Zesty Flank Steak

By Paul Briand

I didn’t have to look beyond my refrigerator to find this recipe, specifically the squeeze bottle of French’s Brown Mustard there on the door shelf.

It’s a combination marinade/topping for the steak that I also used to cook hamburger sliced Vidalia onions, red peppers and green peppers, all on the grill.

Ingredients

1 cup balsamic salad dressing

1/3 cup French’s Spicy Brown Mustard

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 1/2 pounds flank steak

Directions

1. Mix the dressing, mustard and garlic together in a bowl, reserving a third of the mixture;

2. Place steak and remaining marinade in leak-proof zip-tight storage bag and let sit in the refrigerator for up to three hours, a minimum of a half hour;

3. Over medium-high heat, grill steak to preferred doneness;

4. Let steak rest for three minutes, then cut in slices against the bias, drizzle some of the reserved sauce over the slices and serve.

For the vegetables, use a brush to lightly coat the vegetables with the marinade on each side as they grill. Remove from heat as each side begins to blister.

Click here for recipe card.

Bourbon-Glazed Salmon

By Paul Briand

I like bourbon. My wife Jane likes salmon. Marry the two and you've got a great-tasting, easy-to-make meal.

The recipe is basically for a marinade that ultimately becomes the glaze for the salmon.

I came upon the recipe in a round-about way. It originated from Cooking Light magazine and was posted on MyRecipes.com. I saw a reference to it on one of the Twitter postings for someone I follow as part of my Baby Boomer writing for Examiner.com. Yes, it's a tangled web we weave, so to speak.

For the record, I used Jack Daniels, which is technically a whiskey, not a bourbon. But the effect is the same. Once the bourbon cooks down in the marinade/glaze you're left with a sweetness that's enhanced by the brown sugar.

Ingredients
3 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons bourbon
2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon grated peeled fresh ginger
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 (6-ounce) skinless salmon fillets
Cooking spray
1/4 cup thinly sliced green onions
1 tablespoon sesame seeds, toasted

Directions
1. Combine first 7 ingredients in a large zip-top plastic bag;
2. Add fish to bag, seal, and marinate in refrigerator 1 1/2 hours, turning occasionally;
3. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and coat pan with cooking spray;
4. Add fish and marinade to pan; cook fish 4 minutes on each side or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork or until desired degree of doneness;
5. Place 1 fillet on each of 4 plates and drizzle each serving with about 2 teaspoons sauce;
6. Sprinkle each serving with 1 tablespoon green onions and 3/4 teaspoon sesame seeds.

Korean Sesame Rib Marinade

By Paul Briand

My wife Jane and I had family over for dinner the other night and we served chicken kabobs with chicken and vegetables that had marinated in some store-bought marinade. Shame, shame, shame ... I know.

But during my shopping this week I found some lovely looking country-style pork ribs and promised myself a marinade that I'd make, and I found this one, although to be honest I'm not sure what is so Korean about it.

Asian, yes. Korean? I don't see anything in the ingredients that necessarily classify it as being particularly Korean. But that's how the recipe described itself so I'll have to respect that.

The key to a successful marinade is giving it time to work its magic. The marinade needs time to break down the meat (or chicken or fish or whatever) to start infusing it with the marinade's flavors, which in this case are the tang of some garlic and scallions, the sweetness of the brown sugar and some smokiness from the sherry.

The recipe I found called for regular sugar, but I substituted it for brown sugar. I just like it better in marinades and sauces.

Ingredients
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup brown sugar
6 cloves garlic, minced
3 scallions chopped
3 tablespoons sherry
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon fresh grated ginger
2 tablespoons roasted sesame seeds

Directions
1. Mix the ingredients in an amply sized mixing bowl, reserving the sesame seeds for later;
2. Place your meat (in my case 2 pounds of the ribs, but whatever it is you want to marinade) into a gallon Ziploc bag;
3. Poor the marinade into the bag and carefully expel as much of the air as you can then seal the zip;
4. Work the marinade around the meat, and lay the bag into a large baking dish or whatever you have to contain a possible (but not likely leak). This is a piece of advice I picked up from Guy Fieri and his "Guy's Big Bite" show on the Food Channel;
http://www.foodnetwork.com/guys-big-bite/index.html
5. Let the marinade work for two hours minimum, longer if you can;
6. Extract the meat and cook as desired;
7. Sprinkle cooked meat with sesame seeds.

A lot of people will toss the marinade. I don't. I put it in a sauce pan, heat it through to a boil and use it as a side sauce.

Teriyaki Marinade

By Paul Briand

My sister Margaret invited us to dinner recently and served a flank steak marinated in a Teriyaki Marinade.

She says the marinade is for chicken and steak but she uses it for pork tenderloin too.

"Usually I cut this recipe in half but since I had two steaks on Saturday night I made the whole thing and split it between the two steaks," she said in an email after I asked for the recipe.

Ingredients
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup soy sauce
3 tablespoons brown sugar
3 mashed cloves garlic
1 tablespoon grated fresh gingerroot
2 tablespoons sherry

Since Margaret had two steaks, she divided the marinade between two baking pans, one steak for each pan.

She seasoned each of the steaks with pepper before putting in the pans and dousing with the marinade. She pierced the steak extensively with a fork and let the marinade do its work for about three hours.

The steak, giving the piercing and the length of time in the marinade came off the grill moist, tender and incredibly tasty.