Wednesday, August 10, 2016

marrying

This morning, I took out a kilo of shredded (well, julienned) pork, ran it through my tiny Braun food processor to produce ground pork, threw in a bit of red-wine vinegar and an assortment of herbs and spices, then massaged the whole thing into Italian sausage. The meat needs several hours to settle; the flavors inside the pork must have time to marry, so the whole happy mess is sitting inside my fridge right now, and when I get back from my walk tonight, I'll have a kilo of Italian sausage waiting to be incorporated into spaghetti sauce. Am very much looking forward to this. For the curious: the recipe I used is here.



3 comments:

TheBigHenry said...

Is marrying a synonym for marinating?

Kevin Kim said...

Henry,

At the risk of (1) telling you something you already know and (2) missing the potentially humorous import of your inquiry, I provide a serious answer: "marrying" is a term that cooks sometimes use to describe a slow, steady cross-infusion of flavors that, in combination, produce a kind of gustatory harmony. People often talk about a "marriage" of flavors over time when referring to stews, sauces, etc.

Even though I did add a splash of red-wine vinegar to the pork, it was only two tablespoons' worth, so this isn't a marinade by any means. But now that I'm thinking about marinades, I'm pondering making Korean short ribs (galbi), which must sit a very savory bath.

TheBigHenry said...

Well, Kevin, much as I would like to claim that either or both of your "risks" are true, honesty compels me to admit that neither of them is. I was merely asking because I know nothing about food preparation -- except for reheating last Thursday's pizza.