Braai Marinade Guide: How to Marinate Meat for the Perfect Braai

A marinade is not a rescue mission for bad meat. It is a way of adding flavour, keeping things moist over a
hot fire, and — if there is acid in it — softening the surface slightly. Understand the parts and you can stop
following recipes.

The four components

• Fat (oil) — carries flavour into the surface and stops the meat sticking. Roughly half
  your mixture.
• Acid (vinegar, lemon, wine, buttermilk) — tenderises the outer layer and brightens the
  flavour. Use it with restraint: too much acid for too long turns the surface pale and mealy.
• Salt (or soy, or Worcestershire) — the one that actually gets into the meat.
• Aromatics — garlic, onion, herbs, chilli, and your spice of choice.

A good default: two parts oil, one part acid, salt, and as much aromatic as you like.

How long to marinate

• Chicken pieces — 2 to 6 hours. Overnight is fine in a low-acid marinade.
• Beef steak — 1 to 4 hours. Good steak needs salt and heat more than it needs marinade.
• Lamb chops — 2 to 4 hours.
• Pork — 4 to 8 hours; it takes sweetness well.
• Fish and prawns — 15 to 30 minutes, no longer. Acid will start cooking them.
• Boerewors — never. It is already seasoned. Leave it alone.

Marinate in the fridge, in a bag or a covered dish, and turn it once if you remember. Take the meat out
twenty to thirty minutes before it goes on the fire so it is not fridge-cold.

When to salt

Salt early — at least forty minutes before braaiing, or the moment you start the marinade. Salt applied just
before cooking draws moisture to the surface and steams the meat. Salt applied well ahead gets absorbed and
seasons it properly.

Basting: sauce goes on last

Anything with sugar in it — most commercial bastings, honey, chutney-based sauces — burns over direct heat.
Braai the meat almost to done first, then baste in the last three to five minutes, turning often. That gives
you the sticky glaze rather than a black crust.

Let the fire do its share

No marinade saves meat cooked over flames instead of coals. Build a proper coal bed with dense
hardwood, give it the time it needs, and sear over the hot side before moving
across to finish. The marinade is the last ten per cent, not the first ninety.

Food safety, briefly

Do not reuse raw marinade as a sauce. If you want to serve some, set a portion aside before the meat goes
near it, or boil the used marinade for a few minutes first.

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