Salmoriglio: The Simple Marinade To Effortlessly Tenderize Steak

There's a beautiful simplicity and understated quality in many Italian dishes. Over many years, Italian cuisine has become synonymous with simple dishes that include few but fresh ingredients and that are curated to highlight the principal flavors in a dish. This can range from something as everyday as Italian iced coffee to the country's wonderful array of cakes, not to mention its world-famous pasta and pizzas.

With a culture as ancient and as rustic as Italian cuisine, it shouldn't shock anyone that there's a sauce that's simple, multipurpose, and time-honored. This is, of course, salmoriglio, a lemony herbal tincture that can be used as a sauce or as a marinade for meats. Made from olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and usually garlic and oregano, this mixture proves to be an excellent marinade to tenderize any steak to perfection. Not only does lemon juice add a fresh citrusy contrast to steak's rich meatiness, but the acidity helps to break down meat proteins, meaning you'll get a super-tender finished product no matter which cut of steak you choose.

Simple but effective: That seems to be the way of many Italian recipes, and salmoriglio is no different. Like any good steak sauce, salmoriglio takes only a few ingredients and combines them in a way that showcases the meat dish itself. The sauce features two principal ingredients: Olive oil and fresh lemon juice, a testament to its Sicilian heritage. However much you make, most recipes call for a 2 to 1 ratio of oil to lemon juice, though you can customize it to suit your taste. From there, you can add your garlic, salt, and oregano (keep in mind that fresh and dried oregano will offer different tastes), as well as water to thin out the mixture. Technically the water is an optional ingredient, but it helps to reduce the punchiness of the lemon juice, giving you a mellowed-out but still lively marinade.

The reason why salmoriglio makes such a great steak marinade is twofold. It brings both complementary flavor as well as utility to your steak. Steak gets much of its inherent flavor from rich proteins and heavy, indulgent fats. The high percentage of lemon in salmoriglio balances and enhances these flavors, making them brighter and lighter. Meanwhile, the acidity present in the marinade means that even tough cuts of meat will be beautifully tenderized. So even though it only features a handful of ingredients, salmoriglio proves that you don't need much to make an impact.

Italian salmoriglio seems to owe its inception to some other Mediterranean influences over the storied past of the region. Italian cuisine has been affected at one point or another by other dishes from surrounding areas such as Greece and Spain, and this shows in salmoriglio itself. In Greece, there is a sauce called lemonolado – essentially the same concoction as salmoriglio without the addition of garlic. As well, the Spanish have a type of soup that seems to have derived from the same philosophy that created salmoriglio. It's called salmorejo (which comes from the same latin root as salmoriglio, originally meaning "brine").

The shared naming conventions as well as the similar ingredients implies that salmoriglio has been developed over many years and through many cultures, and it's not hard to see why. The salt and lemon content in salmoriglio helps to freshen up and brighten whatever dish you add it to. Though traditionally it's served on fish, its versatility and flavor profile means that it adds exquisite freshness to steaks when used as a marinade. And due to its simple ingredient structure, you can experiment with salmoriglio however your mind desires. So the next time you're preparing steaks for the grill, or even if you want to experiment with new salad dressings, remember the tried-and-true salmoriglio for an authentic Italian wonder.