Beef Marinade

My family has made this for holidays and special occasions for as long as I can remember. Filet mignon is not really something that needs this kind of preparation to taste good, but it definitely tastes good this way to me.

My dad told me about the reaction this got the first time my grandma made it. I'm not sure where my grandma got the recipe. It was for some sort of family party. He helped her prepare a large amount of venison (something like 10 pounds) and mix the marinade, and then ended up needing to go somewhere for a few hours. He came back to find that it was all gone. All of the meat had been cooked and eaten before my dad could have some. Maybe this is why he always makes so much of it, so that he and we will always have as much as we care to eat.

Part of me thinks he'd be upset with me for sharing it here because he's told me not to share it before (I don't know how serious he was) but honestly, what is the point of secret recipes? Who are we keeping it a secret from and why? I sort of get why they were a thing before the internet but not anymore. It's not like we run a restaurant where we stand to gain financially from a proprietary recipe, or have friends that only like us for our delicious food that would stop coming to see us if they could make it themselves. Personally, I love sharing good recipes because then more people can enjoy the delicious things we make.

Notes:

• I realize some things could probably be executed better, but this is how you get it to taste like family nostalgia. If you like doing things a little differently, absolutely go ahead and improve upon it.
• This would probably work well with other cuts of beef and other kinds of meat. My grandma first made this with venison.
• Grilling is by far the best way to cook this. If you can't grill it, broil it.

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RECIPE:

Beef Marinade

from my grandma

Serves 4-6

1 lb beef tenderloin

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp dry mustard

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp molasses

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup water

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 large onion, chopped

Cut beef tenderloin into 1/4 to 1/2 inch slices. Stir remaining ingredients together in a large bowl until sugar is dissolved. Add beef and marinate for 6-18 hours. Grill over medium-high heat for about 1-2 minutes per side, or to desired doneness.

Matcha Green Tea Mule

This is another recipe that comes to me from one of the restaurants where my friend Andrea works. She is a server at a sushi restaurant, and this was one of the featured cocktails for a while. It is a Moscow Mule that is heavy on the ginger and additionally features matcha green tea powder. She had one when they put it on the menu and told me all about how great it is since we are both big fans of green tea flavored things. A few days later, she brought over some of the house made ginger syrup and we made them at my house. It's every bit as good as I imagined.

I am really grateful to her for introducing me to this drink! However, the original recipe did not include any ingredient list or instructions for preparing the ginger syrup and she is not a cook, so once it was gone, I had to figure that part out on my own. Thankfully she had seen the process of making the syrup and could describe it to me, and after a few attempts I was able to recreate it. My final recipe is below.

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RECIPE:

Matcha Green Tea Mule
adapted from Sushi Muramoto
Serves 1

2 ½ oz (75 ml) plain vodka
1 oz (30 ml) freshly squeezed lime juice
1 oz (30 ml) ginger syrup, recipe follows
1 tsp (5 g) matcha green tea powder
1-2 oz (30-60 ml) ginger beer
Lime wedge, for garnish

Ginger syrup (makes about 2 1/2 cups, enough for about 20 drink servings):
1/2 lb (225 g) fresh ginger root (after peeling and chopping, yields about 1 1/3 cups)
1/3 cup water
1.5 cups granulated sugar
1 cup water

Prepare ginger syrup: Peel and finely chop the ginger. Place in the bowl of a food processor or blender with 1/3 cup water, and process until it forms a puree. Set aside. Place sugar and 1 cup water in a saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. When all the sugar is dissolved, remove from the heat, stir in ginger puree, and allow to stand for 15 minutes. Strain out the ginger with a tea strainer, reserving the syrup. Discard ginger. Allow syrup to cool completely. Store in a clean glass jar in the refrigerator for up to 1 month. (It is safe to consume for longer than that, but I find that its fiery bite disappears by the time it's about a month old.)

Prepare the drink: Shake vodka, lime juice, ginger syrup, and matcha powder with ice in a cocktail shaker until cold and well mixed. Strain into a copper mug or rocks glass with a few cubes of ice in it. Top with ginger beer and stir gently to combine. Top with a lime wedge and serve immediately.

Notes:

• Fresh squeezed lime juice is important here. Don't use bottled.
• I have used Korean soju instead of vodka when I didn't have vodka.
• I have used lime sparkling water when I didn't have ginger beer, and I think the ginger syrup still has enough of a kick that you don't really miss the extra bit of ginger.
• Other uses for the ginger syrup in case you have leftovers: drizzle over fresh fruit or ice cream, or stir into other drinks (I think it tastes good in sparkling water and tea but the sky is the limit).

Spicy Ginger Kombucha Cocktail

It took me a long time to warm up to kombucha. I chalk this up to the gap between expectations and reality. Wikipedia says it is indeed a Japanese word for kelp tea that was adopted as a loanword but used incorrectly. Since Japanese cooking often uses kombu/kelp as an ingredient in savory broths, I was expecting it to be kind of salty and savory, and the first couple of times I tried it were pretty mentally jarring because it is sour and fizzy. Sometimes you end up getting a bad impression of a food because of what your expectations of it are rather than going in with no expectations and trying to appreciate it for what it is. I now remember that it's supposed to be sour and fizzy, and I drink it on purpose because I like it.

My favorite kind is a kind that's made in my city, and my favorite flavor that they make is lemongrass ginger. I first tried it in a cocktail at a local distillery. They had flights of different experimental cocktails made with different flavors of this company's kombucha, and the one with lemongrass ginger was exceptionally good. But they wouldn't make me a full sized drink. So I tried to make it myself a few days later. I'm not sure I got it completely right, but I think I ended up with something close and worth making again.

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RECIPE:

Spicy Ginger Kombucha Cocktail
inspired by the Spicy Ginger Cocktail at the Old Sugar Distillery
Makes 1 serving

1-2 tbsp ginger juice (from 1.5 oz unpeeled fresh ginger)
1.5 oz dark rum
1 tbsp honey or maple syrup
1 tbsp lime juice
4 oz NessAlla lemongrass ginger kombucha, or similarly flavored kombucha
Ice

To prepare ginger juice: Peel ginger with a paring knife. Grate ginger finely on a grater or microplane. Gather the grated ginger in your fingers and squeeze the liquid out (ideally into your shaker or the glass you will be drinking from). If there is any juice on your work surface, you can pick it up with the already-squeezed ginger like a sponge. Squeeze until the pulp is dry. Discard pulp.

Shake all ingredients except kombucha in a cocktail shaker with ice. Strain into rocks glass. Top with kombucha and stir gently to mix. Alternatively, place ice in a rocks glass with ginger juice. Add rum, honey or maple syrup, and lime juice and mix until sweetener is dissolved. Top with kombucha and stir gently to mix.