Marinades: All Bottled Up

November 2003

Marinades: All Bottled Up

By Kimberly J. DeckerContributing Editor

Spoiled by regular restaurant visits and dazzled by the theatrics of the latest superstar chef, Americans demand dinnertime profits — and we’d rather not have to kick in too much time or energy to get them. Perhaps that accounts for the renewed interest in one mealtime-management strategy with a proven track record: the bottled marinade. Hanging onto the hope that a simple marinade can enliven even the most insipid chicken breast, consumers spent $87 million on liquid marinades in 2000, according to ACNielsen, New York, and sales have risen at a healthy 32% annual clip ever since. Research from Heinz North America, Pittsburgh, now finds the category at triple its 1997 size.

None of this surprises Amanda Hassner, chef de cuisine, Kraft Food Ingredients Corp., Memphis, TN. “All you have to do is look at the shelves now to see how many different marinade products there are,” she says. Whether they bill themselves as “marinades,” “basting sauces,” “simmer sauces” or even “salad dressings,” competition is fierce, and product developers must add more value to their offerings just to get noticed.

What makes a marinadeAmong those benefits, at least to consumers, is that marinade is what you make of it. “Growing up,” Hassner recalls, “a marinade was a bottle of ‘zesty Italian’ that Mom poured over the London broil before sticking it on the grill. It was just something that she could use to make the meat taste a little better.”

When meat processors speak of a marinade, they refer more specifically to “a brine that is injected or vacuum tumbled into the meat for the dual purposes of extending the meat — by adding water — and providing versatility for the consumer,” says Judy Turner, senior food scientist, Tate & Lyle North America (A.E. Staley Manufacturing Company), Decatur, IL. These typically include water, salt and a pH adjuster, such as phosphate that redirects the muscle’s chemistry, as well as flavors, acids, soluble proteins and other water-binding adjuncts.

Designers of bottled marinades, though, have their pick of GRAS ingredients, and needn’t worry about any standard of identity to claim the title “marinade.” However, centuries of culinary theory and practice have written a de facto definition: A marinade, in the culinary sense, is a liquid, traditionally comprising an acid, seasonings and sometimes an oil, that flavors and tenderizes foods soaked in it. Tenderization is an industrial marinade’s raison d’être, accomplished via sophisticated pH regulators and marinating technologies. Home cooks lacking the benefit of vacuum tumblers and injection needles have to make do with the modest tenderization that occurs when a bottled marinade’s acids denature a substrate’s surface proteins over the course of a few minutes or a number of hours. The oil can enhance the sensation of richness and can slow moisture evaporation during cooking. Salt and sweeteners, along with the ethanol in naturally brewed soy sauce and cooking wines, also can give marinades a little help in penetrating the tissues. But if consumers think that a half-hour dunk in a garlic-herb marinade will soften a joint of mutton to the pâté point, they’re dreaming.

Bottled marinades earn their keep on their capacity to transform a substrate’s flavor. A plain pork chop won’t inspire much enthusiasm, but with a corps of marinades on hand, a family could dine on chops for weeks without treading the same culinary territory. “It wasn’t really until I started cooking professionally that I realized how much a marinade can do for a piece of meat,” Hassner admits. “It’s giving more value to the meat, and on so many levels.”

Andrew Bosch, senior creative flavorist at Kraft, notes also that as more consumers catch on to the idea of cooking, if not the actual act, they discover the value of putting their own stamps on factory-model marinades. “Even though people are turning to bottled marinades as conveniences, they still want to add some of their own touches. It can be as easy as adding some hot sauce, or chopping up a few herbs to toss in,” he says. “But it gives them a starting point…a quick, easy avenue to be creative.” Consumers ask a lot of their marinades, and they keep asking more. International Communications Research, Media, PA, found that 46% of consumers surveyed consider marinating time-consuming, and 35% wish they didn’t have to deal with the cleanup. At the same time, they expect marinades to deliver roasted, grilled and barbecued flavors without requiring that any roasting, grilling or barbecuing take place. Not just a condiment, they’ve become surrogates for culinary technique and equipment — a wood-burning oven or mesquite grill in a bottle. These “fairy godmothers of flavor” must be capable of turning a microwaved whitefish fillet into a cedar-smoked catch-of-the-day with the twist of a lid.

Product designers have a growing assortment of ingredients and processes to get the job done. Bottled marinades are relatively elementary to formulate and manufacture, perhaps explaining why so many hail from small, specialty producers. In fact, in most bottles, with a few exceptions, the ingredients resemble the marinade recipes in cookbooks: acids such as vinegar, wine or fruit juice; the frequent appearance of soy sauce, mustard and hot sauces; sweeteners and salt for functionality and flavor; and herbs, spices and particulates for more flavor and eye appeal. The only ingredients that you probably won’t find in consumers’ cupboards are complex flavor systems, preservatives and stabilizers.

But these behind-the-scenes ingredients deserve credit for making a bottled marinade superior to homemade. Because they’re also responsible for the bulk of a marinade’s flavor and stability — the consumer’s real bottom line — they might be the most important additions to the formula.

The starch and gum showWhen choosing starch and hydrocolloid stabilizers, ask the standard questions: What should the final product look like? What rheological properties does it need — thick and creamy, or something less viscous but still capable of clinging? And what process — if any — will cook it?

This last question is something of a crapshoot, as no industry-wide protocol exists for manufacturing these products. “Marinades can be kettle-cooked, steam-injected or swept-surface heat-exchanged,” says Turner. “They can also be hot-filled, aseptically processed or cold-filled with preservatives.” But no matter what the processing avenue, “The more stress in the total system, the more stability is required in the starch,” she notes.

Cooking, which can involve temperatures as high as 190° to 230°F, exerts considerable stress on some marinades. When manufacturers exceed a starch’s heat-tolerance limits — say, by overcooking the marinade — they risk bursting the starch granules. This leads to “a loss in viscosity and a longer texture, which may be objectionable,” Turner says. “The marinade may become grainy in appearance, and less stable over long-term storage, too.”

Undercooking denies the granules the chance to swell to their maximum — once again arresting viscosity development. “Undercooked starch will have a starchy flavor, which may mask other flavors and spices, and change the appearance of the product by creating more opacity,” Turner says. The simplest solution is to keep temperatures in check. But because even the best-laid temperature controls can fail, product designers should investigate starches cross-linked for added temperature stability.

Consumers like to turn marinades into sauces with a quick stovetop simmer; does this put the granules in danger of bursting? “Reheating or simmering the marinade to use as a sauce is not a really strenuous process,” Turner says. “If the starch is properly chosen (it has enough crosslinking to account for heat-thinning), a reheat should not break it down.”

Cross-linking also protects starches against shear. Swept-surface heat exchangers and filling pumps are notorious sources, but this force can also factor into the cooling process. Manufacturers may avert some shear by hot-filling and then cooling marinades; but that subjects the products to longer intervals at an elevated temperature, in which case, Turner says, “The product must be cooled uniformly so that consistent quality is achieved throughout the batch.”

Florian Ward, Ph.D., vice president, R&D, TIC Gums, Belcamp, MD, notes that, because of their pseudoplasticity, some gums hold up more admirably against high shear than starches. “They may lose viscosity with high shear,” she says, but the gums regain it in the bottle. Both guar and xanthan gums fit the pseudoplastic description, making them handy adjuncts to starches in a stabilizer system.

A multistabilizer approach to marinade formulation gives manufacturers more ingredient options, plus a more stable product. Each starch has its own chemistry “fingerprint” that determines how its viscosity develops, how much it drops during heating, and how much remains after cooling. By blending starches with different fingerprints, manufacturers “can optimize the viscosity profile in the marinade,” Turner says. “A waxy starch will be long and flowable, while a dent starch will be shorter. Potato starch offers the high viscosity with a short texture, while tapioca starch is used for its bland flavor profile.”

And, Turner says, by tactically modifying base starches, processors can tailor stability and water-holding capacity to a marinade’s functional and processing needs. Thus, acid-thinning will suit a starch to a thinner marinade, while targeted stabilization of that same starch ensures that particulates stay in suspension.

By fitting a hydrocolloid combination to a marinade’s temperature, pH and processing environment, Ward says, manufacturers can achieve synergy between gums, too. She offers the duo of guar and xanthan gums as a case study: Guar is notorious for hydrolyzing in the presence of heat and low pH. But, all else being equal, it’s one of the most effective, economical thickeners available. Xanthan, on the other hand, has the heat and pH tolerance that guar lacks, but it commands a higher price and yields a very globby texture when used alone. Ward notes that, when mixed with xanthan, a “much nicer texture” results from guar, which also benefits from xanthan’s processing durability. The upshot: an improved stabilization profile at a lower cost.

Gums and starches stabilize in an osmotic sea of ingredients that can wreak havoc on unsuspecting stabilizers. Fortunately, stabilization of acid-sensitive starches protects them against the low-pH conditions in most marinades. While salts can delay hydration in some gums, lengthening their exposure to high temperatures and shear — not to mention tying up equipment and slowing throughput — guar and xanthan both score points for salt tolerance.

Salts don’t hinder a starch’s hydration rate, Turner says, but fats and oils do — obliging some manufacturers to raise their cook temperatures to achieve gelatinization. If the marinade contains enough oil, some sort of emulsification may be in order. Lipophilic starches can stabilize an emulsified marinade, and control “fat-capping” in a nonemulsified one. On the hydrocolloid side, propylene glycol alginate (PGA) has the lipophilic ester groups that make it a “very good emulsifier,” Ward says.

Globetrotting trendsAlthough the hallmark of an effective stabilizer system is invisibility, for a marinade’s flavor, getting noticed is what it’s all about. The barbecue and zesty Italian marinades we grew up with may still be out there, but their updated profiles make it very clear that these are not your mother’s marinades.

Manufacturers are adding more nuances. Bosch says, “The labels will say ‘lemon-pepper,’ but they’ll add a little chipotle chile for kick, or maybe some habanero or ancho chiles to give a different characteristic. Either way, they’ve made it a Southwest-style lemon-pepper marinade.”

These inspirations come from around the world. Bosch points to the success of tropical profiles — “the Hawaiian flavors, the Caribbeans, the jerks” — while Asian notes continue to woo American palates from half a world away.

“I’m seeing a lot of Asian,” Hassner says, “especially ginger: ginger-soy, ginger-citrus, ginger-sesame. That’s big.”

“Roasted vegetables, in general, and roasted flavor profiles are really booming right now,” adds Karen A. Ratner, manager, technical sales, SupHerb Farms, Turlock, CA. “Just going to the store, you see roasted-garlic hummus, roasted-garlic balsamic salad dressing, and roasted-pepper sauces. That’s definitely a flavor trend right now.”

That balsamic note is still on the tips of everyone’s tongues, which makes sense, formula-wise: “You want a certain acidic quality in a marinade,” notes Hassner. While balsamic isn’t the tangiest vinegar — aged long enough, it could pass for syrup — people can’t seem to get enough of its voluptuous flavor and depth. “It’s one of those ‘gourmet’ concepts,” she says.

Pesto sauce, balsamic’s compatriot, hasn’t lost any ground, either. According to Ratner, “I think that as basil pesto became popular, you started seeing a burst of alternative pesto-type recipes in magazines and cookbooks,” culminating in other global cuisines offering their own interpretations of the concept. So now we have Thai cilantro pesto with lemongrass and galangal, or Nuevo Latino pesto that features pumpkin seeds and dry Jack cheese in lieu of pine nuts and Parmesan.

But not all marinade trends are so far-flung. There’s nothing new or exotic about honey, citrus, horseradish or Dijon mustard, but they still show up in marinades for the simple reason that they taste great.

Such is the case with soy sauce. A mainstay in teriyaki and other Asian marinades, it’s equally valuable in less overtly Eastern applications. Matt Hutchinson, manager, R&D, marketing and planning, Kikkoman, Elgin, IL, attributes this flexibility to soy sauce’s knack for intensifying flavors at the same time that it keeps them in balance. “It brings a balanced, savory taste to any marinade by providing salt, umami and amino acids balanced with some sweetness and acidity,” he says. “And while the salt and umami boost the overall flavor, the amino acids and sugars provide precursors for the Maillard reaction during cooking, and improve the overall meaty flavor.”

Maillard is the bottled marinade’s magic word. It may not penetrate the substrate as deeply as an injected marinade, but it can go an industrial brine one better because it remains on the outside. “The Maillard reaction primarily occurs on the surface of the food,” Hutchinson explains, where the interaction of amino acids and reducing sugars in the red-hot crucible of a grill or oven forms the toasty, cooked flavors that literally get our mouths watering.

“So increasing the amount of amino acids and sugar on the surface, as well as carefully controlling the cooking temperature, can maximize the generation of Maillard flavor compounds,” Hutchinson says. Of course, no one would object if some of the marinade found its way below the surface, and soy sauce can lend a hand with that, too: “Salts, along with other, smaller compounds in soy sauce, exert a high osmotic pressure that can increase the rate of marinade penetration slightly,” he says.

Raise a toastThe marriage of wine with food is as old as civilization itself, so it’s only natural to extend the union to marinades. But where outdated white-vs.-red rules may have hamstrung formulators in the past, “Now, when you bring wines to marinades, the sky’s the limit,” says James Brisson, corporate executive chef, Todhunter International, Inc., West Palm Beach, FL.

“Everyone used to think that poultry went with white wine, and meat went with red,” Brisson continues. “But actually, when you pair poultry with different types of red wines, the whole dish gets a new character.” Who’s to say that you can’t add a Sauterne to a marinade for chuck roast, or a French-brandy reduction to a shrimp dish? “The flavors are still going to come out,” he promises. “I’ve even done Burgundy red-wine marinades for vegetables, and they practically caramelize on the onions and eggplants. They just give an amazing taste profile.”

Wine also bestows marinades with added clout. A quiet revolution has taken hold of Americans’ relationship to the noble vine, thanks to the efforts of the food media. The availability of varietal wines that are as quaffable as they are affordable has also fueled the wine boom.

Wines aren’t the only food-friendly selections from the bar that attract attention. Tequila, vodka, whiskey, rum, cognac and other spirits have become hot commodities in marinades whose flavor prints hail from around the world. Kentucky bourbon is a prime candidate for waking up a basic barbecue sauce. Tequila notes bring a Mexican accent to chile- and citrus-spiked profiles. Jamaican rum naturally partners with tropical and Caribbean marinades, as does sake with Japanese-inspired ones. And nothing suits a salmon fillet better than a soak in a vodka-dill marinade brightened with a touch of horseradish and sour cream.

While home cooks can pop the cork off a bottle of sherry or Chardonnay, manufacturers should opt for cooking wines and spirits instead. The addition of salt, pepper, aromatics or other seasonings effectively “denatures” these products, rendering them unpalatable in the purview of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Authority, and freeing them from taxation and the bureaucratic hassle of permit requirements and paperwork.

But make no mistake about it: Denatured wines and spirits are the real deal, listed as “Chablis,” “Kentucky straight Bourbon whiskey” or “sweet Marsala” on the label. Denatured wines and spirits also cost less than wine and spirit flavors or actual beverage wine and spirits. Because they come in bulk containers, they’re better suited to the factory.

To establish a smooth counterpoint to the sharper notes of a denatured wine or spirit, marinade manufacturers can turn to wine and spirit reductions. As Jim Polansky, national sales manager at Todhunter, explains, to make such reductions, “We’ll take real French brandy, and instead of adding 3% salt to denature it, we’ll reduce 1,000 gallons, using time, temperature and shear, to 100 gallons. And because a lot of the volatiles have been removed and the wine’s tannins are softened during the reduction process, Brisson adds, “you’ve already got the characteristics of the finished product.”

From a functional perspective, wine and spirit reductions don’t offer the same tenderizing acidity as denatured counterparts. However, their high Brix brings a flavor bonus. “The wine reductions almost have that caramelized quality because their flavor chemistry has changed from heating over time,” Polansky explains. “And if you want to try to replicate that with a flavor, good luck!”

Particle theoryThere’s something else impossible to replicate with a flavor: visuals. If it’s become axiomatic that people “eat with their eyes,” it’s always been a universal truth that they grocery-shop with them. All of those specks and flecks of herb and vegetable bits behind the bottle are like confetti — they signal the good times within. Without them, a marinade risks looking like so much gravy.

Aesthetically, the best particulate depends on the marinade’s flavor profile. Some styles lend themselves more to additions of herbs and vegetables, whereas others suggest seeds and spices: bits of chile pepper, sesame seeds, coarsely cracked peppercorns or whole mustard seeds. “A lot does depend on what the base of the product is,” Ratner says. Her company’s herbs, vegetables and purées, she notes, “add dimension and complexity to the overall flavor. Whether you’re making something with a creamy base, or a dressing base, or a ketchup-type base, all of our ingredients add an additional flavor layer on top of the base.”

Even so, marinades can derive a surprising flavor boost from particulates — especially if they’re fresh-frozen. “What you get from using frozen product over dehydrated is that because the herb itself has not gone through that drying step, you still have all of the volatile oils in the product,” Ratner says. Because more volatile oils correlate to more concentrated flavor, a modest inclusion of particulates delivers a comparatively lucrative flavor payoff. “You actually have different flavor notes than you would have from using a dehydrated herb because, again, the product has the full flavor of fresh,” she says — and the color and texture, too. So the chunks of roasted red onion or speckles of lemongrass are not all for show.

The vogue for exploring global cuisines has also piqued interest in culinary pastes and purées, from India’s tandoori blends and Thailand’s herbal-curry concoctions to rich, nutty moles sold by the slab at Mexican markets. Because a paste or purée is blended, Ratner notes, “When you chop or grind herbs and aromatics, more volatile oils are released and distributed throughout the product.”

Even something as simple as puréed garlic or ginger adds potent flavor, as well as texture, to a marinade. “It doesn’t disappear completely into the mix,” Ratner says. “There’s still a lot of particulate material in there.” She suggests using purées and pastes as building blocks in marinades, much like a pesto. “They can carry other ingredients in them, such as oils and maybe even other flavoring components,” she says, like the walnuts in SupHerb’s basil-walnut paste, the hot pepper sauce and celery seed in its tomato Creole paste, and the almonds and lemon juice in the company’s sweet red-pepper-sage paste.

Another advantage bottled marinades have over industrial brines is the luxury of including particulates that would clog injection needles. While the processing equipment is the ultimate arbiter, Ratner recommends using any of the herbs and some of the smaller-cut vegetables — anything up to a quarter inch — in bottled marinades.

When using fresh or frozen particulates and purées, processors almost inevitably must contend with microbial concerns, no matter how tight a ship the supplier runs. “If you’re using dehydrated product that’s been irradiated, and if you’re working with a dressing-type system with an acidified aqueous phase and oil, you wouldn’t necessarily need to have the product be heat-treated,” Ratner says. But in the case of flash-frozen herbs, vegetables, and purées, she recommends applying a heat process because the products aren’t microbiologically sterile. Once you start combining ingredients,” she continues, “if you do not introduce a heat step to the process, you will likely have food-safety issues and/or problems with shelf stability down the line.”

A balancing actSidestepping shelf-stability troubles is one motive among many that point marinade manufacturers toward customized flavor systems. After all, as attractive as herbs, seeds or vegetable purées are, “If you use a lot of the fresh materials, deterioration happens very rapidly,” Bosch cautions. “But when you have flavors, you’ve got a lot more shelf stability.” Flavor systems grant manufacturers more control over formulation and processing, too; knowing that the critical notes in a product come from a bottle in the supply room and not from a small farm in a faraway, war-torn country brings tremendous peace of mind.

Besides, some flavors aren’t born — they’re made, during the cooking process. The proteins and sugars on a marinated rib eye will generate the meaty char of the Maillard on a hot grill, but what would happen if, heaven forbid, that steak cooked in the microwave? People still expect the meat to emerge tasting as if it came straight off the Weber. Fortunately for them, if they’ve chosen the right marinade with the right roasted, grilled or wood-smoked flavors, they’ll get what they were hoping for.

But as anyone who’s been the victim of too much smoke flavor can testify, cooked notes can quickly overpower other elements in any marinade — which is why Bosch preaches balance. His sermons apply to more than just the flavors of cook: “When I conduct flavor training with people, the first characteristic I always tell them to look at with any flavor is balance,” he says. “That’s the first note you want to pick up on. Because if it doesn’t deliver balance, then it’s just not a good flavor.”

This means keeping the sweet, savory, spicy, acidic and smoky notes in sensory equilibrium, Bosch explains. The balance has to extend beyond the bottle. “You have to keep that flavor balanced as the marinade cooks, too,” he says. “So if you put something marinated on the grill or in the oven, you need to know that as those sugars caramelize, they’ll continue to work within the system you’ve designed.” If they suddenly get too harsh or burn too quickly, then the marinade isn’t doing its job.

The balance theory comes in handy when building hot, chile-inflamed flavor profiles. One way to keep the heat from knocking out the rest of the marinade, Bosch notes, is to mix in a little sweetness. Fat also lifts the burn off the palate, so some extra-virgin olive oil, or perhaps a specialty oil pressed from walnuts, avocados or grape seed, can tame a potentially scorching marinade. Oils effectively “mop up” the fat-soluble capsaicin compounds responsible for the heat. Thus, he notes, “If you have a water-soluble marinade with a lot of heat in it, it won’t wash off. So you’ve got to think about what type of matrix you’re in.”

You’ve also got to consider the nature of the substrate. For example, “Getting the acidity balance correct is very critical for meat marinades,” Bosch says. There’s a certain window of pH a marinade must fit into, and if it’s lower, “You’re going to have too much bite, and if you’re a little high, the flavor profile will seem ‘off’ — it won’t meld correctly with the meat,” he explains. When targeting marinades to vegetables, there are a few things to watch for. “You’re not going to want as much of that tanginess there because vegetables are already pretty acidic,” he notes.

Again, it all comes back to flavor balance, and there’s no better way to strike that balance than to head into the test kitchen and play around. As Bosch says of the entire marinade category, “This is one of the great avenues for experimentation.”

Kimberly J. Decker, a California-based technical writer, has a bachelor’s degree in consumer food science with a minor in English from the University of California, Davis. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area, and enjoys cooking and eating food in addition to writing about it.

Back to top

3400 Dundee Rd. Suite #100Northbrook, IL 60062Phone: 847-559-0385Fax: 847-559-0389E-Mail: [email protected]Website: www.foodproductdesign.com