Marinades
The Quick-Fix Way to Turn Everyday Food into Exceptional Fare, with 400 Recipes
Home cooks who use this book will be enlightened and invigorated by the possibilities of such a wide variety of ingredients.
Marinades knows its market: busy people who want dinner to be easy to prepare and delicious. After a quick tutorial on marinades—what they’re for, what general flavor elements they contain—and tips and tricks on kitchen equipment and food-prep techniques, the book is all recipes. The recipes cover herb marinades, fruit marinades, location-based marinades (like those from Thailand and Europe), dessert marinades, and more. Each chapter covers one of these categories and begins with a quick paragraph characterizing the genre of the marinade.
Each recipe has a descriptive name and is followed by a brief overview to give a sense of what the marinade tastes like, and, of course, a list of ingredients and step-by-step instructions. Other helpful information includes a list of tools needed to prepare it (many require nothing more than a plastic zip-top bag), amount the recipe will yield, a list of suggested foods that work well with this marinade, and more in-depth directions for one of the suggested foods (doubling the number of recipes in the book). The directions are simple but explain enough that everyday cooks can confidently complete them. Occasionally, short sidebars give insight about one of the ingredients.
Readers who have a specific food item in mind to marinate (like chicken or fish) may have to do a bit of skimming to see all their options, since the book is organized by type of marinade rather than the food to be marinated. This organization, however, is best suited for the content of the book and is surprisingly easy to use, even for readers who think in terms of “What can I do with this pork?” rather than “What citrus marinade will be good for dinner?”
The page layout has cooks in mind: the font is an easily readable size, most recipes fit on one page (no flipping pages with messy fingers!), and necessary page breaks fall nicely between steps of the recipe. Ingredients and preparation times are shown in bold print, which helps people scan to find quick-prep recipes when necessary.
The cover image is positively mouthwatering—but it makes the lack of interior photos even more glaring. This text-only presentation, though, fits with the overall no-frills, get-dinner-on-the-table approach. This book will equip and inspire cooks of all experience levels to create flavorful marinated dishes.
Reviewed by
Melissa Wuske
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
