In laws are in town so I smoked up a couple pork butts yesterday. Cooked on the Weber 26 around 260. Had to refill the SNS XL once and only had to make one vent adjustment. Seasoned we with MMD and wrapped after the stall. So delicious!
Had mac salad, baked beans (beans them on the grill for a couple hours after the meat was done), collards, and biscuits for sides and banana pudding for dessert.
I of course love smoked meats of all kinds, but also like quick cooks like chicken portions, pork tenderloins, steak and fish. Really into cooking of all kinds.
My outdoor kitchen has a Lone Star Grillz Adjustable and it is wonderful. There also is a Pit Boss 5 Burner Ultimate Griddle and a Pit Boss Copperhead pellet grill.
There is an outdoor fire pit that has grilling capability and limited Santa Maria-style grill raising and lowering.
Didn't get many pics since Lisa and I were flying solo with the grandkids. Burgers and dogs on the LSG Adjustable.
Some of the burgers turned into green chile cheeseburgers.
And because we're full service grandparents, the kids were returned with enough of the bounty to feed them again while also feeding our daughter and her boyfriend.
My last attempt was too soy sauce forward. I realized later that I accidentally added 1 tablespoon of soy sauce. The recipe i was using called for 1 teaspoon. Wear you reading glassed kids, here end of the lesson.
Chicken gizzards yes, I'm not kidding!
Seasoned with salt and pepper,
Browned in butter, NOTE ONLY BROWNED
Next is our "Crock Pot" express cooker, 60 minutes
If not cooking outdoors, I am cooking on the stovetop with my 14" carbon steel wok, 12" CI skillet, or in the oven with my two Lodge CI pizza pans, or two dutch ovens. I've also got a nifty Lodge carbon steel grill pan that rocks for veggies outdoors.
First cook of Fall here in Alabama. A “little bit” of chicken and artichokes. Originally planned for a Kamado cook yesterday, but that didn’t happen and I had limited time today, so I opted to go with the Weber Genesis for this cook.
Chicken thighs dry brined and seasoned with a rosemary garlic blend. Artichokes brushed with EVOO and seasoned with seasoned salt.
HotSun thanks! I really *wanted* to do the chicken with the Vortex on the kettle, but didn't have time for 30 minutes of getting charcoal going, and 45 minutes of cooking indirect. So.... direct grilled it was! A 5 minute preheat on high, then about 30 minutes on medium heat to be done. And as much as I love my griddle... not gonna do bone in chicken on that cooker either. There are days having a conventional gas grill in your arsenal of cookers just makes sense!
Cut several boneless pork loin chops from a pork roast. Grilled with SPG for half and MMD for the rest as rubs. Grilled zucchini and summer squash for a vegetable.
Dealing with Tropical Storm Ophelia, it ended up being another weekend inside. I was waiting in line Friday and saw this recipe for Cochinita Pibl on AllRecipes.com:
I think it was SheilaAnn who first piqued my interest in achiote paste/sauce a while back, so it has been on my shopping list for a few months. For all the Mexican food and groceries we have around us, it was surprisingly hard to find, and I don't have the time to try and make it. Anyhow, thawed a 4lb bag of cubed pork shoulder that came from a 20lb chunk of meat I cut and trimmed a while back. I tracked some down achiote yesterday and made it.
I marinated the pork in the marinade overnight, here it is this morning:
The paste brand was El Chilar. I love the color from the annatto. Some of the achiote's have artificial color...I mean...why? This is gorgeous.
Marinade has vinegar, Mexican oregano, orange juice, lemon juice, salt, pepper, garlic, onion, and a package of annatto paste.
After about 16 hours of marinating, I put this in the pressure cooker with a couple tablespoons of bacon grease:
45 minutes, high pressure, natural release, then shred:
I am in love with the color. The recipe is actually for a shoulder roast, but the cubes worked nicely. I mashed the pork with forks. Note the fat in the lower right corner. Apparently I had trimmed this so well before freezing that this was the only fat that didn't melt during cooking.
Put everything back in the pot, brought to a boil:
...and reduced for 30 minutes.
I was afraid that it would end up being mushy, but it wasn't. I wanted to thicken, so I added a 1/4 cup of masa harina. Perfect consistency. It was a lot, so prepped 3 containers for freezing and reserved one for dinner, which was this:
It is not the best picture, but as per usual I was rushed. I have the pork cochinita, feta pinch-hitting for cotija, corn, and El Yucateco Habanero Sauce (I did not make the habanero sauce called for in the recipe), on a steamed flour tortilla. This was really freaking delicious and completely satisfying. I washed it down with some freshly made sugar-free lemon-lime cherry soda. This is so different than a lot of other Mexican foods I'm used to eating, but it was incredible.
I know this dish is usually done in a Dutch oven, and for those who have time or like to be traditional, they wrap the pork in banana leaves. The recipe happened to call for my favorite kitchen tool, the pressure cooker, so the method was dead simple for me with respect to the process.
I will definitely make this again. There are a lot of ways to go with this recipe. The meat has almost no heat, so you can serve it to anyone. I could have left the pork in cubes, reduced just the liquid, and then serve the pork and sauce over polenta, or with beans and rice. Smoked cheese will go well with this. The feta was incredible, adding tang to complement the sauce. I like using the pork cubes, as the marinade was most effective. This recipe was so easy. The hard part: finding the achiote paste.
Anyhow, happy Fall all, and that's what I'm cooking.
Last edited by HotSun; September 25, 2023, 06:45 AM.
Reason: Clarification on what I made.
Decades ago, my mother Rita came up with an outstanding recipe for fajitas that won over the hearts and minds of all our southern California-bred family, and "Rita's Fajitas" went down in history as part of the lore of her voluminous wonderful cooking. I've tried to emulate them now and again in the ensuing years, but never came close, until today. I drew on a variety of sources (notably Ree Drummond) for input, and came up with this procedure.
I had a yellow and orange bell pepper from our CSA farmshare pickup a few days ago, and sliced those up with a smallish red onion and sweet onion, and marinated them in the following for about three hours covered in the fridge.
EDIT: in a perfect world, I'd have added some red and green bell pepper as well, but my lovely bride has covid (and over her birthday, to boot), so going to the store was not an option, had to make do with what I had on hand.
1/4c/60ml EVOO
Juice of half a lime
1 tbsp/15ml Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp/5ml low-sodium soy sauce
2 cloves' worth of minced garlic from the squeezy bottle
1 tsp/5ml kosher salt
1/2 tsp/2.5ml coarse black pepper
1 tsp/5ml white sugar
1 tsp/5ml cumin
2 tsp/10ml Hatch red chile powder
Meanwhile, I put some of the vac-sealed leftover picanha from this cook right here a week ago today (a little over a pound, about 500g) in the sous vide at 125F/52C for the few hours until go time. After getting all the fixin's set out (guacamole, light sour cream, salsa, shredded cheese, Hatch green chile), I cooked the veggies in a tall-sided pan over medium-high heat, adding the 1/4cup/60ml or so of bag purge from the meat.
Then I put in the sliced strips of picanha and stirred for just a couple minutes before serving with large flour tortillas I'd nuked for 45 seconds in the microwave (the fast action is pretty key for this, everything has to be ready at exactly the same time).
Service! I figured we'd have a lot left over, but they were OUTSTANDING and there was not a bit left! My lovely bride said she wanted to lick the dish.
The picanha retained its nice grilled flavor and melt-in-mouth tenderness, and the veggies had just the right bit of crunch, not mushy at all. Flavor blend was splendid, especially the heat from the Hatch chile.
Ladies and gents, I give you Rita's Fajitas. Proud to have finally nailed that elusive target. Mom, you would have loved 'em
Last edited by DaveD; September 24, 2023, 06:44 PM.
Sushi night. Also made some chicken kara age (not pictured) and yellowtail Serrano crudo. Definitely need some work on my rolling skills but not bad for my first time.
made the following:
cucumber roll
avocado roll
shrimp tempura roll
Spicy shrimp tempura roll
seared chutoro nigiri
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