list of herbs

marinating a chicken breast can add a littlezip to dinner and it only takes about 30 minutes and you probably have all the ingredientsin your kitchen right now. so there are 5 things to think about when you’re makingmarinade. first there’s acid, there’s some oil, there’s flavor, some salt anda little bit of time. so, when it comes to acid, what are you gonna use? you can usecitrus juice, wine, buttermilk, yogurt, vinegar,

list of herbs, anything that’s acidic will work. so forthis particular marinade today, i’m going to use lemon juice but of course because iwant to think about flavors down the road, i’m gonna zest it first. using a microplaneto get the zest makes it really, really easy. when i’m talking about zest, i’m talkingabout just the yellow part of the peel. not

any of that white pith. so i’m gonna savethat zest for later when i want more flavor but here’s the acid. i’m gonna cut thisopen and i’m gonna squeeze that juice into a bowl. i’m not worried about the pits goinginto the marinade because i’m not gonna cook or eat them anyway so save yourself thetrouble of trying to fish them out. now with the oil, the oil goes into the marinade tohelp transfer all the flavors around and you want about twice as much oil as you have acid.so you don’t have to measure exactly. just use your best guess and about twice as muchoil as acid. now let’s talk about flavor. you wanna beat them up a little bit. garlic.i’m gonna put some garlic cloves in here but i want to smash them to help release thatflavor. with herbs, pick whatever you like

but don’t pick all of them. try to keepyour flavor focused. we’re doing citrus and herbs today. then just pick one or twoand beat them up. crunch them a little bit. bruise them so that they release their oilsand their flavors. you can even take some of this rosemary, take some of that herb offthe stem. chop it up and make sure you get that flavor into the marinade. this is wherei’m going to put that lemon zest back into the marinade as well for extra flavor. nowit’s time to talk about salt. you don’t want too much salt. just a little bit. we’renot pickling, we’re brining here. you’re just seasoning the marinade. helping thatflavor get inside the chicken. salt, pepper, and then we’re just going to mix it up.now, the next thing we need to talk about

is how much time we need in order for thingsto marinate. if you’re marinating fish or shell fish, you don’t want to marinate morethan 15 minutes. otherwise the acids start to cook the fish. for chicken, if you’reshort on time, here’s a way to make it a little faster. pierce the chicken with a meattenderizer. that’ll create holes in the chicken breast and the marinade will havean easier time getting inside and flavoring the entire chicken. pour the marinade on topand then this is good to go in about 30 minutes. longer is better. if you have overnight, doit overnight. but if you’re in a rush, like most of us are, 30 minutes will be fine. ifyou’re going to marinate this for longer than 30 minutes, you’re going to want tocover this and put it in the fridge. up to

30 minutes, it’s okay to leave it on thecounter. so a marinade is really easy to make. you just need to have some acid, about twiceas much oil, some beat up flavors, a little

bit of salt, and about 30 minutes and youcan take your dinner and give it a little bit of zing. thanks for watching. if you’dlike to see more of the basics, click over here. if you’d like to see everything iused today, click over here. if you have any comments or suggestions for more basics, putthem in the comments section right below.