Beef, you're killin' me over here!

I took the beef butchering class at Butcher & Larder last weekend (hoping to post more on that soon) and brought home a few things to grill. I don't grill ribeyes all that often, but the ones from the class looked really nice, so I bought a 2lb. one:



I rubbed it with veal salt, black pepper, and some thyme. Grilled it over a mix of lump and cherry wood. It was so big I cooked it more like a roast than a regular steak - seared both sides and then gave it some indirect time at 400. It turned out really well:



The ribeye was great, but my favorite was a Paleron that I bought. This is a shoulder cut that was much more tender than I expected it to be:



Rob recommended marinading it so I gave it about an hour in a mix of lemon juice, EVOO, veal salt, black pepper, shallots, and thyme. I did a quick grill to cook it to medium rare. A really nice piece of beef.

I also went with Rob's recommendation and bought some Paleron a couple of weeks back. this grilled up nicely and ended up in some of the best fajitas I've had.
I'm going to have to start taking pictures.

I bought a meat grinder and sausage stuffer a few days ago. Tonight was the inaugural run on the grinder. The patty was 1/2 lamb, 1/2 pork with fresh mint, rosemary, oregano, parsley, garlic, salt, pepper, white wine. Topped with a slice of tomato and tatziki loaded with fresh dill and thickened with some goat cheese; and served on a olive-oil heavy pseudo-brioche roll.

Wow. Outstanding.

The meat adventures continue. After the success at using the grinder on Friday, I went ahead and made some Italian sausage yesterday. I should thank my very understanding and accommodating girlfriend for going along with it and helping out. We used the recipe for Hot Italian Sausage from Charcuterie. We left out the cayenne since our red pepper flakes and paprika are particularly potent.

6.5 pounds of pork shoulder cubed and seasoned:


Into the grinder you go


The sweet smell of delicious grilling meat. We weren't so good at getting pictures of the actual stuffing part.


And this is a dinner: sausage on a roll with the roasted peppers. The Trader Joe's brat buns ended up being pretty good.

One small suggestion. Your meat will grind better if you lay it out on a cookie sheet and freeze it for 20-30 minutes prior to grinding.

Ok I have to post this because it turned out so well.


It is called kettle fried chicken, and it does not disappoint.



In a nutshell:
soak the chicken in buttermilk for a couple hours
batter using Louisiana brand chicken batter (which I found at jewel)
Place on grill and cook using indirect heat.
Spray with pam every 20 minutes or so to maintain moisture.

It took about an hour for 25 drumsticks to cook. I will be trying this with bone in breasts next time.
I found this recipe on the TVWBB website, here http://tvwbb.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/598 ... 000795/p/1

There is an extensive thread with other pictures if you are interested.

Upe wrote:Ok I have to post this because it turned out so well.


It is called kettle fried chicken, and it does not disappoint.

This reminds me of the "Over the Coals" chicken at Arkansas stalwart A.Q.

lougord99 wrote:One small suggestion. Your meat will grind better if you lay it out on a cookie sheet and freeze it for 20-30 minutes prior to grinding.

Thanks. It had been in the freezer for a while, but a bit more time would have helped I think.

Don't put it in the freezer in that big bowl. Lay the meat out in a single layer on a cookie sheet so every piece is equally cold.

lougord99 wrote:Don't put it in the freezer in that big bowl. Lay the meat out in a single layer on a cookie sheet so every piece is equally cold.

That was our strategy, though perhaps not implemented quite right. The big bowl was just for mixing in the seasoning initially. We took it out of the freezer from a sheet pan in batches into a small bowl since we weren't sure how fast we would be on the grinding. Then each batch went back into the freezer while we were working the next. I think letting it get even colder -- almost crunchy -- would have been smart, but at least we know for the next batch. It might not use such a ridiculous number of mixing bowls either.

Live and learn -- at least it tastes great.

Korean tacos--these have become one of my new favorite meals off the grill:







Grilled pineapple and coconut sorbet for dessert:

Grilling thick and thin steaks

Thin steaks were cooked on a chimeny starter. Thick steaks were cooked on two-zone grill, beginning on the indirect side and finishing on the direct.

Regards,

We made yogurtlu kebab from Claudia Roden's New Book of Middle Eastern Food. It was pretty simple to put together. You layer toasted pita, a quick, fresh tomato sauce, strained yogurt and pine nuts (I used pistachios since I was out of pine nuts) and top with grilled lamb and onion meatballs (made from whizzing lamb shoulder in the Cuisinart) and drizzle olive oil mixed with paprika on top.

Usually I do a big cook for friends in Indiana every 4th of July, but this year I was in Boston instead and had to improvise. Fortunately I found a Weber 22" in my parents basement and decided to throw an impromptu BBQ for about 15 people. I've been doing a lot of Argentinian style grilling lately, and decided to take things in that direction.

I ended up buying some lump charcoal at Whole Foods (AKA Cowboy) and also stumbled across this:



It was basically pressed hockey pucks of wood scraps cut in half. It burned surprisingly well, and the smoke had a nice aroma to it. I used it for roasting and grilling and it worked very nicely. It burned VERY hot. I'd be interested in finding something similar around here and giving it a try for a true low and slow smoking.

I started out by roasting some peppers



Next up was a chuck roast, rubbed with veal salt, black pepper, guajillo powder, and EVOO.



I roasted it at 300-350 for a couple hours

After that I grilled up some sirloin tips, boned beef short ribs, and onions. After cooling I sliced everything up and topped with a garlic/parsley chimichurri.



It all turned out very well (and satisfied my cooking jones during my week of vacation).

magnificent cook there.

Love the pic of the peppers in the coals.

My dad was gifted some moose meat from a First Nations friend of his, so I yanked it out of the freezer when I went up north to visit last week. Took about two days to thaw, at which point I realized they were fairly thin strip steaks, and kinda mangled at that. Quick marinade in chimichurri and on it went to the last remnants of a fire from the actual dinner's cook.

Decased some Ream's brats and formed them into patties. Grilled with a slice of pepper jack. Pretzel roll, mustard, grilled onions and pickles.

Hanger steak with chimichurri sauce, grilled onions and peppers and oven-roasted peppers from the other night.

Mad Hunky cast iron shrooms, and sirloins last night.



the assistant & the boss(down almost 30 lbs. this summer):

jimswside wrote:the assistant & the boss(down almost 30 lbs. this summer):

Congratulations

Made some Jucy Lucy inspired burgers for dinner tonight along with a potato salad and tomato & grilled corn salad w/basil vinaigrette.

80/20 ground beef from Ream's, 5 year old cheddar, black pepper bacon, sauteed onions, pickles and a pretzel roll



Grilled potatoes, bacon, green onions with dijon mustard & mayo dressing


Red tomatoes, yellow grape tomatoes, grilled sweet corn with a fresh basil white wine vinegar vinaigrette

sazerac wrote:

Nice multifunctional use of the WSM, steak looks tasty, chicken particularly so.

G Wiv wrote:

sazerac wrote:

Nice multifunctional use of the WSM, steak looks tasty, chicken particularly so.

I love the "multifunctional" uses of my WSM. After contemplating whether to get a WSM (for smoking) or a Weber Kettle (initially for both grilling and smoking), I decided that smoking was going to be more important and that I could just grill on my gas. Well, after many successful smokes, I decided that I wanted some direct and indirect grilling with charcoal and bought an xtra charcoal replacement grate for a kettle and put it on my smoker. I'm able to dump a chimney full of charcoal on half the grill for a sear that is only an inch or so off the coals (the original grilling grate is still on the top of the smoker), then shift it to the "cool" side and still use the cover. It's awesome for steak tacos because the meat cooks in seconds over the hot coals. I also use it for steaks quite a bit. The WSM is the best investment I've made over the past year or so.

I cooked a beef mock tenderloin from Butcher & Larder last weekend that was excellent.



I marinaded it with red wine vinegar, evoo, thyme, sage, garlic, veal salt and black pepper. I roasted it at 250-300 for almost 2 hours over a mix of lump and maple wood. I gave it a good solid sear at the end and also grilled some tomatoes and baked some bread in the grill.



I thin sliced the beef and poured some sage butter over it and just threw everything on a platter. A really nice simple meal!

I did a Porchetta earlier this week with a Berkshire pork collar from Slagel (via Butcher & Larder). I've never cooked Porchetta before, but I'm going to be doing a whole pig roast soon and wanted to experiment a bit with seasonings, and this seemed like a great way to do it.

The fat from the collar doesn't go all the way around, but the fat on this cut was thick enough to trim off and cut in half to cover all of the meat. I added Rosemary, Thyme, Fennel, Sage, and S+P to the inside of the fat wrap, and seasoned the outside with S+P and a light coat of EVOO.



I then wrapped it up on a spit.



I cooked at 275-300 in the smoker using Cherry wood and lump. After taking this shot I crisped it up with the weed burner.



It turned out great! After trying a variety of different herbs/spices on good quality pork I'm really starting to believe that a great piece of pork cooked correctly stands very well on it's own, other flavorings are good, but just plain porkiness can be perfect on it's own.

Put some cod and potato skewers on the grill last night. Marinade for the fish was from Jamie Oliver and had a nice "kick" to it. In a blender - juice and zest of a lemon, turmeric, 2 dry red chiles, a couple of tablespoons of minced ginger, fresh mint leaves, and a couple of cloves of garlic. Mixed that into some yogurt and tossed with the cod. Worked well - I'd do it again. Served it with corn on the cob and coleslaw.


DSCN0849 by MsLynnB, on Flickr

LynnB wrote:Put some cod and potato skewers on the grill last night.

Looks great Lynn. Did you parboil/precook the potatoes in any way prior to skewering and grilling? If not, any issues with getting the potatoes done without overcooking the fish?