SOURCE: www.sizzleonthegrill.com
Lately Ive been playing around with injection cooking. OK that sounds awkward.
Youve probably tried marinades that require you to soak meat, usually overnight in a covered tray placed in the fridge, using either an off-the-shelf commercially prepared product or home-made concoction. With this method and depending upon the meat, in about 8 24 hours the marinade has successfully penetrated into the meat and imparts both flavor and moisture. In some recipes, if the marinade is acid-based with ingredients like apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, citrus fruit, pineapple, etc the meat may be tenderized to some degree. And you may have also read about and perhaps used brining as a way to boost the moisture and flavor in poultry and pork. Injection is kinda the same thing but you do it nearly immediately prior to cooking and can precisely select where the flavor enhancement will be placed.
For a turkey you may wish to only enhance the moisture and flavor of the breast meat by injecting simple brine liquid or add flavorings. Inserting the needle in one spot and re-injecting at different angles will ensure better coverage and fewer holes from which liquid can escape during cooking. Illustration courtesy Bruce Foods Corporation
The basic technique is to use what amounts to a large hypodermic needle or needle attached to the end of a turkey baster and inject seasoned liquids into meat to both increase the flavor and juiciness of the meat. Depending upon the type of meat, the cut and the cooking method you can target specific regions of a large roast (say the breast of a large turkey See illustration 1A) to inject a simple brine or flavored marinade. Or you can target flavor and moisture to all sections of the turkey, chicken or roast. See illustration 1B. Its fairly common practice to see competition barbeque teams injecting flavor enhancing sauces into everything from chicken to pork butt to brisket prior to barbequing. Injection can be a useful technique to learn by most backyard grillers as they seek to expand their repertoire of cooking skills.
Another method is to enhance the flavor and moisture of a turkey, chicken or roast in several locations by making multiple injections in an organized grid. Illustration courtesy Bruce Foods Corporation.
The combination of ingredients you inject into the meat is, of course, your choice and based completely upon your taste buds. For beginners I always recommend that you start with simple flavor enhancements and move up the ladder to a more complex combination of flavors after you get some experience with how to prepare and cook the particular cut of meat youve chosen. And I also recommend you learn on one favorite cut of meat and develop some skills with that cut before moving on to the next. Practice will help you learn and that information can then be applied to the other cuts of meat on your menu.
As for what to inject there are a number of commercial sauces on the market blended specifically for injection. And there are as many home recipes and opinions on the best injection ingredients as, well, as there are folks who barbeque and have opinions! Personally I tend to use fewer hot and overpowering spices in all areas of my cooking and this personal taste carries over into what I mix up to inject into turkey, chicken, beef or pork. That said many of the more popular prepared injection recipes are Cajun style sauces and most of those are just not my style. Nothing wrong with em just not for me. I like spices and flavors that enhance and compliment the meat rather than overwhelm it and, too often, I find the use of the word Cajun is code that means Burn da mouth hot with spices! Ive eaten amazing Cajun food down on the Louisianan bayou and enjoyed it for the richly complex textures, distinct flavors and use of spices to enhance and heighten the flavor profileand I like that. So you know Im just sayin. For those of you who do enjoy these spicy Cajun style products I am told the Oklahoma Joes Injectable Marinade-Cajun Butter is to die for!
Once you have selected the spices and flavors you want to inject you need to determine a liquid medium. Ive used ketchup, barbeque sauce, clarified butter seasoned with thyme, tarragon, garlic, ginger, etc. Ive used beer (not the best idea I ever had) and Ive even used a diluted brine recipe with just water, salt and brown sugar. Lately Ive begun using oils. For pork roasts one of my favorites is to inject roasted garlic infused oil into the pork loin and roasting on the rotisserie spit. Oh man that is DEE-LISH-US! And if you like mint with lamb, try infusing some olive oil with garlic and mint then injecting it into a boneless leg of lamb that you grill or rotisserie. Please friends, give me a moment to recover from that taste memory. Whew! Thank you.
Im leaning toward using more healthy oils in all areas of cooking, especially when using an injection marinade because I can add moisture and flavoring remember: FAT = FLAVOR as well as the fact that many oils are composed of healthier fats if I select the right oils. Recently I wrote a rather detailed post titled The oils I use for grilling & why. A distillation of which simply stated is:
Use less expensive high heat oils like canola for spritzing on meat prior to grilling and the more expensive higher quality cold-pressed oils for flavoring after grilling.
OK here I go with a contradiction (kinda) to that statement. I dont use cold-pressed oils like Extra Virgin Olive Oil, etc. to grill with because they are not capable of handling the high heat of grates and will turn bitter at those temperatures, thus wasting the flavor they can add and not to mention they cost more than common vegetable oils~! Grape Seed oil is an exception to this kinda but it can be more expensive than more common oils like canola and even peanut, so I tend to use it indoors for saute work. Until now.
Our regular Sunday routine is to stroll the Ballard Farmers Market and purchase directly from the farmer, fisherman or maker the ingredients for supper. This open air market is held 51 weeks a year and fills the street and sidewalks of a full city block featuring a diverse selection of produce, fruit, flowers, artisan cheese, fish, oysters, pasture raised custom butchered beef pork lamb goat and chicken as well as many other goodies.
Fresh heirloom vegetables that you can’t find in the grocery store, picked that morning and often by the person selling it to you, is why I enjoy shopping at my local Ballard Farmers Market. Photo gallery courtesy Tingling Tastebuds web log.
We dont purchase all of our food there but this particular market is expanding and the selection of specialty heirloom varieties of vegetables (like potatoes, tomatoes and carrots for instance) is much wider than what supermarkets can offer due to space and perish-ability. I find food there that I cant find elsewhere. For example a few weeks back I noticed a booth featuring cold-pressed grape seed oils made from varietal wine grapes. I read the bottle and asked questions and learned these come from the Yakima and Walla Walla, Washington wine region and, apparently, outside of one small processor in Germany, are the only cold-pressed oils made from wine variety grape seed in the world. Certainly the only cold-pressed varietal wine grape seed oils made in the Americas. I was skeptical that oil pressed from a Riesling grape would taste any bit different than a Cabernet or a Chardonnay seed or, for that matter, that of a common green seedless table grape. So I took their taste-test challenge.
Mind you, I have not kept my fine wine palate in good shape since leaving the restaurant business nearly 30 years ago. At that time I could most often ascertain the subtle differences in varietals and techniques, the terroir of origin and even some vintages Id been able to catalog into memory. But like so many learned skills it has become muddled with lack of use. Today I can discern many of the distinct and some of the subtle differences in flavor and textures between high quality cold-pressed oils such as apricot, walnut, avocado and various olive oils like Kalamata, Spanish, Greek, regional Italian, etc. But my expectations for this taste-test were not high.
Therefor I was honestly surprised and captivated when I could ascertain the distinct differences between the varietal wine grape seed oils and I my taste buds were very pleased by the additional natural flavorings paired with specific oils. I brought several bottles home to try with meals I had planned for the week. I drizzled the Riesling grape seed oil infused with natural lime on chicken roasted in The Big Easy, Chardonnay grape seed oil infused with smoke from Chardonnay grape vines drizzled over grilled trout and Cabernet grape seed oil infused with natural essence of peppercorns drizzle on grilled beef tenderloins! And was blown away by a Chipotle Merlot grape seed oil on grilled prawns! DEE-LISH-US!
Then it came to me Why not inject these oils into meat and see what happens?
Lime Riesling cold-pressed varietal grape seed oil - selected to inject into the chicken breast.
Injecting Lime Riesling grape seed oil into chicken breast: Angle 1.
Injecting Lime Riesling grape seed oil into chicken breast: Angle 2
Checking temperature of chicken breast after roasting.
Cabernet Poivre cold-pressed varietal grape seed oil - selected to inject into the chicken thighs.
Injecting Cabernet Poivre cold-pressed grape seed oil into a chicken leg & thigh.
Crispy roasted chicken leg - infused with Cabernet Poivre cold-pressed grape seed oil.
The chicken parts were all roasted in the Char-Broil Outdoor Stove Top & Smoker used as an oven for about 40 minutes at 375F degrees or until internal temperature readings indicated meat was cooked. A light smoke of Apple-Cherry-Mesquite wood chips was used for about half of that cooking time to flavor the crust on the roasted chicken.
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You may want to adjust some preparation ingredients to accommodate the use of an injection, depending upon what ingredients you prefer to use in the injection. Let me know what you choose and how it turns out!
Happy Grilling!
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by Steven Raichlen 
into a ziplock bag. Insert your favorite cut of steak, seal the bag, and rub steak for a few minutes.
, cookbook that I purchased recently. The pork tenderloin marinates in a wonderful lime juice and garlic mixture which imparts a great citrus flavor and moistness to the meat. The salsa is a wonderful mix of pineapple and vegetables with a touch of lime. It also calls for crystallized ginger, which I could not find at the store I went to, so I just omitted it. I will try to find this before I make the flavorful meal again. We enjoyed this meal so much that it will be a part of out grilling rotation from now on! If you want to make a memorable meal that has family or guests raving, this would be the one!
(Workman Publishing Co., 2008) and host of 
