This Marinade Recipe Pairs Perfectly With Maine Moose Steaks

Maine's moose hunting season is underway. If your looking for a great way to cook-up some moose steaks, we have a stellar marinade you've got to try.

Maine is a great state for the wild game chef. After all, we have a diverse population of game species to hunt and cook with. A coveted meat to cook with is definitely the mighty Maine moose. As with all wild game cooking, moose can present a couple challenges in the kitchen.

Moose meat can be tough, and "gamey" tasting. The taste of the meat can vary from animal to animal, but for the most part, the wild game flavor isn't something I necessarily want to mask. I enjoy the earthy flavor moose and deer can add to a dish. So instead of trying to cover up that gamey taste, I like to work with it. I found this recipe years ago online at TheAlaskaLife.com. Over the years I've added my own tweaks to the formula, which I'll share.

What I enjoy about this recipe is it works flawlessly with earthy taste of wild game. I'd almost bet you can serve this to a picky eater or someone who's not into wild game table fare, and they'd never know it's wild game. This marinade works great with both moose and deer.

Moose Meat Marinade Ingredients:

• 1/2 Cup of olive oil
• 1/3 Cup of soy sauce
• 1/3 Cup of lemon juice
• 1/4 Cup of Worcestershire sauce
• 3 Tablespoons of dried basil
• 1 Tablespoon of garlic power
• 1 Tablespoon of dried Parsley
• Dash of pepper

Simply combine the ingredients and meat in a ziplock bag or tupperware container. Let the meat marinade for 6 hours in the refrigerator. If you're using tougher steaks, let them marinade for 24 hours.

A few tweaks to consider:

• Instead of soy sauce, I use Bragg's Liquid Aminos. There's really not much of a difference between soy sauce and Liquid Aminos. I use it as a slightly healthier soy sauce substitute. It's also gluten free and non-GMO.
• In addition to the garlic power, add some raw garlic.
• The Worcestershire sauce is sort of a flavor binder. I've done this marinade with and without it, and it tasted similar. So if you don't have a bottle, or ran out, it's not an end-all for this recipe.
• Be careful with the lemon juice. The juice adds acidity to the marinade, which will tenderize the meat a bit. Make sure to use exactly 1/3 of a cup. The lemon taste can be overwhelming if you use too much.
• Tough or not, letting the meat marinade for 24 hours always yields excellent results.
• Just to put it in writing, you do not need to add salt to the marinade. Just don't. The soy sauce has that flavor profile covered.

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Good luck to all the hunters getting after moose and deer this season.