Apolyton Cuisine: What should be in Ecthy's steak sauce / marinade?

[Ecthy]

could have taken thyme instead of marjoram, but now it's too late

[Stuie]

Pork! You didn't say it was pork!! I hear "steak" and I think "beef".

In that case I would have said skip the marinade and just do a salt/pepper/thyme/rosemary rub. But that's just me; I don't usually marinade my pork. If you had to have a sauce, then with pork I would aim for something like this:

1 cups distilled white vinegar
1/3 cup ketchup
1/2 cup water
1/2 tablespoon white sugar
salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Combine the vinegar/ketchup/water/sugar in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Then add the spices and cook it until the sugar is completely dissolved. Coat the pork and cook. Yum. You can even marinade the pork in the above sauce to bring out more flavor.

[Japher]

In that case I would have said skip the marinade and just do a salt/pepper/thyme/rosemary rub. But that's just me; I don't usually marinade my pork.

The only pork I do marinade are ribs, but then I use beer. For steaks you should use a brine instead of a marinade which is just 1/3 cup salt to 1 gallon water (make enough to cover the meat). Soak for a while, about 30 minutes/ pound. Thin steaks probably for an hour only. Brines are better than marinades for pork because pork does have a way to dry a lot easier than beef.


There's a lot of ways to cook pork steak, rubs are fine if you bbq them. Yet, if you want to cook them inside the best way is to pan fry them for about 3 minutes on each side than toss them an oven for about 7-10 minutes. Ah, and yes, I would consider pounding out a pork chop, and maybe a pork steak.

Vinegar is a good base for a marinade:

1 cups distilled white vinegar
1/3 cup ketchup
1/2 cup water
1/2 tablespoon white sugar
salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Besides the red pepper flakes that sounds kind of like a way I make pork chops. Yet I generally grab a bottle of French's or Russian dressing and mix with vinegar. I add the sauce after pan frying and before putting in the oven.

Another way to make good pork steak is to flour it, dust the excess flour off, dip in egg, than in bread crumbs (my sister uses crushed corn flakes). Brown in pan than bake. Then I would top it with a lite salad tossed with vinegar and oil (I hate vinegar and oil dressing, except with pork)...

Glad to hear it still worked fine Ect.

Edit: Brine recipe

[loinburger]

Steak is beef. Ham or chops are pork.

[JohnT]

Sweet. Now we're gonna get pork recipes too.

I'm definitely saving this thread.

[MRT144]

soy, yellow mustard, mushroom, onion and garlic. its what i like.

[Japher]

Besides the red pepper flakes that sounds kind of like a way I make pork chops. Yet I generally grab a bottle of French's or Russian dressing and mix with vinegar. I add the sauce after pan frying and before putting in the oven.

I good addition to this is a cuccumber relish. Just chop up some cuccumbers and tomatos, mix with the dressing mixture and cilantro (optional)... Serve on top of the chop.

Also, I pound chops out to a bout 1/4 inch in thickness (put chop between plastic wrap and pound with mallet or hammer). If you pound the meat out there is no need to brine... The thicker the meat, the more need to brine... I brine hams, tenderloins, steaks, and hocks. Also I'll brine fowl, like turkey's and chickens. You need a huge bucket for the turkey though and it takes about 10 hours for a good size bird, but it's well worth the effort.

Pork Chops are the quickest and easiest piece of meat to cook, IMO. When we have chops it takes me about 20 minutes from start to finish to have dinner ready... Wifey thinks I slaved all day

[loinburger]

I cook ham steaks as is and pour liberal amounts of tobasco sauce on them when I eat them. I'll generally either use a pepper-based rub for pork chops (black and red pepper with a bit of garlic, cumin, onion powder, etc., but not as much of the latter three ingredients as I'd use with beef) for chops cooked in the oven or else a pepper rub followed with an off-the-shelf marinade applied while the chops are on the grill. I've never made stuffed pork chops on my own, but there's a fantastic deli near where I live that sells stuffed chops -- these I'll always cook in the oven as is, and I'll apply tobasco and salt after the fact.

[molly bloom]

Ecthelion, you should have deglazed the pan with the ketchup and some water or citrus juice after taking the steaks out- iketchup is too viscous to be heated in the pan with the cuts of meat too. The meat benefits from being allowed to 'rest' for a few minutes in a warm place (in a pre-heated oven that's cooling down, for instance) too.

If cooking pork, I use native Australian mint (but sparingly, as it's more intense than European mint), the old standby apple sauce (but with dried chilli flakes, tabasco or native pepperberry added to give it some kick), or orange or lemon zest and an orange, lime or lemon based sauce, with shredded coriander, or scalded rosemary.

If you're cooking gammon (or pork for boiling) believe it or not, but you can cook or marinade it in Coca Cola- it gives a very tasty skin for crackling.

Coriander seeds and cloves also work well with pork.
Good luck with your future culinary endeavours.