Benefits of marinating your meats

A marinade is a savoury acidic sauce in which food is soaked to enrich its flavour or to tenderize it. The purpose is still as it was in the earlier centuries: to tenderize and flavour.

 Marinades typically consist of an acidic ingredient like vinegar, lemon juice, wine, plus oil and herbs or spices. Red meat marinades do not always contain oil since the meat generally contains enough fat.

To marinate is a verb that means to soak food in a marinade. You treat the meat like a sponge and enable the meat to absorb flavour.

Apart from tenderizing your meat, marinating your meats infuses flavours directly into the meat giving out a rich aroma and a delightful taste.

There is no specific recipe for marinating your meats therefore you can be as creative as you wish. Depending on your tastes, buy the kind of spices with the flavours of your choice. If you like sugar, go ahead, some Chinese marinade recipes consist of sugar and they may just be useful. The secret is to blend in the spices and seasoning well enough so the end result is a tasty treat.

There are two types of marinades. Dry and wet. A dry marinade consists of salt, herbs, and aromatics. You are advised to add some oil to your dry marinade to aid in pasting. This kind of marinade is excellent for quick meals and tender cuts of meats which do not require tendering.
A wet marinade normally consists of salt, spices and some acid. They are especially great for tenderizing meats as well as flavouring them.

You can marinate any kind of meat be it chicken, beef, fish, pork and so forth. Apart from the flavours, the amount of time taken to marinate one cut of meat also varies from another. Chicken can be well marinated after two hours while for a tough cut of beef, you may need to do it overnight. Ensure that you set time aside for marinating before you get cooking as this will slow you down. The secret is to start marinating long before you intend to cook. That way, you can flavour your meat, forget about it and later on cook it with the rest of your meal.

While looking for recipes, ensure that you get spices that are agreeable with you and to those around you. Keep in mind that the more the flavours, the tastier your meats will be so ensure that you blend in at least four different types of seasoning to your marinade. Be sure to also find the right marinades for your type of meats. Different spices taste better with different kinds of meats so ensure you get the right chicken, beef, pork or fish marinades.

Next Wednesday, come back and read about different marinade recipes for different types of meats.