AS long as we’re not in GQ, and I won’t have to support this with cites, is that almost everyone is wrong about the mechanism for making brined meat moist. The theory I have always heard is that osmotic pressure drives water out of the meat, diluting the brine solution in accordance with the osmotic effect, but at some point some other process takes over, and the water and flavor is somehow sucked back in. They never have an explanation of the other process, or why it should occur, but there it is.
My theory is this, osmosis only removes water. By doing so two things happen, one, the natural flavors in the meat remain in the meat, and are more concentrated. The other is that some water is removed from the individual cells of muscle tissue in the meat. This means that when they expand in cooking they don’t burst and lose all of their water.
I think brining works because it’s better to have 100% of 60% of the water in a cell than to have 0% of 100%. Think of each cell as a little balloon full of water that you’re going to heat up. The full ones will explode and lose everything, the half full ones will retain what they still have.
As a big fan of beef and guinness pie I adopted the recipe I use for ginger chicken to include a bottle of naturally brewed ginger beer. I now marinate the chicken in the ginger beer and lime juice with the spices.
I’d give it a go. I regularly use marmalade with pork.
I’d make a marinade of:
ginger beer
chopped fresh ginger
marmalade
garlic
chopped chilis
some chopped onion
a little salt or soy sauce
marinate the chicken in this mix and then you have two choices of how to cook it:
either slowly poach it in the liquid and serve with some greens - snow peas, sugar snap peas, chinese brocolli, bok choy with some of the liquid mixed with honey as a sauce or
take out the chicken and the spices, reduce the marinade (honey optional) and then use all with veges in a stir fry.
I’m looking forward to trying the Club Soda marinade. I’ve used beer, wine, champagne, and everything else I’ve scrounged my fridge and pantry for but the Club Soda is a new one.
It’s funny that I hadn’t thought about it. My Mom, since the dawning of the ages, has cooked kielbasa in soda pop. 4 litres of Coke, cooks the kielbasa until the cola boils down and the casing is browned. You won’t find juicier kielbasa. Yummy. Now she uses diet soda and it’s just as good, just less sugary.
Interesting that your room mate is Israeli. Kosher salt is called such because it’s used in koshering meat, which leaches out blood and tenderizes meat to some degree. Bottled carbonated water not only removes the residual salt but further loosens and softens connective tissue. For steaks cover with kosher salt 1 hour for each inch of thickness, moisture will leach out. Rinse off salt and marinate for an additional hour in seltzer and completely dry with a paper towel. This works great for meat that’s not well marbled, they get very tender. You should cut steaks very thick as the will lose a cm or so in thickness. When you cook the steak don’t add salt, it’ll still be salty enough, just a little black pepper. Great method for tenderizing meat!