No Obvious Pun For Me, Just Good Steak

Breaking from standard practice, our experiment of the week was McCormick's Grill Mates Steak Rub. This turned out really well to have included a total of 30 minutes planning. The rub itself was very similar to McCormick's seasoned salt which I personally like to use on chicken from time to time. I coated it on the ribeye's in question and then rubbed it in (while feeling slightly uncomfortable performing the action). Then the steaks were put directly on the grill. No fuss, no muss. The end result was quite pleasing, a very spicy taste with a good amount of flavor. I now look forward to assaulting the spice racks and seeing what further steps can be taken. I am also under the opinion that a tenderizing hammer can assist this endeavour as well, allowing better penetration (feeling dirty again) of the spice. Or as Perry has recommended, attempting rub/marinade combos is a multi stage preparation. Here's to the future!

Rating 7.5/10 Excellent steak, points left open for improvement with technique

Great Steaks? Well, here's the rub...

Ok, this week we took our normal routine and deviated from it slightly. Due to some logistical snafus, we ended up not applying marinade to the steaks. What we did do, however, was test out a different product that held much deliciousness. It also sounds really bad. We tried out a meat rub.

Schoolyard humor aside, the concept is simple. You have a mix of substances... spices, salt...whatever. In powdery format. The idea is that you coat the meat with the powder and knead it in so that it forms molecularly bonded shell of taste. The type we tried out for last night was McCormick's Grill-Mate Steak Rub.

This product gave the steak a very very good flavor; very savory. It definitely had a strong Cajun tone to it... it kind of took the place of regular salt and pepper seasoning. There was a pleasant kick to it... spicy, but not hot. Unfortunately, as we weren't really planning on trying this, we applied it right before grilling. This had the side effect of leaving the flavor on the outside of the steak; it didn't really penetrate very well. Now, as this was our first attempt, we do not know if this is because of the short time between application and grillification, or if it is simply the nature of the beast. All in all, this was a very minor shortcoming. The flavor itself still came through very clearly, and complimented the steak itself very nicely. Additionally, worries that I had harbored about it making the steak excessively dry turned out to be unfounded.

Rochter Scale Rating: 7.5

Bringing the A Game

As noted by Perry, this week was a fallback once again to Texas Mesquite. This is due to having a guest over and to convert more to our cause, you have to set the bar high.
But fear not True Believers, the experiments continue next week. I'm starting to scour the net for recipes now that we've almost exhausted the standing stock of store ready marinades. Any suggestions are greatly welcomed in the comments section.

The Morning After

Mesquite steak was pretty darn tasty, as always. I'll see if I can get our guest steakonaut to write up a blurb for here. Not really much else to say, you already know our thoughts on the Texas Mesquite marinade.

Back to Basics, Again

No ground-breaking news this week, Steak Fans. We're going back to revisit our reigning champ, A1 Mesquite. It's been a while, and we're having a guest for Steak Night. And as anyone can tell you, it's not right to experiment with a guest's steak.

The Results Are In - Allegro Spicy Cajun Marinade

Gotta say, I just wasn't feeling this one. The flavor here wasn't bad, but it was a pretty dry taste. Perry stated that it smelled like beef jerky, and to be honest, the taste definitely kinda invoked that. Now hey, I love beef jerky, but you know what I eat to get my jerky feel? BEEF JERKY!
However I digress, and I am being a little harsh maybe. The fact remains though, that this marinade did not make me relish the fact that I was eating steak. In fact I even left a couple of bites, a sin amongst our steak-loving kind. Overall, I could do without this and covered up as much as I could with A-1. However, it did have a good spicy taste to it, that did invoke some burning mouth sensation. I'm a fan of spicy foods, just now in retrospect, I think they have their place elsewhere.

3/10 (Just not my flavor)

The Running of the Clown

Allegro Marinade - Spicy Cajun

That is the name, as best as we can recall, of this week's contender. As a note, I need to point out that I've been sick over the weekend, and am still dealing with a lot of sinus issues, so my sense of taste for this week's test was very dulled.

Taste: To me, this marinade made the steak taste a great deal like beef jerky. It had that same smoky/salty taste. The pepper flakes added a very pleasant zing to the meal, but that was really the high point. I found myself using much more liberal sprinklings of A1 than I have been as of late, and using the other sides as a moderating influence on the strong nature of this marinade's results. Other than the spiciness (which is something future experimentation might allow us to graft into a far-superior marinade...) I was not impressed. At least it seemed to have good flavor penetration factor.

Texture: This marinade left the steak with a nice firm natural texture. No steak-mush! Yay! Then again, it'd have the same texture unmarinaded.

Summary: The overall taste really downs this marinade. I can only imagine how it would have been if I had my full senses at my disposal. The spiciness was good though, saving this expedition into the beefy wilds from COMPLETE failure.

Rochter Scale Rating: 3.8

Final thoughts:
Clowns cry on the inside for a reason. We found it.

Spooky Scary

Ok, this week we're trying some marinade product with a name that I can't really remember. All I know is that it has red pepper flakes suspended in the mix, and it has a clown on the bottle.

Pray that we don't die.