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Elbow Room Secret Steak Marinade

A soy sauce-based steak and meat marinade with onion, garlic, gravy coloring, and seasoned salt.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Elbow Room Secret Steak Marinade

Time2 hours

Ingredients

Directions

Make the marinade

  1. Mix soy sauce, onion and garlic in blender or food processor until mixture is smooth.

  2. Transfer to glass container, stirring in gravy coloring and seasoned salt.

Marinate the meat

  1. To use, allow ½ cup of marinade for each steak and ¼ cup for each chop.

  2. Arrange meat in a shallow glass baking dish and slather with sauce.

  3. Cover meat with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for 2 hours or refrigerate up to 24 hours.

  4. Bring meat to room temperature before grilling.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

57Calories
2 gProtein
0 gFat
12 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Soy Sauce1 tbsp (15ml)9
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Sauce + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + garlictop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,007 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Soy sauce
Adds salty, savory depth and helps the meat take on color and flavor.
Onions
Add natural sweetness and moisture that carry flavor into the blended marinade.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows and deepens during marinating.
Gravy coloring
Deepens the color of the marinade so the meat browns to a rich, even tone.

The step that matters

Bring meat to room temperature before grilling. Cold meat cooks unevenly on the grill, with a chilled center and an overcooked or dry exterior. Letting it warm briefly helps it cook more evenly and brown more consistently.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, onion, garlic):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, onion, garlic. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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