Lamb Burgers and Shwarma Wings

There is a burger place near my house that is the go to place for me and my kids. Each time we go, its the Lamb Burger that is ordered by nearly all of us. Yesterday, I thought it was time to put my own #EIBG spin on it. In the restaurant, the burgers are flavorful, but thin so they cook faster. This means that I am usually getting them medium/well instead of the desired medium/rare. When I did this at home, caramelized onions, a sriracha aioli and good rolls were a must to make this dinner creation a success.

Ingredients:

2 Pounds Ground Lamb Shoulder
3 Large Onions
4 crusty rolls
Sriracha Aioli

2 Pounds of chicken wings cleaned
3 Tablespoons Shwarma Seasoning
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Make sure the lamb and your hands are very cold before you form your burgers. Make sure to dimple them as discussed here:

Step 1: Start your charcoal

Step 2: Form your burgers

Step 3: Caramelize your onions!

Step 4: Marinade your wings

Step 5: Grill your burgers

Step 6: Grill your wings

Step 7: Enjoy!

Shabbos #Smokefest

My son had his first high school Shabbatone this past weekend which meant I was going to have 3 teenage boys for the Friday night meal. Since this was my son's first year in high school, and first time hosting kids from his class, this could be a make or break weekend for him. If the boys have a great time, it reflects positively on him, if they have a bad time, it reflects negatively. Or so my wife and I thought. Therefore it was time to pull out the big guns for these boys.

I decided to go with Beef Flanken ribs that were well marbled. For these I went with my go to dry rub with the addition of some brown sugar to help the bark form during the smoke.

Fresh foil for the water bowl

 For this smoke I went with Cherry and Pecan wood

Using the minion method I went with about 25 briquettes

Once the charcoal was hot, I poured in the center

For best smoke, its important to space out the ribs so that the smoke can circulate better

Temperature was kept constant at 225 with air flow being regulated through bottom vents

After 3 hours, the ribs were ready to come off, and get a thin layer of BBQ sauce and then wrapped for another 3 hours

At this point I threw on a cut up chicken that I did with my go to dry rub. I added a couple of chunks of apple wood to get the smoke going again.

And of course, what is shabbos without an Apple Kugel

Pulled BBQ Beef Sliders

One of my favorite low and slow recipes is pulled BBQ beef. While historically this is done with brisket, I like doing it with the less expensive beef chuck roast. The last time that I made this, I served it on slider rolls, however next time I am thinking of getting mini tortillas and have them as pulled BBQ beef tacos.

Recipe:

5 pound chuck roast
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 cup BBQ sauce
Disposable aluminum pan

Start by lighting about 25 charcoal briquettes and setup your smoker with charcoal and wood for minion method smoking

For this smoke, I am using cherry wood 

Cut the chuck roast into large chunks and spread the rub evenly over the meat

Once the charcoal is white, pour it in the center of the charcoal and the wood

For the first 3 hours, cook the chuck roast chunks in the pan uncovered. After 3 hours, cover the pan with aluminum foil and cook for an additional 2-3 hours until the meat is fork tender

After 5.5 hours the meat looked amazing with great bark

Take the chunks and two forks and start shreadding the meat

Take 1/4 cup of the juice from the bottom of the pan and mix with 1/2 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce and mix with the shredded beef

With this BBQ, I also grilled some yellow and green squash that I marinated in olive oil, fresh lemon juice, salt and black pepper and smoked some chicken

I

BBQ Beef Sliders with smoked chicken and grilled squash

Chicken Shwarma BBQ Style

To say that my kids are picky eaters is an understatement. Shwarma is a staple in my diet and considered one of my four basic food groups with Coffee, Steak, and Pancakes being the other three. Convincing my children that this is a must style dinner meal would be a foodie's greatest challenge. This weekend, I decided it was time to introduce my children to new culinary delights.

Like any other Sunday, the morning began with, "What's for Breakfast?". This was an easy one, since I would be able to utilize leftover Challah from Shabbos. "French Toast" came the reply from the kitchen.

As the day wore on and errands were run in preperation for the start of school this week, the dinner question started to come around. The mysterious answer was "Middle Eastern Chicken". And with that, the adventure began. As today got hectic, I had to settle for fresh bakery pita over making it myself.

Recipe:

Israeli Salad

1 Cuccumber

1 Tomato

2 Sour Pickles

Chicken Shwarma

6 pounds skinless boneless chicken thighs

1 onion sliced thin

Marinade

4 Tablespoon Olive Oil

2 Tablespoon Cumin

2 Tablespoon Tumeric

1 Tablespoon Garlic Powder

1 Tablespoon Onion Powder

1 Teaspoon Salt

1 Teaspoon Black Pepper

Cayenne Pepper (to taste)

8 Pita Bread / Hogie Rolls

Tehina Sauce

Skin and debone the chicken thighs and place in a bowl with olive oil and the marinade. Mix well and let sit at room temperature.

Fill 3/4 of a Charcoal chimney and light it.

While the charcoal is going, dice your vegetables for your Israeli salad.

And start sauteing your onions

Once your charcoal is hot, grill the chicken thighs on both sides until cooked through

When the chicken is cooked, bring inside and dice into small pieces. Add the pieces to the onions in the pan and heat through, stirring to combine the flavors and ingrediants

To assemble: Cut the top off one pita bread, fill the cavity with the chicken and onion mixture, top with tehina and the Israeli Salad and even more tehina as you like.

Here is another way of doing it in a hoagie roll

Once the kids heard this was really shwarma, they voted this one of the top 5 dinners.

#smokalicious Shabbos

A work from home Friday means a #smokalicious Shabbos. My son has my same culinary BBQ tastes and always appreciates when I bring some smokiness to the Shabbos table. Since this was the official BBQ month, it was go big or go home. For this Shabbos, I did some smoked ribs with cherry and pecan woods, and smoked chicken with hickory wood.

Started chimney with about 30 charcoals.

 Minion method with cherry and pecan woods

 Beef Flanken Ribs marinating with spice rub and brown sugar

Ribs Smoking

Ribs coming off to be sauced and wrapped (sorry for the shadow)

Chicken Smoking at 250 Farenheit

Chicken smoked with hickory wood

 Apple Bourbon Vanilla Kugel

First Day of #BBQMonth

May is the official BBQ Month. In our house, every month is BBQ Month, but it's hard not to get into the festivities. To truly embrace the the month of May, I also decided to try my hand at my first BBQ video recipe. For this May 1st BBQ, I did smoked chicken and turkey legs on my Weber One Touch Gold. This meant that we would see crispy skin with smoked chicken on a high heat, versus the low and slow method that yields more smokey flavor, but rubbery skin.

Starting the chimney

Searing the chicken and turkey

Finished Product

The high heat smoke

Lets be honest, like everything in life, with the good, comes the bad. When it comes to BBQ and smoking chicken, while you get great flavor and juiciness in the chicken, you also get rubbery skin. Also, you may not have 3 hours before dinner to smoke your chicken. That's when the high heat method comes into play.

First start by cleaning your chicken and adding your favorite dry rub and a little olive oil to help emulsify the spices. In this instance I used dark meat as you can cook it for longer periods and at higher temperatures.I let this marinate while I cleaned the grill and started the chimney.

 For this cook, I used about 3/4 of a chimney of charcoal

Once I seared the chicken on both sides, I moved it onto the indirect side and dropped a piece of hickory to smoke the chicken over the hour it took to cook.

Once finished, there was a light smoke flavor, but crispy skin!!!!!

Try this method out and let me know how you like it.