A MARINADE is a technique of flavoring your foods or enhancing their flavors. Most of us are tired of foods that don’t have much flavor like chicken, turkey, vegetables, rice, pasta, and leftover dinners; that is when a marinade comes to the rescue. The most common techniques is to get a piece of chicken, turkey, salmon pork or game into a zip-lock bag, add condiments and spices and let them sit in the refrigerator for a few hours.
There are many types of marinades on the market depending on the type of food you are preparing – it’s the gourmet way to adding catsup (meaning flavor or covering its flavor) to your food, therefore don’t overdo it. In essence you can get creative, develop your own combination of spices, condiments and truly surprise your friends and family. Remember cooking is being creative and having fun doing it.
One of the no-nos in marinating is never to use lemon. It will cook your poultry or fish. That’s why when you prepare Ceviche (refreshing chilled soup of raw fish, seafood, cucumbers, lemon juice and spices) it is not really raw because it’s cooked in lemon.
The other important factor to consider is the time you need to marinade. The most common mistake is that you must marinade overnight and that’s wrong. According to the volume of what is being marinade there is a saturation point where the food will not absorb more and that’s about 3 hours. More than that time won’t make your food “more” marinated. Therefore, if you don’t have time to cook, then get a few pieces of salmon, put some oil and spices, put them in a zip-lock bag, and onto the skillet once you get back home.
Remember it’s most important to eat balanced meals daily, drink eight 6oz cups of water and walk at least a mile a day!
