There has long been a myth in the area of meat and sauces that marinating your food doesn’t work. We are here to tell you that’s wrong, the people who created that myth simply weren’t using it correctly!
Firstly, let’s get our definition straight, marinating is leaving the food in a marinade for an extended period before cooking. This is done to add flavour to the dish and a juiciness that makes it all delectable. An important thing to know is that when marinating, the marinade won’t penetrate more than a 1/8 inch of the food. This doesn’t mean that it is useless, but rather that there are specific ways to make it work best.
How to marinate?
A great trick is to use a ziplock bag to marinate. Not only does this seal in all the flavour, but it also ensures that your food is getting fully covered. You simply need to turn over the bag in the fridge every hour or so (depending on how long you are leaving it). If you are lucky enough to have a vacuum sealer, this is ideal. It will infuse the flavour into the food with the force of the seal, allowing you to speed up the process.
If you choose to use a dish, be careful to use a non-reactive container such as plastic, stainless steel or porcelain. Most metal dishes will react with the flavour and contaminate your perfect
What to marinate?
Chicken is ideal for marinating as it easily absorbs the flavour. Pieces of chicken should be left in the marinade approximately 24 hours to lock in the tastes. Our Your Choice Chicken Marinade has the perfect formula to bring out the best flavour. To get the marinade to penetrate the full chicken pieces, you should gash the pieces before putting them in the marinade. Doing this allows it to seep between the gashes for the fullest taste. For an extra bit of flavour, add some of our Your Choice Lemon Juice.
Minute steaks and tenderised steaks are perfect for marinating because the thinness offers a larger surface area compared to the volume of the steak. Therefore the marinade will be able to penetrate more of the meat. These pieces can be left for as little as 6 hours in the marinade. Thicker steaks will also greatly benefit from a deep marinade for 12 – 24 hours. They go best with our Your Choice Meat Marinade and Sauce-a-licious BH Basting.
Fish and vegetables can be marinated for up to an hour with any of our excellent products, Sauce-a-licious Lemon & Herb is a great option. Doing this will give dinner a great taste with minimal effort.
It is very important to remember that once a marinade has been used, it is then contaminated and therefore should be disposed of and not re-used. Reusing a marinade could lead to unhealthy implications.
A great advantage for our range of sauces is that they are suitable to be used as marinades, basting sauces and table dipping sauces. Thereby making them very versatile and a great option for whatever your preference is.
