It's time to soak foods. Douse them. Drench them. Why⢠It's an easy way to punch up flavors. Chefs do it, though they may not call it "drench" -- they marinate, macerate or infuse foods -- there are differences. Explains "The Food Lover's Companion":
Infuse: Pull flavor "from an ingredient such as tea leaves, herbs or fruit by steeping them in a liquid."
Macerate: Soak "food (usually fruit) in a liquid" to give a food the liquid's flavor.
Marinate : Soak meat, fish or vegetables in a seasoned liquid mixture (marinade); food absorbs marinade's flavor; can help tenderize a tough meat cut.
But remember: Marinades (and sometimes other soaking liquids) contain an acid such as lemon juice, wine or vinegar. Use a glass, ceramic or stainless-steel container, maybe a resealable plastic bag -- but never aluminum because acid can react with that metal and foods.
Always marinate foods in the refrigerator not on the counter or outdoors, say Partnership for Food Safety Education experts. And don't use liquids that were used to marinate raw meat, poultry or fish on cooked food. Instead, boil used marinade before using on cooked food or set aside some unused marinade for a sauce.
"In Season: Your Guide to Choosing & Preparing the Season's Best," from Fine Cooking editors, offers this:
Balsamic-macerated strawberries with basil: Rinse, hull and slice 2 pounds fresh strawberries. Toss with 1 tablespoon sugar and 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar; let stand at room temperature 30 minutes until berries have released juices. (Don't exceed 90 minutes; they'll collapse).
Stack 8 basil leaves, roll up, then thinly slice across roll, also called cutting as chiffonade. Spoon berries into dishes and garnish with basil; or top poundcake slices with berries and finish with creme fraiche.
For peak nutrition, try frozen fruits
Right now, you can use farm-fresh local strawberries to make smoothies. Blueberries and peaches will follow in due course. But, smoothies can be enjoyed year-round thanks to frozen fruit. In fact, frozen fruit can make an even better smoothie than out-of-season fresh fruit. Here's why:
Fresh fruits destined for the market are usually picked before they are fully ripe because a dead-ripe fruit can turn into a bruised fruit or a rotten fruit long before it reaches the store. But fruits destined to be frozen can be harvested at peak ripeness because they only need to travel from the field to the freezing plant.
Frozen fruits are every bit as nutritious as their fresh counterparts, if not more so, because the longer fruits and vegetables "stay out," the more nutrients they lose. Vitamin C, for instance, is destroyed by light, air and oxygen.
The one downside to freezing is that the texture of the fruit usually suffers. A defrosted strawberry could never be mistaken for fresh. But in a smoothie, everything is pureed into a uniform smoothness.
When shopping for frozen fruit, select packages that are clean, dry and fresh-looking. When you shake the package, the fruit should rattle; if it doesn't, it may have thawed and been refrozen.
