In this weeks installation of The Grown-Up Kitchen, were diving into the open waters of seasoning meat.

Heres a cryptic nugget of cooking philosophy to get the juices flowing: Flavoring beginsbeforecooking.

Lets look at the differences between marinades, brines, and dry brines.

Marinades can coat and tenderize fish, meats,and veggies, while spreading around complementary, aromatic flavors.

Some can even help with browning, and build an excellent crust during cooking.

Start out with a simple marinade of salt and a base, likeoil, mayonnaise, or yogurt.

Sugars can also help with browning, and of course add balancing flavor notes.

After building your marinade of choice, drop the raw meat in it for two to 24 hours.

Veggies can marinate for as little as 15 minutes or up to overnight for hardy root vegetables.

Bring on the brine

Speaking of flavor baths, lets talk about wet brining.

Brining is a flavoring process where meat or vegetables sit in a solution of salted water.

Other flavorings can be included, but they arent necessary.

Vegetable brines might also include an acid, like vinegar.

Makepickles out of almost any plant with this ratio.

When it comes to brining meat and fish, the main player is the salt.

The idea is to impregnate the tissue with salt,without losing moisture.

In fact, if brining a whole turkey is your first experience, youll likely never do it again.

Add the meat and let it sit in the fridge, rotating it if you have to.

Boneless chicken breast takes roughly 30 minutes to brine, while fish and shellfish take 15-20 minutes.

A wet surface will steam instead of sear, so drying it off thoroughly will help with browning.

For a starter brine, dissolve a quarter cup of kosher salt into four cups of water.

Add your meat and let it soak.

Dry brines elliminate this danger.

The salty solution will make its way back into the meat, no added moisture needed.

you could dry brine meat and fish (sorry, vegetables, this one isnt really for you).

Simply rub a couple tablespoons of kosher salt on all sides of the raw meat to get good coverage.

For large cuts of meat, poultry or fish,use more salt.

For small cuts, or delicate fish, it will take 45 minutes to an hour.

Check periodically, the surface should look dry.

If it looks wet, give it a little more time.

Once the surface is dry, then proceed to your cook.

Theres no need to rinse the salt off, thats more for asalt cure.

In this case, it would rehydrate the skin you worked so hard to dry out.

If youre disturbed by clumps of salt, just brush them off before cooking.