Culinary Sundays

With my eldest son away for camp, I am missing the biggest foodie in the house. This summer, my daughters weren't hearing it and wanted a spot on dinner for Sunday that would make great leftovers during the week. Steak and Shwarma Sandwiches, Cottage Fries, Carmelized Onions, and fresh corn.

Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving was different than in previous years. Family was pulled in different directions, and my wife decided to try and hit Black Friday deals one day early. That left me with the kids and to figure out dinner plans, which also means my good friend Weber would be helping out. I decided to smoke some chicken and throw on some hot dogs. It reminded us once again that Thanksgiving is not about the food, but rather the company and family time that is spent together.

BBQ Leftovers

Some of the best part about BBQ are the leftovers. Granted, most times, there isn't much left after a #bbqfest and #smokefest, but when there are, they taste as good as the day I made them. I call this the #EIBG version of Chopped.

A few weeks ago I made BBQ where I smoked a few pounds of chicken. The next few nights we had a wedding one night and went out for dinner for the next. Before we knew it, it was Wednesday and we hadn't had an opportunity to utilize the leftovers from the weekend BBQ.

I turned that weekend smoked chicken into Spicy Smoked Chicken Salad and ate it for lunch for the next couple of days until my daughters noticed it in the fridge and attacked it until there was none left.

This past weekend I made the all American classic of hamburgers and hot dogs. Earlier in the week the left over hamburgers and hot dogs were finished by the kids

On Wednesday night I went to CrossFit and after doing exercises like this for an hour, I was hungry!!

Looking through the fridge, I found 2 hamburgers from the weekend hiding behind some pickles in the fridge and decided to pair it with an avocado and tomato salad.

#BeginnersGuideToBBQ - Part 1

As Spring has really come upon us in NY, everyone has started to think about BBQ and what they can bring outside. The interesting part is that many people are questioning what and how they have been doing it up until now, and are now asking what they could do to make their BBQs better. With that, I give you a Beginner's Guide to BBQ, or also known as, How To Make Sure Everything Is Better Grilled #EIBG.

1: The Grill

Before we can discuss what you grill and how you grill it, we need to talk about what you grill on. My personal choice and recommendation is a charcoal grill. The charcoal grill you choose should be able to support proper air flow so that you will be able to smoke and do direct grilling.

My recommendation, and the grill I use is the Weber One Touch Gold 22". I have had this grill for 8 years and the only modification I have made is adding a thermometer to monitor internal temperature. Since then Weber has modified their charcoal product line and now offers a temperature gauge on their 22" charcoal grills.

Propane grills also work, but make sure it has multiple burners for direct and indirect cooking and is versatile enough to support rotisseries and side burners. I personally prefer a charcoal grill over propane as it gives you more cooking options when you close the lid and want to keep the smoke/heat internal. Propane grill as made to be very airy to reduce the risk of propane/gas buildup inside the grill when the lid is closed.

2: The Fuel

There are two types of charcoal that can be used: Lump Charcoal and Briquettes Charcoal. There is no right answer here because you can ask different BBQ purists what they use and they will defend either one. Purists will swear by Lump Charcoal because it is after all the natural by product of how charcoal is made. It leaves very little ash, gets hotter than briquettes, and will add flavor to anything you grill. Unfortunately with Lump Charcoal you get inconsistent sizes in the bags you get and therefore inconsistent times on how long your BBQ will last. Briquettes are made for consistent burns and long lasting BBQs. The problem is that what goes into the Briquettes to make them are concerning. Therefore I am very picky about what briquettes I use and when I use lump charcoal. When it comes to briquettes, I only use Kingsford Competition Briquettes or Trader Joes Charcoal (absolutely NO match light charcoal!!)

My general rule:

Lump Charcoal: quick and fast cooking (Burgers, off the bone chicken, steaks, hotdogs)

Briquettes:  

Charcoal Briquettes: longer cooking times (chicken on bone and smoking).

The other reason why I like charcoal is because it is a reusable fuel. When it comes to propane, what you light is what you use. When it comes to charcoal, when you are done with your BBQ, close the vents, and whatever charcoal is left, can be used for your next BBQ by brushing off the ash and pouring lit charcoal on top of it to relight it. Almost every BBQ I do, I always have some charcoal left over from the previous BBQ which reduces how much charcoal I need to reuse.

3: Lighting The Fuel

The only way that I will light charcoal is using a chimney. The reason that I do not use lighter fluid is that it tends to leave a residue that will turn to vapor and go into the food that you are cooking which leaves a dangerous taste that you do not want to ingest. A charcoal chimney is used by placing newspaper on the bottom which lights the charcoal on top. When the bottom layer lights, it then lights the next layer until ultimately all your charcoal is lit and ready to go.

You will know that it is ready to pour when the charcoal turns white

On Part 2, we will discuss direct vs indirect cooking

Every now and then, all I want is a good #burger

With so many options to grill and BBQ, sometimes I just want a good hamburger done medium rare on charcoal. Usually this also means that hot dogs are in the mix as my kids weigh in on every BBQ that I do. Recently I notice them also asking a lot, 'what else are you making?', like BBQ isn't enough. Needless to say, when it comes to burgers and hot dogs, they are included in #EverythingIsBetterGrilled

With the burgers, I did caramelized onions and a homemade horseradish sauce with Crusty Roasted Yellow Potatoes. The potatoes I served with a siracha dipping sauce (not shown).

A sign of spring

Today, with snow and ice on the ground, we actually broke 45 degrees in NY after experiencing another rediculous snow on Thursday. This meant as my son put it, time to do something other than smoked chicken for dinner. My rule of thumb is that I don't attempt to grill anything on high heat unless its at least 45 degrees because I can't get the grill hot enough. Tonight I went with the classic Hamburgers and Hot Dogs with Cottage Fries.

Brazilian BBQ

If you have ever eaten at a Brazilian BBQ place, you probably remember the that disk with red and green on it that you thought would mostly be on red but fondly remember you couldnt stop leaving it on green. What you probably dont remember is the smokey flavors in every bite of meat they brought you. In Brazil, when they BBQ they throw some wood on the fire and smoke the meat while it grills. Usually I reserve my smoking for my Weber Smokey Mountain and leave the grilling to my Weber One Touch Kettle grill. However, last week I started to experiment with the idea of adding some smoke to my high heat recipes. 

My first experiment was with some chicken thighs that I wanted to do on the grill instead of the smoker since I didnt have 3 hours. When I usually do this, I dry rub the thighs with my rub and some olive oil and then sear the thighs on both side before moving them onto the indirect side and letting them finish. This time I decided to throw some apple wood on the charcoal and let it get some smoke for about an hour before pulling it off.

While it wasn't as 'smokey' as on the smoker, there was an added flavor profile from the apple wood and there was crispy skin. Something that we dont get on 'low and slow'.

Last night I decided to try it again, but this time with a 1.5 inch thick ribeye. I had read in Cooks Illustrated that if you want to get a really good sear on meat, you should take an aluminum pan and invert it over the coals to superheat the grate. While the grill heated I put some kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper and olive oil on both sides.

First 2 minutes with the meat at 45 degree angle.

2 minutes facing the opposite direction

And then the magic moment when you flip it over and get to see that awesome crust you have formed with the sear.

Now that you know the oustide is nicely cooked, we need to bring the internal temperature up. However before I did that, I threw some cherry wood on the charcoal to turn this BBQ into a Brazilian BBQ.

I placed the cover on and then let it smoke until the steak was medium rare.

Aside from the great color on the steak there was an added sweet smokey flavor to the steak

Reverse Visiting Day

This weekend marked a festive weekend for the Jewish religion - Shabbos Nachamu. On this weekend throngs of families go to the Catskill mountains for a weekend retreat. This weekend also marked visiting day for sleepaway camps which would mean a perfect storm of heavy traffic for the ride home. Thankfully a group of smart minded parents decided to get a van to bring our boys back here instead of us driving and contending with the traffic. This would also mean that a huge BBQ would be in order to welcome our son back home, even for a few hours.

The days festivities started at 8:30 AM when I cleaned out and started the smoker.

I used the minion method of lighting a handful of charcoal and leaving a bunch of unlit charcoal in the bottom to carry the 8-10 hours I wanted for this smoke.

The first thing to go on were the 10 pounds of ribs that I had picked up on a special order on Thursday night.

For the ribs I made my regular Dry Rub plus the addition of brown sugar when I added it to the ribs to help with the bark formation.

For the first part of the smoke I went with pecan and cherry wood.

3.5 hours into the smoke I brushed on some of my favorite BBQ sauce and double wrapped them in heavy duty aluminum foil. I then placed them on the lower rack of the smoker and added the chicken that I had used the same rub (without the brown sugar) and placed that on the top rack. The chicken I smoked for 3 hours with apple wood.

While this was going on, I got busy with the grilling part of the BBQ. In the kitchen I prepared 16 spiral hot dogs and the hamburgers.

When the ribs came off, they were literally falling off the bone

As for my son, I think he appreciated the BBQ and coming home for a short visit

But the thing about BBQ, when its done from the heart, it wants to be shared with friends because that is what true BBQ is all about.