I miss this thread, so am randomly going to bump it up since I, ahem, used my grill.


set up totally inspired by Bill/SFNM

My favorite way to cook salmon (besides grilling/smoking or gravalaxing) - from Kasma Loha-Uncit's "Dancing Shrimp" - easily in the top 10 recipes I've ever gotten from any book, especially because it is so simple
Here's the recipe (just use salmon cubes rather than chicken)
http://www.thaifoodandtravel.com/recipe ... ecipe.html

That's a great Salmon recipe - I've to try that soon!

I've missed this thread as well, and definitely can contribute a lot to it. Here's last week:




Steaks and grill bread



Grilled Calamari and burnt tomatoes



Burgers



Flattened chicken breast wrapped around a prosciutto/herb mix, with burnt sweet potatoes drizzled with honey, thyme, and chiles

(Sorry for bad iPhone pics)

I'll have more next week

Chris/Attrill:

Great pictures!

I have a couple questions for you:

1)How did you grill your tomatoes? Did you simply slice, oil and place them on the grill grate?

2)Did you make the hamburger patties yourself? If so, how did you get them to be so uniform in size/shape? Did you use some kind of burger mold?

Thanks! Your food looks terrific.

Kenny from Rogers Park wrote:I have a couple questions for you:

1)How did you grill your tomatoes? Did you simply slice, oil and place them on the grill grate?

2)Did you make the hamburger patties yourself? If so, how did you get them to be so uniform in size/shape? Did you use some kind of burger mold?

Thanks! Your food looks terrific.

Thanks!

For the tomatoes I use Francis Mallmann's burnt tomato method from the Seven Fires cookbook. You cook just one side on a very hot griddle for 3-4 minutes, until you see some burning around the edges. The key is to not move them at all and have a sharp edge on your spatula so you can get under them and not leave the burnt part stuck to the griddle. Ideally the uncooked side is still cool when you're done, so you have a really nice contrast between the charred side and the uncooked side. It needs to be done outside on a grill or a camp stove because it gets realllllly smokey. I've done it successfully on a stove top, but I drove everyone out of the house in the process.

I make the patties myself. The only thing I do to ensure consistency is weigh out each patty. I mostly do this because I always end up with the last couple burgers being to big or small if I eyeball it, and it's easy to just throw the meat on the scale.

Thanks for the information! I'll have to check out the 7 Fires Cookbook.

I recently made Piri-Piri chicken wings which is one of my favorite ways to use them. The recipe is loosely based on a Stephen Raichlen one which tries to capture the taste of a place called Nando's in South Africa. I got lucky recently when I saw Nando's sells their piri piri sauce by the bottle which is available at the Whole Foods in Lincoln Park. But thats not all you'll need.



Its an overnight thing so you have to plan ahead so the wings can marinate. In that picture of ingredients in the blender is a half cup of Nando's Piri Piri sauce (If dont have use another higher end brand or tabasco if you have to). I threw two diced habeneros in there as well as a Serrano and a couple of Thai chile peppers, a chopped yellow onion, 2 things of cleaned and chopped green onions (all parts), chopped ginger/garlic/cilantro with lemon juice, olive oil and salt and pepper added in and blended. Let that sit overnight for up to 24 hours. I grilled these indirect and shuffled them around every 15 minutes or so to keep the cooking even.


Tossed in basting sauce and then over the coals for 5 minutes

When the wings are nearing done take some butter and melt in a small pot. Add a bottle of Nando's Piri Piri sauce and a couple of chopped garlic cloves and some chopped cilantro and lemon juice and let it all warm up together and toss in the wings when ready. Throw the wings back over the charcoal and toss them around for several minutes and serve.


Piri-Piri Wings: Worth the Effort

Wow, Da Beef, those look great! I don't think I've ever had piri-piri sauce, so I don't know what I'm missing there, but I definitely want to try my luck at follow your detailed instructions with some kind of wing sauce that involves similar ingredients.

Just two questions: in the caption under the photo of the wings on the grill, where you say 5 minutes, do you mean 15 minutes (as the text says), and in general, is 15 minutes sufficient to cook wings (starting from raw) on a very hot grill?

How does South African piri piri compare to Portugese piri piri?

Katie wrote:Wow, Da Beef, those look great! I don't think I've ever had piri-piri sauce, so I don't know what I'm missing there, but I definitely want to try my luck at follow your detailed instructions with some kind of wing sauce that involves similar ingredients.

Just two questions: in the caption under the photo of the wings on the grill, where you say 5 minutes, do you mean 15 minutes (as the text says), and in general, is 15 minutes sufficient to cook wings (starting from raw) on a very hot grill?

Yeah I wasn't as clear as I could have been. I grilled the marinated wings over indirect heat so they were cooking for a good hour, I just switched the drumettes closest to the coals with the ones furthest away every 15-20 minutes or so. They only went over the fire after being tossed in the 2nd coating of sauce. Its worth trying. I dont know if theres a Whole Foods near you but if there is they may carry Nando's sauce like the LP location does. Just for notes, I bought the medium heat bottles so I dont know how spicy the hot labeled ones are.

leek wrote:How does South African piri piri compare to Portugese piri piri?

According to Wiki the Portuguese introduced the piri piri chili also called the "African Birds Eye Chili" to places in Africa. Nando's (Which I've never too) is a Portuguese chicken place with their own secret recipe sauce. So I imagine somewhat similar.

Thanks very much for the further explanation, Da Beef. Wings are one of my 2013 projects. There is a Whole Foods not far from me, actually (Deerfield). May be out in the suburbs but not too far out. I will look there for the medium-heat sauce.

Great looking wings!

I actually spent years avoiding all wings since I loathe almost all restaurant wings (i.e. - just vinegar and spiciness without real flavor, then doused in some sort of crap to mellow it out), but I've learned that wings like those (with a solid savory component) are great. The slow cooking to melt the connective tissue really does produce a great flavor.

Thai grilled chicken Southern style and Thai dried chili dipping sauce from SheSimmers. Thumbs up all around!

G Wiv wrote:Thai grilled chicken Southern style and Thai dried chili dipping sauce from SheSimmers.

Awesome! I drooled when she posted those recipes but not as much as I did when I saw your pic. I have them printed out here in my office, and you've inspired me to get to them sooner than later.

=R=

Looks great, Gary!

Tell you what, SheSimmers is one really fine blog: her discussions are *always* interesting, and her recipes--the ones I've done--work awfully well.

Geo

Squid stuffed with House Spiced loose Italian Sausage Meat


Grilled along with the tentacles (Cook those until crispy)


Some Roasted then Mashed Cherry Tomato Marinara and Chopped Basil on top

One dish I love to cook for parties is goat leg. I picked up this one from Sahar on Kedzie just off of Lawrence. They are usually still frozen at Sahar so I got it a day ahead of time and thawed it in some water. Previously I have roasted it in the over, but this time since we planned to have a bonfire later on I thought I'd rig up a rotisserie on our fire pit.

As I like to do, I kept a very simple design using available parts from around the house. The braces were the forks from some broken movie lights I had in the basement. I wired the leg to those and clamped the ends to some bolts. All said and done, it took about 30 minutes to gather the parts and wire the goat up for roasting. I rubbed it down with salt and let it dry a bit while I prepared the spice rub. Dinner was designed around the recipes in Apicius (free in digital form on amazon), so I made up a rub based on the spices used in that book. After I got the logs good and hot I put the goat into place I turned the leg manually once every 10 or 15 minutes, and got up to an internal temp in the center of around 120 or so, wrapped it in foil to rest for 30 minutes. I then carved it and kept it moist in a warm broth which I had already prepared, also based around the recipes in Apicius. We served it with labne, lavosh and fresh mint. I didn't get any pics of the final dish, but it was quite delicious! Goat is a meat that often gets overlooked as a cook at home meat, but it's something I plan to cook more often.


All spiced up and ready to go!


Rotisserie.


Getting ready to carve.

definitely fun to page back through this thread.

With the balmy temps on Saturday I broke out the new rotisserie attachment for the kettle. Did up 2 smaller birds - stuffed the cavity with: cubed up lemons and limes, chopped jalapenos, some cilantro, a garlic/ginger paste, kosher salt, black pepper, and some olive oil. Trussed them & rubbed the skin of the birds with some lard..

Cooked with RO lump, and some oak bourbon barrel slats:





a couple flame ups - otherwise a simple cook:





Pretty happy with the rotisserie, cant wait to try some other items on it.

Is that the Weber rotisserie attachment?

lougord99 wrote:Is that the Weber rotisserie attachment?

my bad, yes its the Weber rotisserie attachment, wanted one for a couple years now.

jimswside wrote:

lougord99 wrote:Is that the Weber rotisserie attachment?

my bad, yes its the Weber rotisserie attachment, wanted one for a couple years now.

A great attachment!
I just wish they made one for the Weber Ranch Kettle!-Dick

My long dark nightmare is over. I just picked up a Weber Genesis stainless grill from Craigslist yesterday and got a smoking deal on it to boot! S-330 in very lightly used condition for $200.

I've been without a grill for so long I fear I've forgotten much. I'm going to have to do a lot of "research" to get my grilling game back

Steak.. boring right?

nope, going to share on this thread what I have shared on the Peoria, IL. thread - my favorite steak for purchase pretty much anywhere. The Kilgus Farms aged bone in sirloin from Pottstown Meats in Peoria, IL. they have some other Kilgus steak cuts there but I love sirloins, and this steak packs some real bang for the buck @ $8.99/lb.:

Pottstown Meats and Deli
4700 N. University
Peoria, IL.

http://www.pottstownmeat.com/



salted, a little garlic powder and a splash of olive oil and onto the fire:



fin:



You know what, I never feel silly driving the 1.5 hours each way with my cooler to grab up just one of these to bring home for the grill.

Stuffed banana peppers - something I would usually do in the oven - know what, my convection oven went out of service a year ago August - really havent missed it - Pretty much can use a Weber kettle for anything one can do in an oven. -

stuffed these banana peppers with - ground veal(Pottstown Meats), sweet ital. sausage(Pottstown Meats), bread crumbs, egg, parm cheese. - then sauteed the stuffed peppers for a couple mins in olive oils



topped with some red sauce and parm -



covered these in foil, put them in the covered Weber - indirect - for about 35 mins - then applied some mozz. and let them go a little longer:



made a fantastic sandwich -.

a little later I had one of those Kilgus Farms steaks I rave about -




it was a good Sunday.