almost smooth
  
• Whisk the mango mixture together in a large saucepan with remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil.
• Continue boiling over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until reduced by half
• Mop onto meat or vegetables within the last 5-10 minutes of grilling
  

I used this tonight on ribs and it was absolutely heaven! Here's what I did:

• Rubbed a few racks of ribs with Michael Chiarello's Cocoa Spice Rub and popped them into the fridge while the grill was heating.
• Turned on the outer two burners of the grill only, and oiled the surface in the center of the grill (the burner underneath was turned off. This way, the ribs will cook with indirect heat.)
• Once the grill was hot (about 300°), I placed the ribs in the center of the grill, bone down.
  
• Flipped the ribs occasionally.
  
• Brushed the ribs every 1/2 hour or so with tonic water. This keeps the rub from drying out, and when the ribs are bone-up, you'll get a little puddle of the tonic water that helps keep the air moist as it evaporates.
• When the meat pulls easily from the bone (about 2 hours), mop each side with sauce, grill for a few minutes, then mop again. Repeat until you get a good coating of sauce on all sides.
• Just before removing from the grill, mop one last time with a pretty healthy serving of sauce, so your ribs are nice and slathered. The combo of the rub and the sauce couldn't be better. This was probably one of the best meals I've eaten in a long time!
  

Tropical Marinade

Great for poultry or pork.


120-oz can crushed pineapple, with the juice
11.2 oz can coconut juice with pulp (coconut milk will work well, too)
1/2 can each or peach and nectarine nectar (11.5 oz can)
1/4 tsp allspice
1 tbsp kosher salt
2-3 crushed garlic cloves
1/2 medium onion, diced

• Either use immediately or freeze. Marinade at least 2 hours or up to 24.
  

Mama's Tip of the Day

Don't bother cooking with alcohol you wouldn't drink. Period.

A lot of people will buy the bottles of "cooking wine" scattered at convenient locations throughout the grocery, thinking that if they're just cooking with it, they don't need to bother getting something better. They think it's a waste of good alcohol, just to put it into a pot with a bunch of other ingredients. Well, okay. That's fine if you're just adding a little splash here and there, but if you're adding any more than about a quarter cup (4 tbsp), do yourself a favor and buy something decent.

Sure, the alcohol may burn out depending on what you're making, but the flavor will still be there. If it doesn't taste good in a glass, it certainly won't do your risotto or chicken marsala any good, either. And there's a plus side to using good booze in your recipes -- you'll already have the perfect accompaniment to your meal. The Citrus-Gin Marinated Chicken, below, goes beautifully with a nice gin and tonic. Personally, I'm a Tanqueray kind of girl, so in goes the Tanqueray when I'm grabbing ingredients.

Whatever you choose, just make it something that will make your food taste good. After all, isn't that the point?

Citrus-Gin Marinated Chicken

Okay, so I'm on a bit of a citrus kick lately, but bear with me, people. It's summer! The lighter, brighter flavors of citrus are so refreshing after a long, hot day, and citrus has a way of highlighting the fresh fruits and vegetables you can pick up in the summer months.

This marinade will work well with any chicken pieces -- if you prefer dark meat, go for thighs and drumsticks, they'll soak up the flavor just was well, and will stay juicier on the grill. Shrimp will work well too, but cut down on the marinading time.


1 package of chicken pieces (just trimmed of visible fat of you're grilling whole, or trimmed and cut into 1-inch cubes if you're in the mood for kabobs)
Juice and zest of one large orange
Juice and zest of two medium limes
6 tbsp gin
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tsp sea salt
2 1/2 tsp sugar
3/4 tsp oregano
Pinch of thyme
1 thinly-sliced jalapeño
2 large onions (thinly sliced if cooking the chicken whole; cut into bite-sized chunks for kabobs)

• Rinse the chicken and place all pieces in a large plastic storage bag or non-reactive (stainless steel or glass) bowl, along with all ingredients EXCEPT for the onions.
  
• Marinade the chicken mixture in the refrigerator at least 2 (but up to 8) hours.
  
• If kabobbing with wooden skewers, soak the skewers during the last half hour of marinading, then spear alternating chicken pieces and onion chunks, taking care not to crowd the pieces
  
• Heat grill (or grillpan) to medium
  
• Grill the chicken, reserving the marinade, about 7 minutes on each side (4-5 for kabobs), or until the center is no longer pink and juices run clear
• Save a little space on the grill for a small pot or saucepan. Pour the remaining marinade in, turn the heat on that part of the grill to high, and bring it to a boil. You should allow the marinade to boil for several minutes before even THINKING about using it as a post-cooking sauce! In fact, you should even brush the marinade back onto the meat after the first couple of minutes of cooking, because that won't allow enough time to bring it up to high enough temperature to kill any bacteria. Scary thought. Be careful, this really isn't something you want to mess around with.
• If you've cooked the chicken pieces whole, then you still have sliced onions left at this point. Into the saucepan they go, to soften and soak up some of that delicious marinade. Let them cook at least as long as the chicken. You can even leave them on a little longer, to caramelize and be even more flavorful. Serve the onions over the chicken.
  

If you're freezing:

• Place the chicken and the marinade in separate bags, then pack both of those into one larger bag. Don't pour the marinade directly over the chicken before freezing.
  
• The day of cooking, allow the chicken to defrost most of the way before adding the marinade.

Lemon Greek Chicken (or shrimp, or fish)

For each 6-pack of chicken breasts*, you'll need:
3 tbsp Greek seasoning mix**
Juice & zest of one lemon
enough olive oil to moisten the mixture and help it come together (just a drizzle)
salt & pepper to taste

• Rinse breasts and pat dry, discarding all visible fat
  
• Mix the remaining ingredients together to form a paste
  
• Schmear the paste on all sides of each piece of chicken
• Place breasts in a single layer in a gallon-sized freezer bag and freeze
  

To Finish:

• Defrost chicken completely
• Lightly oil the surface of grill (or grill-pan on the stove top) and heat over medium flame
• Grill 5-7 minutes on each side, until juices run clear and center of the fattest part of the breast is no longer pink

Super, super easy dish, and honestly it works well on a weeknight even if you haven't prepped it ahead of time, because the paste only takes a minute or two to mix up, and grilling is so quick. Serve this with some tasty grilled asparagus or zucchini.


*The flavors in this paste would work equally well on shrimp or a light fish as they would on chicken. If you're choosing the seafood route, freeze the paste separately and schmear it once once you've defrosted the shrimp or fish fillets. You could do it ahead if you really wanted to, but I wouldn't recommend it. The nice delicate flavor of the seafood would be a little overpowered by soaking in the Greek mixture so long, and the acid in the lemon might begin to "cook" the meat, as they do in a ceviche. Better to wait until right before grilling to ensure the freshest results.


**If you happen to be lucky enough to live in the Philadelphia area, you can pick a really delicious Greek seasoning mix at Spice Corner in the Italian Market, or you can try your hand at this version from RecipeZaar.com.