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It may look like a remnant from Victorian-era medicine but a stainless steel meat marinade injector is one thing you will uses time and time and time again and is essential for anyone how likes to cook any large pieces of meat or poultry.
What is a meat injector?
A marinade meat injector is like a big syringe that allows you to de=istribute your marinade throughout the tissue of your meat, from the inside out. Marinading your meat by submerging it in the marinade overnight usually only allows the outside of the meat to absorb the flavours of the marinade. The marinade can be cooked off when the meat does in the oven, meaning that the flavour gets lost or ‘burnt’. With a marinade meat injector, you can place the marinade well inside the joint or roast, allowing the flavours to permeate throughout.
Why use a marinade meat injector?
Meat can get pretty dry when cooking, especially on the grill or bbq, so using a meat marinade injector to infuse flavour and liquid from the inside will make for tastier more moist meat. Just as we use syringes to inject our own muscles with painkillers or anti-inflammatories, exactly the same principle applies when we use a meat injector, it can be used for many different kinds of meat.
How to use a marinade injector
First, prepare your marinade. Attach the needle to the meat injector and then place it in the liquid marinade. Draw the handle up while the tip of the needle is completely submerged in the marinade, this will drw the liquid into the marinade injector. Then take your piece of meat. If it’s a big piece of red meat, like beef or pork, you want to insert the needle into the flesh until you feel the bone. Then press down gently on the handle so that the marinade exits inside the meat.
Meat is tissue and therefore has a lot of cavities and marbling inside it. There are plenty of little places for the marinade to collect. If you see the marinade bubbling out immediately fro the incision hole, it means that the flesh solid so just try a different place.
Make sure to inject marinade throughout the whole piece of meat and not just one particular side. As the meat cooks, the fat inside the meat will dissolve, allowing the marinade to flow more freely. Make sure you have enough marinade for the whole piece.
If you’re using a marinade meat injector on your chicken, or Thanks Giving Turkey, you can use cream or butter and olive oil to inject inside the flesh of the bird as well as between the skin and the meat. This will stop your bird from drying out in the oven and as we all know when you lose moisture, you lose flavour.
What is the best meat injector to buy?
There is a range of meat injectors available on the market. Plastic once will work fine but they won’t last you very long. As with any kitchen utensil, the more you’re willing to invest, the better for you in the long run, so best to buy a high quality a stainless steel meat injector and you will always have it to hand. You can buy a meat injector kit online for about $20 many of which include free shipping. 304 stainless steel is the best kind of material to buy as it is the strongest and make sure that your meat injector has a hole needle to distribute the narinade. Some kits may include cleaning brushes, but generally, they are not necessary.
Marinade injectors are best washed in the dishwasher, plastic ones can suffer in the high temperatures. A stainless steel meat injector is dishwasher safe will always come out shining and work perfectly.
HOW TO MAKE A PERFECT BBQ
Recipe for pork shoulder injection marinade
2 cups dry scrumpy cider
¼ cup cider vinegar
2 tbsp Maple syrup
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
Leftover apple cores and peel
2 tbsp butter
¼ cup water
1 Shoulder of pork
Method
Met the butter in a pot allow to brown, add the cider and reduce heat, if you have any apple left over apple peels or cores you can add them. Add the vinegar, water and maple syrup and simmer. Remove the apple peels and core and allow te liquid to cool to room temperature.
Take the shoulder of pork and massage olive oil into the surface. Use your meat injector to get the marinade right into the flesh. Rub plenty of the marinade into the skin of the por shoulder and add salt and pepper. Place on a baking try and roast as normal. Roast for 20 minutes on full heat, and then reduce the heat to 325 degrees F. Continue to cook until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the shoulder reads 185 degrees F, about 4 hours.
