Marinades and barbeques/grills

Afif asked about preparing marinades.Now he remembers the grilled chicken I used to prepare. My children can really eat chicken and 3 of them can finish an entire barbequed chicken within minutes.

Actually marinating fish, chicken or meat prior to cooking enhances the flavour of the meat. The best time to marinate is at night in the fridge, and cook them the next day. I do not recommend you put salt in the marinade as it would blend in the meat and make it salty.

The marinades you can use are:

• Turmeric powder, crushed garlic and ginger with lemon grass if you have it.Add a little powdered chillies or chilli paste if you want a hot taste but adding grounded black pepper will do fine too.
• A simple marinade is to add pepper to barbeque sauce
• If you do not have barbeque sauce you can use tomato and chilli sauces mixed with pepper
• You can also marinate in soya sauce together with crushed ginger, garlic with or without tomato or chilli sauce
• Or some people who loves curry flavour can use curry powder added to any sauce except soya sauce as a marinade
• I used 5 spice powder added to barbeque sauce and you get a fusion oriental and western flavour

You can experiment whatever sauces to use for a marinade. When cooking you need to place the meat on a metal rack with a dish to collect the drippings. I line the dish with newspaper for easy cleaning. Just throw away the used newspaper and you don't have to scrub the dish. Newpapers in Malaysia are safe because they use palm oil based printing ink. So there is no worry of poisonous fumes.  The drippings are thrown away. You only eat the cooked meat.

For chicken pieces you don't have to remove the skin before grilling or putting on the barbeque. You discard the skin when you are eating it.

For chicken, beef or lamb and mutton, you need to grill under low heat and and dip in the sauce as you turn the meat while cooking. You must make sure the meat does not burn. Adding a dip of oil or dollop of butter on the meat now and then keeps it moist and tender.

You may eat your grilled meat with grilled or roasted potatoes (cooked at the same time in the oven or grill), served with boiled vegetables.

You may heat up the balance of the marinade and put it on your cooked meat before serving. If you do not have enough marinade left, you can dip the meat in barbeque sauce, tomato or chilli sauce or mustard sauce.

A last reminder, if you grill a non-oily fish, you need not turn it;brush the fish with a little cooking oil and cook it without turning. If you try to turn the fish it may crumble.