Hot Chocolate Blackberry Marinade

I really love the use of fruit in a marinade. After successfully using peach, strawberries and cherries in my marinades I mustered all my bravery and went a little crazy with this one! When I found a really ripe and sweet-smelling bowl of blackberries in the supermarket I just had to make a new marinade with them!

My first idea was to create a taste of strolling through the woods and picking berries. The texture turned out to be amazingly creamy but I wasn’t really happy with the taste. Something was missing! Something sweet and spicy that goes along well with the taste of wood. Like the witch’s gingerbread house in Hänsel and Gretel!

But it is July and I can’t bring myself to gingerbread my marinades now. But I can chocolate it! Chocolate, chocolate…. Chocolate and Sriracha!

So I tweaked the recipe a little, added a little sweet and hot and voila,

Print Recipe

Hot Chocolate Blackberry Marinade

Author: Juli

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup oregano leaves - peeled from the stem
• 2 T olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp salt
• 1,5 tsp pepper
• 2 T red vine vinegar
• 1 cup 15-20 blackberries
• 1 tsp Sriracha
• 1 T sweet soy sauce
• 2 -3 T cacao powder

Instructions

• Give the garlic, salt and 1 T olive oil in narrow mixing bowl or mortar and mix or pestle until you have a pale white and smooth mixture
• Add the remaining 1 T olive oil, salt, pepper, vinegar and oregano and mix/ pestle again until you have a thick mixture - the oregano should not be leafy anymore
• Now add the cherries and pestle or blend again until you have a smooth marinade
• At last add he Sriracha and cacao powder and stir in until well incorporated

Notes

For this recipe, as well as almost all my marinades I recommend to use a mortar or hand-held blender. If you follow this step by step instructions the marinade turns out much smoother and creamier and less chunky in my experience. If you don't care you can just thow everything in a food processor and blend until smooth. But it gets way creamier when you follow the above description.
To marinade the meat I always use a freezer bag. I pour all the marinade in a large bag, add the meat and let marinade at room temperature for 1 h or in the fridge up to 24 h.
The recipe is enough for 1 kg beef, if you don't need all the marinade at once just freeze the remaining for later use

It may sound strange but it’s amazing! It’s a stroll through the wood to the gingerbread house, nibbling a little and then clearing off 😉 So I am linking up with Laura today to share and spread the love for being brave in the kitchen!

Today I am working from home – yay! And then we’re meeting friends tonight and tomorrow. We’ll go blueberry picking and a little relaxing might also be part of the weekend. Sounds pretty awesome to me!

Have a great Friday and a lovely weekend guys