Replicating my Mom - Chicken and Steak Marinades [Nick]

In many respects, it is easy for a young man to look up to his father. What kid wouldn't want to be a big, loud, brash, and overly abrasive New Yorker? (That question is rhetorical...don't actually answer that). I've always thought it was easy to see what traits and qualities I emulate in my father; a booming voice, an exuberant personality, and I love having everyone's attention.

My mother on the other hand is a different story. She's a fabulous-looking, hyper-intelligent, hell-of-a-cook kind of gal. Sorry Pops, but Mom's got you beat...

So naturally, emulating my mother tends to be a bit more difficult.

Do I look like her? I'd like to think so, but I suppose the quality of looks could be up for debate...

Do I cook like her? Fat chance...

What better way to try to be a little more like my mom than take her recipes (that have already been posted), and re-create them myself. With cooking, sometimes you get fabulous results, and sometimes you just get lucky. This circumstance was a little bit of both.

Growing up my mother would always take an incredible cut of london broil, marinade it for hours, then grill it to perfection. On this night, I attempted to re-create her marinade for my own steaks. Here is the London Broil recipe:

½ cup soy sauce

¼ cup minced fresh ginger

¼ cup slivered lemon zest (peel lemon with veg peeler, then chop with knife)

8 teaspoons Asian sesame oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

4 teaspoons coarsely ground black pepper

4 teaspoons brown sugar

Combine marinade ingredients, pour over London Broil or any other delicious steak (can use zip lock baggy, turn several times in fridge before grilling). I marinaded for about 8 hours - making my meats extremely juicy and saturated with flavor.

But why stop with just steak? I decided to marinade some chicken breasts as well, this time with another one of my mother's recipes - what she calls her "shark marinade" (also already posted on our food website). Here is the Shark Marinade recipe:

¼ cup soy sauce
¼ cup orange juice
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon chopped dried parsley

Conduct the same process as before with the zip lock bag.

It's official, I can attest to both marinades. The soy and ginger combination complemented the juicy nature of the steak.

The chicken was a stark contrast to the steak, with a tanginess that gave each bite an extra kick.

So what lessons did I learn from my grilling escapade?

#1 If you have a grill, grilling season never ends. Unless you have some tinfoil and a campfire (shoutout to Pat Kaiser), there are not many better ways to cook meat.

#2 Marinading meat for 5+ hours will make your meat incredibly tender, juicy, and downright delicious.

#3 Always listen to your mother...