‘225 Dine’: Delightful Palate marinades make a holiday splash

Cooking instructor Lili Courtney had always kept an ample supply of homemade marinades around to demonstrate the value of a well-constructed condiment for adding flavor to meats and vegetables. But they were so beloved by friends and family that Courtney was inspired to explore packaging them. Her Delightful Palate line of marinade-dressings was released a few months ago and has begun to appear on store shelves across the state. All three locations of Maxwell’s Market carry the products. Courtney has taught leisure cooking classes in Alexandria, her hometown, for more than 20 years, most recently at the Kitchen Warehouse there. More than a year ago, she began the journey that so many passionate home chefs undertake in Louisiana: bringing a successful personal recipe to scale. She reached out to culinary incubator Edible Enterprises in Norco, which connected her with food scientist and chef Ehab “Happy” Abdelbaki. She and Chef Happy worked for several months to convert Courtney’s homemade marinades into a shelf-stable, bottled formula. “We would taste and taste for hours on end to make sure everything stayed true to the original recipe,” she says. Access the rest of this story, published in the new 225 Dine e-newsletter, here.