I am sure that most of you have eaten London broil, so this ‘experiment’ is most likely a big ‘duh!’ for most of you, but for me, London broil was a ‘once-in-a-blue-moon’ meal as a kid – and pretty much I haven’t eaten it since.

Over the weekend, I stopped on the way home from work at the grocery store and saw some london broil on sale. I bought it without a clue as to what to do with it.

When I got home, I found this recipe and as it’s pretty low carb-friendly, I only had to substitute low carb ketchup for regular ketchup.

• 1 London Broil, approximately 1 to 2 lbs.
• 1/2 c. soy sauce
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 TBS. vegetable oil
• 2 TBS. ketchup
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

I followed the instructions about poking the london broil with a fork, and I took out my never-used meat hammer and pounded the hell out of one or the two London broils I bought so it was half the thickness of the other. Each went into a ziploc bag with the marinade and each got a massage in the marinade after I closed the bag, then went in the fridge for a few hours.

Events of the day prevented me from putting it on the grill, so I broiled it in the oven until the internal temp was 165 (I love my quick-read meat thermometer).

The one I beat up with the meat hammer was done in about 40 minutes, with me turning them over every 10 minutes – the one I didn’t turn over took another 20 minutes.

It came out very good, though I made a couple of mistakes:

• should have pounded both – the one I beat up was more tender, cooked faster, and was generally less of a pain to cook.
• I put the marinade in the baking dish with the meat. It was too much – it made some parts of the meat too salty, and burned the baking dish, creating a cleanup nightmare.
• I only let it marinade for about 4 hours – I’ll bet that it would have been perfect if I let it marinade overnight and cooked both without the extra marinade.

Despite the booboos made, this was a real crowd-pleaser. All the members of the Low Carb Confidential Taste Panel enjoyed it and 2 days later there are only scraps left.

My takeaway from this was: use the meat hammer more often – and stabbing the meat with a fork was a ‘why didn’t I do this before?’ moment.

You’re never too old to learn, I suppose.