Taco Tuesday. Ribeye Cachetada, some guac and a mezcal cocktail- Naked and Famous.
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Nothing to scream about….but I do enjoy pan seared salmon over arugula and green beans!! Trying to eat a bit better after vacation
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0-400 Chicken Thighs
My now go-to way to cook chicken
Bite through Skin.
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While it is not as epic as my PBX ribs on the last day of Spring, here is my first cook of Summer, for Tuesday dinner for Yvonne and myself. Much of the day was rainy and cruddy, and I was planning an indoor stovetop cook, until the sun came out around 4pm, and that led me back outside. The Weber Genesis got pressed into service this go around.
NY strips and mushrooms down. Using a mix of Grillgrates and my Lodge CS grill pan.
I decided quickly that GRILL MARKS were not going to cut it, so off to the flats of the Grillgrate panels the steaks went... Great way to get a quick hard sear!
Meanwhile, inside, I was baking "potato smashers" as I've been calling them. Boiled, smashed, drizzled with EVOO, salt and pepper. I left this in too long unforutnaltey, but that just made them "extra crispy"...
And finally, everything plated and ready to go. The steaks were so juicy I had to plate the crispy potatoes separately.
And... dinner served!
For those that wonder... with Yvonne's current medical issues, and the need to elevate her leg, we use the heck out of some TV tray tables and end up eating many meals on the couch, so that she can be reclined and elevated properly.Comment
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Smoked some chicken yesterday in the Original Grilla OG. I still love this cooker. Mostly have used it for ribs and pork butts in the last few years, but this reminded me of why for the first year after I got it I used it almost exclusively. I had intended to switch to the sear burner on the Blaze to crisp up the skin, but the chicken started out pretty much as blocks of ice (28 F) so when I was getting complaints from family members of starvation I pulled the chicken when it hit 160 and called it good. What I found interestiong was that I had a mix of wings, legs, breasts and thighs with back attached. So a wide range of sizes. I put the wings in the center, big pieces at the edges where they would get more heat. As expected the wings were way far ahead of the breasts and thighs for most of the cook, but all ot the pieces ended up hitting 160 and virtually the same time. We had deep fried chicken the last time the grandkids were here but the kids decided they liked the smoked chicken better. Maybe because of no breading.
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You're in Britain at a pub. England scored a draw with Ghana in the World Cup. It's 2 am. You've already had (at least) two pints more than you said you would. You want food, but not any food. You want some meaty, greasy monstrosity to stuff in your mouth.
You want a British Doner Kebab.
....and that is what I made on Sunday. I followed Chuds BBQ / Bradley Robinson's recipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwhSy2gMHiY
There's a lot going on here, prep-wise, but it's a fun cook. Several condiments to make as well as the meat. You get the meat started first. Take two pounds of ground lamb and two pounds of ground chuck and mix with some greek yogurt, olive oil, cumin, coriander, smoked paprika, grated onion, grated garlic, pepper, oregano, sumac (got mine from Amazon), and salt.
We're going for the texture of meat off of a spit so you really want to mix this stuff in good and get it emulsified, almost like making sausage.
With that in the fridge, you make the sauces. The first is a garlic sauce of mayo, greek yogurt, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, garlic powder, parsley, and oregano. Mix and get that also in the fridge for the flavors to meld.
The next is a British Chile Sauce, which is more like a salsa to us Americans. In a food processor, combine a red onion, jalapeños or fresnos, a red bell pepper, garlic, parsley, red wine vinegar, chili flakes, brown sugar, roma tomatoes, salt, lemon juice, and mint sauce.
The mint sauce is key. This is a hard to find ingredient, but I just happen to have a British grocery store (yes, there is such a thing) less than ten miles from my house. (Gotta love the Houston food scene!)
I used two large jalapeños (Bradley uses two fresnos) and the sauce came out perfectly well balanced. I generally like a spicier salsa, but adding more chiles would have thrown it out of balance. I also like the color contrast with the red tomatoes and bell pepper. ( Mosca I think you really might like this one, but do get the mint sauce. Amazon carries it, although at twice the price I paid for it.)
Bradley cooked the sauce, but I didn't. I didn't think it needed it. The flavor is really good and it is hard to describe....the flavor of the vinegar, peppers, tomatoes, sugar, and mint sauce make it a welcome break from Mexican-style salsas. The recipe makes a lot, though...nearly four cups worth.
Finally, make some pickled red cabbage by slicing that up and mixing with lemon juice, salt and olive oil and some pickled sumac onions by mixing thinkly sliced red onions with salt, lemon juice, olive oil, and sumac.
Still with me?
Make the pitas. I won't detail this process here as it is a fairly typical pita recipe.
Now for the really interesting part. This recipe uses an ingenious technique to mimic the texture one would get from shaved meat off of a rotating spit. What you do is spread out your meat mixture on a piece of parchment paper and then place a second piece of parchement paper on top of that. Then, using a rolling pin, roll it out to get it flat.
I didn't get a good photo of this as I had meat mixture all over my hands, but here is a screenshot from the video showing the technique.
Remove the top sheet of parchement paper and discard. Roll up the meat and bottom sheet into a roll. The four pounds of meat will make two rolls. Here are mine.
Next, onto the smoker they go for about 30-40 minutes at 350 F until 160 F internal.
When, done the paper will be soaked with delicious fat and your kitchen will smell unreal....
Here's a cross-section.
Now, you just unroll it like a sheet and discard the remaining paper. The outer layer does get a nice smoke ring.
For the final cooking step, slice it up roughly into the size you'd expect to get from a spit, then get it going over some charcoal or a cast iron pan to get that final char on the outside. Don't overdo this; you don't want to overcook the meat!
Finally (whew), plate it up by taking a pita that you've heated up, smothering some of that garlic-mayo on it, then some pickled red cabbage, then some sumac onion, the a good pile of your meat, then some of that chile sauce.....
...and fold that thing and stuff it in your mouth, rejoicing that when inebriated, food has no calories.
This is easily in the top ~15 things I've ever made. The meat is just divine....it's so fragrant and delicious with all of the spices. And everything comes together with the pita, the sauces, and the cabbage and onions.
The rolling it out into a sheet and rolling it up does work. This is as close to the real thing as I've ever gotten texture-wise.
In two months (I vacsealed and froze one of my beef-lamb logs for next month), I'm going to try a different style of doner kebab, the one from Berlin, which, while the meat is the same, the rest is quite different.Comment
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Absolutely amazing. Probably a 4 hour or more cooking effort, but it looks well worth it.
FWIW have you see Refika's (Turkish) video on making doner kebabs at home. Also excellent.
Kathryn -
fzxdoc I had not seen that video....what a cool channel! Her technique is interesting...she gets the meat really, really thin by shaving it when frozen. I also like how the doner kebab is just so different all over the world.
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Smoked picnic (pork shoulder)...my standard pork rub.
I put this on about 8:30 pm Sunday night to cook overnight, all analog, no Inkbird, no babysitting, just faith. I still haven't used the Inkbird since I moved to the new house. Combination of lump and briquettes for fuel, 1.75 on the damper and vent, hickory chunks, Vortex to facilitate the 'snake' method of smoking. I was trying to dodge Monday's impending stormy weather.
Set it and forgot it. Got up for work, checked it at about 8 am, temps at about 175F. Kept it rolling until 12:30 pm, wrapped it in foil.
Pulled from the smoker at about 2 pm, temps at about 195F. Popped in the oven (started to sprinkle outside), cranked the heat to about 350F, then turned it off. Pulled the pork at about 6:30 pm. It was probably a 16 hour cook, all told.
Plating: roasted small potatoes, my homemade pickled devil beans, pulled picnic on Amoroso club roll with some Carolina style BBQ sauce. Not shown: Caesar salad with bib lettuce and fresh Parmesan, since we have a romaine shortage.
Delicious. My kids are awesome and keep telling me they love my cooking because it is real food. I'll take it.
Cooker got a little hotter than I would have liked with the 1.75 damper/vent, but last time I used 1.5 settings, the smoker extinguished. I cleaned the critical parts about a week ago, so just that small detail probably made the Kamander breathe a little better. Given the higher heat and long cook time, it was a little dry in a few spots, but not terribly so. B+ on the picnic.Comment
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I picked up a 4 lb cut from a packer at the grocery store. Very small point at one end to about half point, half flat at the other end. Dry brined over night and rubbed with BBBR. Smoked for almost 3 hrs with oak and then sous vide for 24 hrs at 145F. This is definitely one of my top 5 brisket cooks! Served with some air fryer roasted broccoli. Oh yeah, the brisket!
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A friend of mine went on a fishing trip to lake Erie and brought me back some walleye. I had never had it. If you have not, I rank it very high as one one the best, HawkerXP
Fried potato's and onion's little salad came from our garden. Except the bacon.
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Having caught and eaten Walleye from Lake Erie, I can back you up on the taste. Always liked it. Salt, Pepper, maybe a little garlic powder, and a squish of lemon juice, and you're good to go. Right up there with fresh caught trout and salmon in my experience. Great looking cook! -
That is my kind of meal right there. I haven't had walleye before, need to try it.
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Another lesson with my daughter who’ll have her own apartment for the first time next semester and will not be on a meal plan. Today’s lesson: a NJ staple - chicken cutlets. Obligatory tomato and mutz - hey that’s some early basil from the garden and a half a baked spud. I gave her an A on the food and an F on the mess around her plate.
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More Griddle Goodness.
Homemade Bratwurst patties inspired by Bruce Aidell's book (2000).
Melted Mozzarella cheese, French bread, Mayo and a lettuce leaf.
Loaded Green Leaf Salad for the side.
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Brisket. About 2#. Cut off a 7# flat my wife bought for Passover. She didn't want to do the whole cut, so I took the 2#.
Brined overnight. Then BBBR. On Kettle with SnS about 7 hours at 275ish with B&B. I had leftover beans. Was a nice mix.
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A couple of weeks ago I was speaking with a friend about Sloppy Joes and I was wishing for a version that is not as sweet as typical SJs. Then a couple of days ago I came across a video about Sloppy Phils. I’d never heard of them before. So I had to give them a try. Think Philly Cheesesteak flavors made with ground beef. This worked.
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Panhead John Thanks. These really hit the spot for an alternative to Sloppy Joe's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqXoflqnlas Let's see if this links like I hope it will.
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it's been hot this week, so all food is cooked outside or it's a salad .... tonight was a green salad, a bit of pasta salad leftover from the weekend, and a hanger steak. Nice for a hot day .... with a Sam Adams
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