cooking @ home

Archive for the ‘Grilling’ Category

©2008 Harry Kenney

Well, I’m back after my “hiatus”. My initial thought was to put up one of the maybe dozen new dishes I’ve made over the past several months. Instead, I’m starting back up with my most very recent meal. I got a bit more adventurous the other night, making something competely new for me and it turned out so well I’m going to share that one first.

But before doing that I want to talk about taste or maybe it would be more accurate to call this the “conveyance of taste”. Now I consider myself as having a pretty good palate. Mind you, I haven’t yet taken any blind food tests — although to sate my own curiosity I have a friend who promises when she gets a chance that we’ll do one. I always watch Hell’s Kitchen and each season it’s amazing to see how trained chefs can’t tell the difference between an apple and a piece of potato when blindfolded. Ok, I’m on a bit of a tangent; let me get back to the heart of the matter here, which is, in this case arugula.

Now, believe it or not, until recently I’d never tasted it. How can that be? I don’t know. There’s too many things in the world. What’s normal for one isn’t for another. For me there’s still what seems like hundreds of cheeses and dozens of greens and other delicious food items still awaiting my taste buds. I see that as a great adventure awaiting me. Anyhow, arugula is one of those favs of television cooks it seems. (By the way, if you have ever heard a British cook talk about a green known as “rocket” … yes, apparently that is their name for arugula.) And I’ve always heard those cooks say it tastes peppery. Just as I keep hearing Mexican orgeano has a minty flavor, Thai basil has a licorice or anise taste, and olive oil is often described as “fruity” and brown butter as “nutty”.

Not sure about you but, while I do know what they’re getting at, I don’t taste olive oil and go “ah, fruit!” Do you? I don’t taste browned butter and yell out “Wow, it’s nuts!” So I was surprised when finally I tasted arugula and thought “ok, where’s the pepper at?” All these years and I start to wonder if the cooks we rely on are a little bit whacky, and a shared whackiness at that. Again, I think — and I’m starting to question slightly — if my palette is as good as I’ve always thought. It must be as I can usually go to a restaurant and divine various ingredients in a new sauce. But I’m not tasting the fruitness, nuttiness or pepperiness in any of these items. Or am I?

So what makes me wonder is, when cookbook authors and television chefs describe something a certain way, maybe they’re just trying to talk about a slight delicate thing? Or maybe someone came up with the idea and they all copy each other. I think if I had never heard those adjectives described about these foods, that I would not necessarily come up with the same descriptions. To put it another way, I would be very hard pressed having never heard of the peppery arugula description or the fruity olive oil description to convey to someone exactly what they actually tasted like. That is an exceptionally difficult task. How do you describe a color to a blind person? Or a musical note to a deaf person? So how does one describe food with it’s delicate nuances to someone who has never had that particular food?

I will tell you this, whatever description one gives to arugula, I definitely like the taste. It’s similiar and yet different from lettuce. It’s definitely not like fresh spinich, although it similiarly can be used in a salad instead of lettuce, which gave me the idea for this meal in the first place. I thought to myself, if arugula has a slight peppery taste what’s a nice offset from that? Lemon vinaigrette came to mind. So did using either capers or olives; I ended up choosing olives, and my favorites, the dark Kamala ones not the green ones. After that everything was just keeping things simple but doing that little balance, red onion for kick, olive for bite, lemon for acidity and freshness plus while it might counterpoint the arugula it would also compliment the chicken.

The grilled portobello caps is something I’ve been dying to do for a long time. To be candid, I have no idea if the balsamic vinegar and grated Parmesan was all my idea or if I had seen it on a television show before. It would not surprise me if I’d seen it on TV as the simpler you make a meal, the more easily it can either be copied or a that a ton of people can have the same idea. In a lot of ways, this is a very simple meal, but I think still rather elegant. Yes, I love bold, complex flavors as you’ve seen from my barbecue dishes; at the same time I like the “other side” too, when something simple and basic and few ingredients can be so tasty. The salad is five ingredients plus the dressing. As said the portobello mushroom is pretty much the star and the very slight cheese and very slight balsamic are barely supporting players. To be candid, while I find the balsamic defintiely adds an interesting dimension and it’s good that way, I found I actually liked the porotbellos caps better without — just the seasoned mushroom and the light dusting of cheese on top.

In my case I used the indoor cast iron two-burner grill. This would have been an excellent one, both the chicken and the bello caps, to put on the outside grill, but since it was a 99 degree day I passed on that. I’m sure the charcoal would have served as an incredible “seasoning” of it’s own and brought something else special to the meal. Btw, I used vegetable oil not olive oil on the caps as, firstly, I wanted to better taste the mushroom and secondly, when it comes to grilling you might recall vegetable oil has a higher smoke point that olive oil does.

Before I forget to mention this, for myself, for the salad, I had it the first night with the olives, arugula and red onions just a tad chilled from the refrigerator and the mushrooms and chicken warm. It made for a wonderful combination having that little chill and that little warmth together as counterparts. It also meant the warm ingredients gave ever the slighest delectable wilting to the arugula too. Since I was cooking for two and it’s one of those meals that serves four or five I naturally had leftovers. If you also end up having leftovers my servng suggestion for the second day is, well, two ways you can have it. chilled from the fridge or you can let it sit out for 30-60 minutes beforehand and serve it at room temperature. I preferred the latter, but either way it’s still going to be delicious.

©2008 Harry Kenney

Warm Grilled Chicken & Arugula Salad

2 medium to large skinless, boneless chicken breasts
5 oz fresh baby arugula, washed and dried
1 medium red onion, sliced very thin
2 oz Kamala olives, halved
10-14 medium button mushrooms, sliced

salt, pepper, garlic powder (optional) to taste
vegetable oil

Lemon Vinaigrette

4-5 tbsps lemon juice
tsp fresh lemon zest
tsp dried oregano
tsp dried basil
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Prepare the salad, in a large bowl place the argula, onion and olives and place in refrigerator to chill slightly. Take sliced mushrooms and into a small pan, brown well, adding vegetable oil as needed, salt and pepper half way through, then set aside.

On a plate oil salt and pepper the chicken then place on oiled grill top (indoor or outdoor.) Flip only once (or as little as possible) Roughly 5-7 minutes per side. Cook until you get a reading of 170-180°F inside. Let site for at least five minutes then cut into bite-sized pieces. Make the dressing by, either in a blender or a small bowl placing lemon zest, lemon juice, orgeano and basil and then slowly whisk in (or in blender, pour in) olive oil until you get an emulsion.

Take salad bowl out of refrigerator. Add warm chicken pieces and warm mushrooms. Add to salad salt, pepper, and (optional) garlic powder and toss. Pour half vinagrette, toss, then remainder toss again and serve. Makes 4-5 servings.

Grilled Portobello Caps (optional side)

5 large portobellos caps, cleaned
balsamic vinegar (optional)
grated Parmesan
vegetable oil
salt, pepper to taste

Clean five large portobello caps. Taking out gills is optional. (You would need to take them out if you were filling the caps, but we’re not.) On place oil on top, salt and pepper, then place on grill cap side down. Season and oil the inside of the mushrooms if you haven’t already. Add oil as needed. Roughly 5-6 minutes for the cap side to grill. Then another 4-5 minutes for the underside. Just before serving, (optional) lightly drizzle balsamic vinegar and sprinkle of grated Parmesan. Serve warm.

©2008 Harry Kenney

Simple recipe? Yes. Simple ingredients? Yes. Great taste? Hey! That goes without saying. What does need talking about is, simple as these are, what is a sauce? A glaze? A mop? What exactly is Jack Daniel’s? And while we’re at it, where exactly on the steer does a strip steak come from?

According to About.com “Mops are sauces you might (better) know as sop, bastes or mops.” I would have to add “glazes” to that list. (For instance the Asian glaze I use on salmon is like this; whereas the glaze I put on meatloaf stays there the first time, that is, one application and leave it.) First, let’s take a left turn. A marinade is a sauce made of either all wet ingredients or wet ingredients and some dry (spices and herbs), but it’s still basically a wet sauce. And into this marinade, your proteins, your meat, poultry or seafood is placed prior to cooking to add flavor. So all these other things — glazes, mops, bastes — are what you put on immediately before and/or during your cooking — as with this recipe.

Moving on, what the heck is Jack Daniel’s anyways? Why it’s Tennessee whiskey. Which is not to say it’s actually whiskey. Ok, it is, but it’s more like bourbon. To confuse you more it’s a “sour mash”. Here’s the deal. taken from Wikipedia: “Whisky or whiskey refers to a broad category of alcoholic beverages that are distilled from fermented grain mash and aged in wooden casks (generally oak). Different grains are used for different varieties, including: barley, malted barley, rye, malted rye, wheat, and maize (corn).”

Got that? Ok, let’s then look at American whiskeys and Jack Daniel’s in particular. “American whiskeys include both straights and blends. To be called ’straight’ the whiskey must be one of the “named types” listed in the federal regulations”. The most common of which are: “Bourbon, which must be at least 51% corn (maize); Rye, which must be at least 51% rye; Corn, which is made from a mash made up of at least 80% corn (maize).” All straight American whiskeys are defined by law to meet certain criteria (which we’ll skip over here). But not Jack Daniel’s which “is identical to bourbon in almost every important respect. The most recognizable difference is that Tennessee whiskey is filtered through sugar maple charcoal, giving it a unique flavour and aroma.”

Ok, that covers sauces and “Jack”. (Btw, if anyone ever says to you “You don’t know jack”, now you can say you do!) So what is strip steak? It is cut from the short loin (sometimes also called a strip loin), It’s a muscle that does little work, and so it’s extremely tender. Unlike the nearby filet mignon, the strip loin is a sizable muscle, which allows it to be cut into the larger portions to the delight of steak eaters. (See the public domain image here.)

One funny thing about this steak, it has more aliases than most criminals! It is known simply as the strip steak, natch. It’s also known as (big breath): top loin steak, New York steak, New York strip steak, Kansas City steak, Kansas City strip steak, hotel steak, ambassador steak, club sirloin steak, strip sirlon steak, shell steak and even the Delmonico. Yep, a whole lot of names for one single cut. Furthermore, in the UK and British Commonwealth countries this is known as “porterhouse”. But no, this is not the same as American’s are used to, Amercian porterhouse is a different cut, which to avoid any more confusion, I’m not going to get into. What matters about the strip steak is it’s expensive and it’s tender and delicious.

Note: This is a smoke alert dish! As you see in the photo, this baby will smoke. How do they do it in the restaurants? Obviously they have those big hooded exhaust fans directly over their grills and stoves. Whereas cooking at home, some of us do, many of us do not. If you can do this on an outdoor grill, all the better, in fact, that would be best. For me, as it was 16 degrees here in Philly when I did this the other day, I pretty much had no choice. Hey, you know the saying where there’s smoke there’s fire? Well here, where there’s smoke, there’s taste! … And a bit of a clean up. So, you’ve been forewarned.

Grilled Strip Steak with Jack Daniel’s Glaze
©2008 Harry Kenney

Two one-pound strip steaks

1/2 cup Jack Daniel’s
1/2 cup pineapple juice
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp worchestershire
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp ground ginger

Combine (whisk) ingredients well. Place into small saucepan on medium-high heat. Reduce volume of liquid down to 1/4. Either get your outdoor grill ready or preheat your indoor grill. Let sauce cool enough that you can pour onto a plate and coat both sides of each steak portion in the sauce then onto the grill. Cook as you normally would. Each time you turn your steak, baste on with brush (or tablespoon if no brush) more of the glaze. Do not add sauce after you take it off, only before and during. Cook to your taste (preferabbly medium or medium-rare). Serve.

Sauce is enough for repeated bastings of both sides of two one pound steaks. Warning if done indoors this will create a good deal of smoke. Therefore outdoors is preferred, but you can certainly do this indoors. Your choice.

©2008 Harry Kenney

Several different types of fish have gotten somewhat popular in the last few years and can now easily be found at your local fish monger or at the fresh seafood section of your local supermarket. Among these is one with the very cool sounding name of mahi-mahi. So what is mahi mahi? (The name by the way can be two words or a single hyphenated one from what I’ve found.)

Obviously the name conjures up the tropical Pacific, specifically Hawaii. And indeed the name is Hawaiian, meaning “strong-strong” as this fish can really put up a fight when on the end of a fishing line. Despite the name however, this fish can be found and caught in many places besides the deep South Pacific, also in the Caribbean, the west coast of South America and Southeast Asia; and it is in these areas the commercial fisherman go for. That said, in less abundance more recreational fisherman have caught them in the Arabian Sea and even in the Atlantic from New Jersey down to Florida.

So where did this fish come from so all of a sudden? It didn’t actually. You recall the dolphin fish of the 90s? This is the same puppy, er, uh, fish. I always thought calling a fish a dolphin (which we know is a mammal) was very stupid and needlessly confusing. Evidently so did everyone else. Especially when this fish when alive or freshly caught is a spectacular bright green and yellow. The color fades, so you won’t see green on the skin of the fish you’ve purchased at the store, more silver and black, though if you look closely at the one photo here, you will see the specks of yellow. You’ll notice on the fleshy side the pink with little specks of red. That’s a good indicator you have mahi-mahi.

Why is it so popular? Taste it and you’ll find out. It is one very delicious fish. Very firm, large flakes, a nice subtle sweet taste. Because of this I suspect it could take a nice marinade or glaze. That said though, my favorite way to cook fish is the most simple way, grilled and with few spices or flavorings. So, this is a very super simple recipe. In keeping with it’s most famous of origins I paired it with a nice tropical fruit salsa and laid it on a bed of yellow rice with a side of grilled fresh asparagus. Ah, the simple things in life.

Let me be a tad erudite and a tad hokey then and wish you the Hawaiian form of “bon appetit” — it actaully means literally (in plural form) “Let’s eat!” — E ‘ai ka-kou!

Grilled Mahi-Mahi with Lime
©2008 Harry Kenney

2 fillets mahi-mahi, about one pound
juice of half a lime
salt
pepper
vegetable oil

Get your outside grill or inside cast-iron grill hot and ready.

Score the skin side with a sharp knife in a diamond pattern to make crispy. Liberally apply and rub both sides with cooking oil. Season both sides, though predominantly the flesh side, with salt, pepper and lime juice.

Place on hot grill skin side down first for about three minutes. Turn, grill fleshy side for two to three minutes. One more turn and one more minute of grilling the skin side again.

Done. Serve with or without skin. Note this works great with the skin, but there are two long thick membranes about a quarter inch thick and roughly as long as the fish that will need removing.

Makes two to three servings.

©2008 Harry Kenney

I love salmon. I try to have it at least once every month. What can you say about something that is healthy and fresh and yet something about it’s texture, it’s thickness reminds one of a steak in so many ways. Yes, silly as it sounds, in many ways I think of it as a “steak of the seas”.

Often I prepare it in the most simple and pure of ways: salt, pepper, little oil to help it cook, and maybe a twist of fresh lemon. Period. Sometimes, like now, I like to vary it with a sweet and tangy glaze. No matter what ingredients I add though, there’s only one way to cook salmon, in my opinion: Grilled.

I know, Oven isn’t bad, broiler with a fish this oily is a fire hazard, alas. And poaching? Well, poaching is probably fine but — truely, I’m more of a crunchy crust person I have to admit and not a big poaching fan at all. In the end, there’s nothing like grilled. Outdoor especially over hot charcoal; that’s the best. But when that’s not to be had, especially here in the Northeast part of the US in January, there’s always the trusty stand-by. The two-burner cast iron grill.

If you don’t have one. Get one. Now seriously how often have you heard me say that about anything? Correct. I don’t think I ever have. There’s just some things that are indispensible and not substituable. Wait you say, what about those frying pans that have the raised grill bar thingys in them? Nope. They don’t go high enough. There is no where for the fat to drain, so you are still going to be frying things in their own oils, not true grilling at all.

What about those electric grills? How about those George Forman grills? Although I haven’t actually tried them, from what I can see they probably work alright. I guess if I had a choice between the frying pan and an electric grill I would go with the latter. But a choice between a grill over the fire and a grill running alternating electrical current, gimme the stove and the cast iron anyday. Call me caveman. Call me purist. But it I can’t have my outdoor brikets, it’s indoor stove grill.

Now I have to give a big doff of the hat here to master grillsman and Iron Chef, Bobby Flay. First, this glaze definitely originates from his delicious brown sugar and mustard glaze. Hey, if I borrow or heavily base something on some else’s I tell you! Natch, I had to mess with it some and made significant changes and additions that while you could compare and no doubt tell his glaze was the “parent”, this is related yet different enough to be it’s “child”.

Another thing I about this recipe is I followed something else Bobby said on one of his shows about his personal preference when grilling salmon, that sometimes he eats the skin, and sometimes he takes it off. It depends on if he is able to get it to a certain level of crispiness. When he does, he eats it, when it’s for whatever reason not happening for him, he takes it off.

Now, I’ve always taken it off. Or to be more precise, when I’ve bought it before it was (not sure which one, but) a different type of salmon, cut into thick rectangular “steaks” and without skin. This time, I ended up getting CoHo Salmon, and instead of a steak it was the long filet. And it came with skin. Thick black and silver skin. My first thought was, ugg, take the skin off. But then I thought of what Chef Flay said, and thought, hell, I will definitely give that a try and proceed similarily, if it worked, awesome, if it didn’t work, I’ll take the skin off.

And as someone who’s been doing his best to perfect crispy skin on poultry, I managed to my delight to pull this one off as well. Yummy, crispy skin attached to a light, delicate, moist fish. You’re definitely going to enjoy this one.

Usually my photos speak for themselves, so other than the mouse-over little notes that pop up, I don’t have captions, and I rarely ever any special “notes”, but this time is an exception, so …

Important notes about the photos. The first photo of the raw fish, skin side up shows (at least it shows on the one on the right) the cross-hatched scoring I did to both. This is necessary to help achieve the crunch and crispness. Also, in the second photo of the cooking fish with the skin side up there are two notes. First, the black you see is not burn; it is the color of the skin of the coho which is silver in places and black in others. The second important note is this is the first turn of the fish, not the second, so this is only stage one of the crispy skin. And look how good it looks already.

Grilled Salmon Fillets with Crispy Skin and Asian-Fusion Glaze
©2008 Harry Kenney

2 coho salmon filets, 6-8 ounces each
olive oil
salt
pepper

glaze:

4 tbsps dijon
3 tbsps soy sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp finely ground ginger or ginger powder
1/4 tsp sesame seed oil
2 tbsp olive oil or vegetable oil
1 tsp garlic powder
3 tbsps light brown sugar
2 tbsps honey
salt
pepper

First, put all the ingredients together mentioned and create your glaze. Next, get your grill (outdoor preferably, or indoor preferably a cast-iron double burner grill or an electric one) ready and turn on to high heat.

Take your filets, score the skin on back both horizontally and vertically to make squares or a cross-hatch pattern. Rub olive oil on both sides. Season the front flesh part as you normally would with salt and pepper. When seasoning the skin side, use two to three times more salt than normally.

Put oil over your hot grill and immediately slap down your fillets skin side down. Leave about a minute more than you normally would, checking the underside occasionally to ensure cooking and browning but not burning. After about four or five minutes and right before you are ready to turn, liberally brush on the glaze all over the flesh side, then turn that over so it faces the grill.

You should see some very nice crispness on the now skin top side. Leave the flesh part down for another two-to-three minutes. Do not over cook this. Give a light brush of the glaze on the skin and turn over again. Now with the topside up, again liberally brush the glaze all over the flesh. After a minute or so more, take off of grill and serve.

Depending on how hungry your guests are this can serve two. But I found the pieces rather large and was able to feed four and still considered these nice sized servings. Myself I served this with steamed Italian flat green beans with minced onions and a helping of wild rice on the side.

I had a BBQ party this weekend with relatives and friends attending. The star was (no surprise) my BBQ pork spare ribs. But that wasn’t going to be enough to feed this hungry crowd — not even with appetizers and sides, so I needed a second “main” course or second meat here, and while still maintaining that grill theme wanted to vary it as much as I could. Fist way to go different was a different meat, natch, in this case good-ol’ chicken, still there was no way it was going to be sauced identically to the first one.

Afterall, just because it’s barbeque doesn’t mean it has to be the “same BBQ”, if you know what I mean. If you don’t, then what I mean is this: there’s the traditional wood-chip “real” smoked BBQ. As you might recall from the primer, real BBQ means smoked and cooked by indirect-heating. Now to vary things up there’s the other way — which here in America is not technically called BBQ but grilling and this is — with direct heat, over the coals, and using dry rub and BBQ sauce

What ways can you vary it? Many. Go a different direction: Spicy, or sweet, tangy, fruity, mustardy, tomatoy, southwestern, Asian, Morrocan, Turkish, etc .. plus combinations of each. So for me, for this party, time to change up with sweet, so an apricot glazed chicken drumstick. Now mind you “sweet” is another relative word. I’m not trying to make this dessert. As you’ll see later in the ingredient list there’s some tang and always a touch of fire. But the predominent characteristic is, in this case, sweet.

Now drumsticks are difficult to cook. Hmm, difficult might not be the correct word. Let’s say, for their size, they take a surprisingly long time. A good medium drumstick will take around 45 minutes. I had bought a mix from the store, and opening the package, even though they were overall large, the 14 pieces did have a variety of sizes. About eight medium (ok, I said large overall, so medium here means “of those in the pack”, if you were looking at it normally, this medium you would consider “large”). For large (red jumbo) and four smaller ones (what you might normally consider to be “mediium”). Ah, everything is relative.

Point is that was three different cooking weights and cooking times. When this happens when I’m on the grill, I just start taking the smaller ones that look done, and move them over to a cooler side of the grill. If there is no such thing as a cooler side, or if the grill is just very hot overall, then I remove them right to a plate and cover immediately with foil.

Ok, one thing here to remind folks. You have to be careful, even over-careful with chicken. When you have something like this, drumsticks, you’re talking some meat around a big bone. That bone is what really causes “difficulty” in cooking. Especially in taking the internal temperature. You get false readings. Both pro and con, that is, high and low. They do take long. But I was having a tough time getting these to the proper temperature near the end. Every time I’d poke the largest pieces with the thermometer I was getting back 130.And after 40 minutes and having added red-hot charcoals from my chimney smoker, I knew what I was seeing on the thermometer just didn’t jive with what I was seeing with my own eyes and with experience. (Guess this is part of where cooking becomes part art and part gut feeling.)

When I finally said, these have to be done, took them inside and sliced one open, it was definitely done, even though the temperature gauge had been telling me it wasn’t.

What though had it been true that it wasn’t cooked all the way through? Hey, it happens to the best of us. Here’s a tip to be safety conscious. Use a microwave. You won’t lose any flavor, you won’t mess it up. Microwaves cook from the inside out, so you’re sure to get it right without and lose nothing that way. Who cares if a chef in a five-star restaurant or even a grizzled veteran of BBQ comptetions would never do that. This is us, not them. You want pride to stand in your way and take a chance on your guests getting sick? Hell no. A little nuking (my sometimes funny term for microwaving) might not be found in Culinary Institute’s handbook, but this is you and me in our front patios and backyards and in our kitchens. Never serve chicken undercooked, either put back on the grill, place in the oven, or give it a minute or two in the microwave if you definitely need to or just feel unsure about things.

Apricot-Glazed Grilled Chicken Drumsticks
©2007 Harry Kenney

14 large chicken drumsticks

rub:

salt
pepper
cinnamon
ginger
cumin
garlic powder
chilli powder

glaze:

4oz apricot preserves
3 tblsp apricot snapps (you can use regular brandy)
2 tblsp whole-grain mustard
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbsps worsteshire
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp chilli powder
salt
pepper

Put on rub and in ziplocked bag into the refrigerator. Put in fridge for about 30 minutes minimum, up to four hours is great. Take out and leave out on table still in the bag another 30 minutes so chicken gets more towards room temperature and they’re ready for the grill.

This is should take in total about 20 minutes per side. This is one item that you baste early and you turn often on the grill. Many times my advice is leave it alone. Not this one. Place on grill, baster with glaze. Five minutes later, turn, baste. Do that about every 10 minutes, getting all the sides a few times. Do put the lid or cover down in between. At about 35-40 minutes, start checking with an internal meat thermometer the largest ones.

Drumsticks are difficult at times because of that big center bone. You don’t want to serve raw and get anyone sick. You also don’t want to so overcook as to make things dry. Chicken needs to be 165°F minimum, and starts drying out at higher than 175°F. After 50 minutes over a good hot grill if you find you are still having problems, put the larger drumsticks and any others you feel may not have cooked thoroughly into the microwave for a minute or two to be sure. Serves about seven, depending upon if you are serving lots of sides or if your guests are football player size, serves: 5-9.

Big Green Egg 1 1/2 lb. Jack Daniels Barrel Wood Chips Bag – 00020 (By:-Big Green Egg, BigGreen Egg) 1 1/2 lb Jack Daniels Barrel Wood Chips Bag

Here we go. The meat of meats, the summertime special, the reason — so many thousands of years from cavemen, we still like to do it their way — old school, neolithic old school — we’re talking about BBQ spare ribs, baby.

Maybe you’re totally into BBQ and smokin’, or perhaps you’re totally new. Either way, I’ve decided the best way to get the main elements across isn’t to repeat them in every barbecue recipe, but to refer to a single primer on the subject BBQ: Bringing Smoke to the Fire.

So feel free to give a once-over before continuing. Or, if you’re a veteran or you feel confident, let’s jsut get at it. One quick thing first, you need a grill, charcoal and wood chips. (If you do propane, fine, recipe doesn’t change at all.)

This is going to take about 2.5 hours of cooking time. That’s an important phrase. Like football playing time, 2.5 hours cooking time may actually mean 3-3.5 hours. This is an investment in time. And if you know me and my way of thinking, I don’t like putting a lot of time into my cooking unless the reward is worth the effort. And when it comes to BBQ spare ribs, yeah, it’s definitely worth it.

BBQ Pork Spare Ribs
©2007 Harry Kenney

ingredients:

One, three-pound slab, pork spare ribs

dry rub:

1 tbsp Paprika
1 tbsp Cumen
1 tsp Ginger Powder
2 tbsp Garlic Powder
1 tbsp Chilli Powder
1/2 tsp Cayenne
1 tsp Dry Mustard
1 tbsp Onion Powder
1 tsp Cinnamon
2 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Pepper

bbq sauce:

1 cup Ketchup (base)
1/3 cup Worchishire
2/3 cup Soy Sauce
1/2 cup Honey
2 tbsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp Ginger Powder
3 tbsp Dijon
1 tbsp Pepper
2 tbsp Lemon Zest
2 tsp Hot Sauce
2 tsp Horseradish sauce
Juice of 1/2 large lemon (or all of small lemon)

smoke:

chardonnay wood chips, personal preferrerence (mesquite or apple wood are very nice choices)

Put together dry mixture for rub. Rub all over the defrosted ribs. About 2/3 or 3/4 on the top, and the remainer on the underside. Place on cookie sheet, cover with plastic wrap and aluminum foil and place back in refrigerator for 1-6 hours. (No, not that long, you’re saying.) Bare minimum time 30-60 minutes, but really, the longer in the fridge with the rub, the tastier the meat and the more the tough meat will breakdown. Rush this and you will pay for it later; your call.

Get your grill going with your charcoal and wood chips. Shut the lid. Internal temperature of your grill should be at least 180°F and rising, also smoke should be seen coming out the sides. At that point, place the rack of ribs on the grill, facing upwards, on the side of the grill without coals nor wood. Remember this is indirect-heating and smoking. Shut the lid and check the grill’s temperature (from the outside) every half an hour. You should keep the heat between 220°F and 240°F; this is the ideal zone.

After the first hour, you will need to change wood chips for certain, and probably refresh the coals as well.

If you haven’t changed the coals in the first hour (you probably have), you’ll definitely need to add to them by hour-and-a-half. Again, let your temperature gauge tell you. Remember too, when the temperature has gone down to much, and/or the smoke has thinned to much, the cooking time has halted. You can’t start counting again until heat and/or smoke are back up to proper levels.

Before the two hour mark, make the BBQ sauce up as given above.

At the two hour mark, see how things look. Good chance the ribs are looking good. Pick them up with the tongs by the middle, over the grill. Just lift them up in the air. See how much bend you get. They should be benind like a U-shape at least as the cartiledge is cooking between each rib. Place back down, still facing upward. Add coals as needed. You probably do not need to add more chips. But it’s up to you to gauge this.

Take an internal meat thermometer and see if the ribs are getting towards where they should be. 150°F is the minimum safe temperature to safely eat pork and have any contaminants killed off. In terms of doneness, for pork: 160°F is considered medium, 170°F as well done. If you feel there’s about a half-hour or so left, start brushing on the BBQ sauce and do so every 10 minutes. Remember, the longer the lid is up, the longer amount of time for heat to escape. so do it right, but do it quickly and shut that lid back down.

Two things, you don’t want to burn sauce; put it on too soon and you will. (That is if you think there’s 30 minutes left and it’s close to an hour, you could burn the sauce). Second, when it’s all done you want the meat to almost fall off the ribs by themselfves with little prodding.

When you pick up the rack with tongs in the middle and it bends so much the two ends want to touch each other, you’re definitely at doneness. So, sight it, keep an eye on the barrel or drum (the grill’s inside) tempeature to make sure it stays in that zone, see how much the rack bends, and when you get 160°F-170°F, bingo.

Take inside, slice into individual ribs. Serve with sides and call yourself King (or Queen) for the BBQ.

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Did this one with a decidedly Moroccan influence in the marinade. Yes I know, when you see in the list below I’ve used soy sauce, you’ll surely recognize that isn’t exactly at the top of the list of ingredients for Rabat. Point is it works (and why I say the marinade was “influenced” as opposed to straight out “Moroccan”.)

Btw, you might also think lamb more than beef when considering this North African country, and you’d be correct that lamb, goat and such are high on the list. But beef is a close second to lamb there these days. That said then, do feel free to substitute lamb if you wish. I just can’t give a 100% guarantee that the amounts of spices in the marinade would work without making adjustments or not. Right now, every thing is calculated for the stronger beef flavor. If you try it with lamb, my instincts tell me to half the cumin, and to then add the same amount you just subtracted with the same amount of dried mint. If you have fresh, all the better.

Mistakes. Got to make at least one and share it with you so you don’t do the same.

First time I made this I thought I could do a bit of cost-cutting by buying stewing beef. The thinking behind this was that the combination of the marinade before cooking, along with the “raw” fire from the grill would be plenty enough to break down the fibers of the cheaper cut. Sadly, it wasn’t enough. I ended up with something amazingly flavorful but overly chewy. (Told you about the mistake, but not the fix: Ended up cutting the pieces to every thing smaller, added to a pan, put in water and red wine, then carrots, mushrooms and some pieces of other leftover veggies. Stewed for an hour and a half and served atop egg noodles.)

True, one might think that a longer stay on the grill would have a difference, and it may have, but it would also have definitely burned the veggies on the skewers to a char. (In short, that wouldn’t have worked either.) This next time I made it, I took care of that “mistake” from the very start of the process: Purchase a nice slab of beef and then cut to cubes yourself. Nothing expensive, nothing too cheap, in this case the “Goldilocks” middle works out nicely. Another advantage by doing this, the precut stewing beef in the case doesn’t try to be unform; makes sense as it’s not as important in a stew. When it comes to kabobs though, the more uniform each cut of meat is and keeping the chunks of veggies on the skewers similiar sizes, makes for the best cooking.

Beef Shish Kabobs
©2007 Harry Kenney

ingredients:
2 pounds beef, precut into chunks
2 medium red onions, chunks
1 red pepper, chunks
1 green bell pepper, chunks

marinade:

2/3 cup soy sauce
1/8 cup olive oil
1 tbsp cumin
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp tumeric
2 tbsp minced garlic
salt
pepper
lemon juice

Marinade in fridge for at least one hour. Longer the better, if you can do two to four hours, fantastic. You can keep the marinade to baste while on the grill, but I did not find that necessary.

Alternate onto metal skewers: beef, onion, red pepper, beef, onion, green pepper.

Place on grill. Keep turning sides as necessary, about every two minutes. Should be done in 10-12 minutes for medium doneness.

Btw, here’s “ye olde temperature chart” for beef: rare 120°F-125°F, mediium rare 130°F-135°F, medium 140°F-145°F, medium well 150°F-155°F, well done 160°F and over.

To keep this recipe with its Moroccan theme intact, suggest serving kabobs with or over couscous; second choice: saffron rice. That said, any nice rice will do. The marinade is so very flavorful even a regular, unadorned, slightly buttery long-grain white rice will be perfect.

If you’re looking at the photo: Yes, I know; looks a lot like salmon, but it’s actually trout. Can’t remember what kind it was called at the local supermarket, but it was definitely a rainbow trout (wild or farmed? Unsure.) Turns out trout can have white, pink or orange flesh depending upon a bunch of factors that, well, didn’t really matter. Hey, if it tastes good, that’s what matters. And the color doesn’t mean any kind of change in how to cook it.

Speaking of which? How to cook it? This is one of the simplest of recipes around. But, before getting to that, I thought I’d talk briefly on the health benefits of eating fish.

Fish is high in protein with close to 20%. Yes, they are often fatty (the ocean ones more than the fresh water ones,) but still low in the bad fats. It even has lots of good fats: as in omega-3 essential fatty acids. What are they? Among the list of items they: help reduce inflammation, decrease the likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease, help to control our cholesterol, help people with depression and anxiety disorders, help infants’ brains and eyes to develop and function properly, help to heal dry skin.

… But no, you can’t use them to help win the lottery, find the perfect job or stop your children from using up their long distance cellular minutes.

Fish also is a rich source of long chain n-3 PUFA which is beneficial in fighting and used in treating hypertriglyceridaemia, thrombosis, and inflammatory diseases. Oh yeah, and let me mention again something about eating: They taste good!

One last item. If you’re interested in a breakdown of calories, fat, sodium, protein and the rest, check out the chart over at CNN which is based on information from the USDA.

With that, let’s get to it. The best way to cook fish is the simple way with few ingredients.

Grilled Rainbow Trout with Dill and Lemon
©2007 Harry Kenney

ingredients:

Two large trout filets
Dill
Salt
Pepper
Oil
One lemon

Coat fish with olive or vegetable oil on both sides. Season to liking with salt, pepper, dill, lemon juice. Place on grill (or frying pan) skin side down. Turn over once after about four minutes. Three to four minutes later, turn a second time. Take off grill. Plate with sides. A splash more lemon juice on top right before serving.

You can probably do this with a can of pineapple rings … but … they’ve been so long in their own syrup, it might not work. Probably would work in a pinch. Not as well, but well enough. (One day I’ll try it and let you know.) In any event, when in season, I love fresh pineapple. How can anyone not?

Ok, you’re wondering where the photograph of the finished product is … I don’t have one this time. Enjoy the one here of them on the grill and use your imagination. What happened? Family and friends were literally taking these out of my hands as I was finished making each one! Not making this up either!

I’m there going, “Wait wait, I gotta take a photo first!”. And this one’s going “No, the ice cream is melting with the warm pineapple” and takes her dish away. Then my buddy goes “Gimme my ice cream already, you can take a picture of the empty dishes and that’ll show’em how good it was. What more do you want?” and he takes his. Then I look at mine and say “Eh, what the heck …”

Really happened. I kid you not. So photos of the finished product hopefully next time! You know what? Naw! The pic of them on the grill says a thousand words already.

Rum-Soaked Grilled Pineapple (over Ice Cream)
©2007 Harry Kenney

One fresh pineapple
1 cup of (light) rum
1-2 tbsp sugar

Added bits:

Vanilla ice cream
Chocolate jimmies
Whipped cream

Take the fresh pineapple. Get rid of tops and side skins. Cut down middle making 1/2 inch circles. Leave the core as it’s needed to hold them together on the charcoal grill. Put the slices in a bowl and add a cup or so of rum. Move the pineapple about to get them covered. Leave soak for about five minutes, come back, move them around again.

Drain the liquid — preferably in a glass for later drinking. Pat down both sides with paper towel to get off the excess. (So the grill can better brown the outsides.) Sprinkle a bit of sugar on both sides. This too will help with the browning and the caramelization.

Place them on the grill until you see they are getting nice brown grill marks on both sides. Varies by heat and a lot of things but roughly two, two-and-a-half minutes per side. Btw, I find transporting them out and back on a cookie sheet works great. You still want some “heft” to the pineapple, and you don’t want them overly brown or cooked. Bring back in and let cool just enough that you can work with them.

Forget the knife, I like nature to tell me what to pull off and what to leave. So going around each circle, pull off chunks with your fingers and place over vanilla ice cream. One circle’s worth of pineapple per dish of ice cream works fine. Serve that way or add your favorite toppings, just don’t let the added topics overwhelm the star of this show. For mine, I added a light dusting of chocolate jimmies and whipped cream worked nicely.