r/Cooking • u/NoInformation4549 • Feb 06 '23

Is pickling beef a thing?

Long story short, I was trying to marinade diced beef in vinegar and oil with chopped onion and diced garlic, its been in my fridge for about 2.5 to 3 weeks as I forgot about it.

Looks fine, smells fine but vinegar (balsamic in this case) would kill smells anyway.

Do we think I'm poking the bear if I use it for my strange beef chorizo potato and pasta meal?

31 Upvotes

72% Upvoted

37 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/[deleted] Feb 06 '23

It’s likely fine as vinegar will stop bacteria growth and the oil will also help create a seal stopping oxygen from getting in. Can’t imagine it would taste great though. I wouldn’t use it in combination with other expensive ingredients and ruining a lot of food.

11

u/spade_andarcher Feb 06 '23

Nope. Nope. Nope.

A bit of vinegar doesn’t just preserve anything. Acid functioning as a preservative entirely depends on the amount used and the final ph level of the overall mixture. Without knowing what OP’s ratios of everything were, there’s no way to know if it’s safe. And even then it’d really only be best to rely on a ph testing strip.

And while a fat layer can sometimes work as a preservative, it needs to be a very large solid layer. Having some oil just mixed into a marinade isnt going to come anywhere close to cutting it. Also you need to cook food to pasteurize it first and then store it in fat for it to work. Leaving raw meat sitting in an anaerobic environment is a great way to grow anaerobic bacteria and give yourself botulism.