How to Make Easy Marinades
in Your Test Kitchen

Let's experiment a bit in your test kitchen.

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Easy marinades are a snap and here's the Formula Easy Recipes way to make them in your test kitchen.

Traditionally, there are four things the tongue can taste: sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. Many experts add a fifth - savory (something that suggests meat or broth on your tongue). All these flavors must be delivered to the tongue, so you need a "binder." The binder is going to be a fat of some type. This binder lends texture to your marinade.

Experiment: To make your own signature easy marinades, the basic "recipe" suggests two units of oil to one of acid. Start with that as a guideline and play with the proportion of acid. Then there are the "grace notes" which consist of herbs, spices and condiments chosen to suit yourself.

The "grace notes" should supply anything left out from the acid (the sour). If your acid is soy sauce, it probably has quite a bit of the "salty" dimension as well as the "savory" already.

We can assign soy sauce to the acid category because its pH is 4.8 according to the United Soybean Board. Water is neutral at 7.0 and anything higher than 7 goes into the "basic" category. Oils do not go into solution in water, so it isn't appropriate to talk about their acidity or lack of it.

1. Choose an oil
2. Choose an acid
3. Choose your "grace notes"

The oil gives texture and is a binder, choose from olive, vegetable, peanut or sesame oils (sesame has a strong flavor, watch out - mix with a milder oil).

The acid accounts for the sour, so choose an acid: lemon juice, lime juice, soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, pineapple juice, grapefruit juice any flavor vinegar, or any wine you like.

Put those in a canning jar and now add your own "grace notes."

1. sweet: choose from table sugar, brown sugar, molasses or honey. Start with one teaspoon and adjust to suit yourself.
2. salt: if you're using soy sauce, it usually carries its own salt, otherwise, taste and add to suit yourself)
3. bitter and savory tastes are fulfilled by herbs, spices, and the strong flavors of condiments such as garlic, onion, ginger, horseradish, or mustard.

If you're using fresh herbs, use three times more than you would use if they herbs were dry. Start with a tablespoon of the fresh.

Examples of test kitchen marinades:

1. one cup olive oil
2. half a cup of white wine (*note, two to one)
3. and the "grace notes":
1. two cloves garlic
2. two tablespoons fresh tarragon
3. one tablespoon marjoram
4. salt and freshly cracked pepper

I'll call this Tarragon Marinade.

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With your easy marinades, you'll need easy sauces to complete the dinner entree.

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Back to the test kitchen.

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