Using loose leaf tea in a marinade or brine

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

GB

Chief Eating Officer
Joined
Jul 14, 2004
Messages
25,510
Location
USA,Massachusetts
I have been very into loose leaf tea recently. I have a number of different kinds, all of the delicious. I was wondering if anyone here has ever used tea as a marinade or brine ingredient? I think it might be something fun to try. I would love to hear your experiences and recipes. OK spill the beans everyone :chef:
 
I can recall a tea called lapsang souchong being used as a marinade. It has a very very smokey flavor to it, but I can't remember what was being marinated. For some reason, I think it was mushrooms of some sort, but that sounds weird to me. I don't know?
 
GB said:
if anyone here has ever used tea as a marinade or brine ingredient?

I use ginger and Jasmine green tea in brining pork... I also inject it into the meat with a syringe (without the salt and sugar) I also inject melted butter and chill for a day before smoking. Makes a huge difference. some teas are great with fish as well. only problem is the tannin in normal tea can ruin some dishes, think of the flavor of tannin when wourking out quanitiies, it may be good it might not be.

but more interesting is herbal teas, they make great infusions for sweet sauces.
Celestial teas - Red Zinger - wow...
Experiment regularly
 
welcome ray, and thanks for the info.
do you have an approximated or exact recipe for the brine and injection, and the sauces? it sounds really interesting.
 
I used Earl Grey leaves for cupcakes. I crushed them to a powder, boiled that in the milk I was going to use, than finished to whole thing off with lemon icing. It was very nice, the flavour was subtle like a little drop o perfume.
 
(I'm so bad at not measuring things, sorry, so this is a rough estimate...)

Jasmine Chicken Marinade

2-3 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 tbsp of jasmine tea leaves
4-5 tbsp liquid honey
the white parts from about half a bunch of green onions (scallions), finely chopped
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp dark soy
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all the marinade ingredients together in a large plastic zip-lock bag, place in the chicken breasts and sqeeze the marinade around so that it coats all the pieces. Leave for 4-24 hours in the fridge. Before cooking the chicken you may want rinse off some of the excess marinade, if you're not keen on eating the raw tea leaves (though they cook up a lot like dried herbs) :)
 
[FONT=&quot]
Tea Marinade for Chicken:
1 cup plain yoghurt
2 tablespoons finely ground black tea (or any other tea leaves)
1 cup chopped shallots or onions
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons salt and a generous amount of black pepper
I really like this recipe Daisy, thank-you! I may adapt it a little and try it out soon on some turkey breasts that I've got in the freezer :)
[/FONT]
 
Back
Top Bottom