Basa espetada

Watching a chef do his magic with a fillet of salmon on the telly the other evening, I was struck by the way he marinated the fish. He soaked it in a mix of the usual ingredients — olive oil, a bit of lime juice, some wine, ground pepper and so on — and then washed the fillet before moving on to the next step. I could tell by the changed colour of the fillet — it had turned a shade deeper — that the marinade had done its job: the fish had soaked in all the flavours.

I was reminded of the way that the roadside cooks of Punjab prepare their Amritsari fish. They soak the fish in a marinade, rinse it and then soak it in another marinade. The idea is to allow the fish to imbibe some mild flavours and a few strong ones. The result is a fish dish with a wonderful blend of aromas and taste.

Clearly, marinades are a reason why many of our dishes taste so good. At the Amour restaurant in New Delhi, the senior chef de partie — chef Sanjeev Sharma — has been devoting his time to marinades, culling them from different regions and then using them in various kinds of recipes. For instance, he uses the chimichurri of Argentina (see recipe) not for grilled meat, with which it goes very well, but with prawns. Or he takes the Portuguese espetada — which is again a useful marinade for red meats — and mixes it with basa fish.

When it comes to a good marinade, it doesn’t always matter what it was or is traditionally used for. The word itself has changed meaning over the years. Its roots are in the Latin term marinus — which refers to sea water or brine, which was perhaps the first marinade ever. Brine was used by our ancestors to preserve food.

“Centuries ago, the idea was preservation. Now, of course, a marinade is primarily for flavours,” says Vikram Marett, an amateur chef who trained in France and now devotes his time to cooking for friends and studying about food.

Vikram believes that a marinade should be citric in nature — and can include anything from wine, vinegar and fruit juice to buttermilk and yoghurt. The acid in the citric element tenderises the fibres and weakens the muscles in something like red meat, while enabling the ingredient to retain moisture.

“Oil is a very important element in a marinade,” he points out, “for all the flavours get into the oils.” It has another important role to play: oil stops bacteria from forming, which obviously helps when you are marinating meat for long hours.

A marinade, I suppose, can make or break food. The right ingredients — and the right ratios — are factors that you need to focus on. Too much lime juice or wine, for instance, can ruin a dish.

Chef Sanjeev is convinced that nothing works quite as well as a good marinade used judiciously. He takes something like the harissa — a Tunisian blend and marinade used in many dishes in the country and the neighbourhood (see recipe) — for chicken.

Or take something like the ras el hanout — a Moroccan recipe of a blend of ingredients used to flavour anything from meat and poultry to fish and vegetables and tagines and stews. Every kitchen in North Africa probably has its own recipe for ras el hanout, but chef Sanjeev likes to prepare it with ground ginger, cardamom, mace, allspice coriander seeds and nutmeg mixed with turmeric, ground white pepper, ground cayenne pepper, anise seeds and cloves. And he uses it best with chicken.

Indeed, there are no hard and fast rules about marinades, though of course, you have to keep a few basic rules in mind. Nishant Choubey, the executive sous chef of Dusit Devarana in Delhi, warns that a dish can get ruined if you marinate it for too long or for too short a time. A fish dish, for instance, will become pulpy and lose its texture if over-marinated. Meat, on the other hand (especially a tough cut of red meat) needs to be marinated for longer durations so that the flavours get into the fibre.

“There are many ways of ruining food when it comes to marinades,” he says.

Chicken ras el hanout

One basic no-no, he adds, is a metallic bowl. Because of the citric nature of most marinades, you should always use a porcelain or china bowl and not anything metallic with which the acid can react. And a cold bowl, chef Nishant suggests, works even better.

Of course, when the marinade is dry — as many of the North African recipes are — you can mix them in anything and then keep them for later use in an airtight jar. Vikram points out that dry marinades — the mix of spices, for instance — work better with food where the food surface is dry as in a roast. Wet marinades, on the other hand, are used for wet cooking — such as braising.

There is another kind of marinade — and that’s called instant marinade. “This is the marinade in something like a pate or a terrine,” says Vikram, who grinds his pates with a dash of brandy and allspice powder.

Marinades, no doubt, are the base for a good dish. So, bring out the oil, the lemon juice and all those herbs. And have a splash! 

Chimichurri

Ingredients:

• 1 cup fresh parsley or coriander • 3 garlic cloves • 1 tbs chopped onions • 1/4th cup olive oil • 1 tbs red wine vinegar • 1 tbs lime juice lsalt and red pepper flakes to taste

Method

Mix the ingredients. Grind them in a food processor. Make a coarse paste and use for marinating grilled meats or prawns.

Harissa

Ingredients:

• 250g fresh red chillies • 3 tsp roasted cumin seeds • 8 big garlic cloves finely crushed • 4 roasted red peppers • 1 large onion crushed • 3 tbs paprika powder • 2 tbs red wine vinegar • 1 cup olive oil • 1 bunch of finely chopped coriander leaves

Method

Mix all the ingredients to form a coarse paste. Seal in an airtight jar and store.