QUESTION: Meat and poultry: how to marinate and when to salt for the best flavor?

Proper marinating and timely salting of meat and poultry are subject to the principle of reasonable effort distribution, where the main culinary tasks are solved first. First, focus on three basic aspects: proper food storage, high-quality preliminary preparation, and ideal cleanliness of the workspace, and only then experiment with exquisite flavor combinations and complex spicy sauces.

The time of adding salt directly affects the final texture and juiciness of the finished dish. Large cuts of meat for baking or frying are best salted in advance, approximately a few hours or even a day before the start of heat treatment, so that the salt has time to penetrate deep into the fibers. But tender steaks or portioned pieces of poultry for quick frying are recommended to be salted immediately before sending them to the pan or grill to preserve their tenderness.

Acid-based marinades, such as lemon juice, vinegar, or tomato puree, perfectly soften the tough fibers of tough meat, but require time control. You should not marinate poultry in acidic compositions for too long, otherwise its tender meat will become mushy and lose its texture. It is enough to keep the product in the marinade from thirty minutes to two hours in a cool place to give it a rich flavor and maintain a pleasant elasticity.