One technique in cooking meat or vegetables is to put them in a mixture of different flavors and let them sit for a while before you cook it. The meat or vegetables then start to taste like these other flavors. This technique is called "marination".

You can "marinate" ingredients for a few minutes, a few hours, or a day or two. This is different from some other processes, like "pickling", because you almost always cook food after marinating it.