so my wonderful wife got me a meat grinder attachment for our standing mixer for christmas. i love me some new toys to play with in the kitchen. the first thing i made was 50/50 burgers, which i had seen on the food network show: diners, drive-ins and dives. it's a hamburger patty made with 50% ground beef and 50% ground bacon. delicious. but this is not about the 50/50 beef and bacon burgers.
we had our friend, lalos, over to watch the texans game on saturday. we were going to be making a grocery store trip that day anyway and needed to come up with something to cook and share for the game. i don't know what made me think of it, but i was hoping for another excuse to use my new toy and feel like i had heard of shrimp burgers before, so why not try making a 50/50 SHRIMP and bacon burger patty? we picked up some shrimp and bacon at the store and brought it home to give it a whirl.
i didn't search around on the internet for a recipe or anything, i just thought of some ingredients that i thought might go well with shrimp and bacon: soy sauce, garlic, ginger, sesame oil. the shrimp i bought (about 1.75 lb) was deveined, but i still needed to remove the tails and shells. i cut the bacon (i believe a 12 oz package) into about one inch pieces. i tossed the bacon and shrimp together, just so that as i fed it through my meat grinder, they'd blend together a bit. everything i had read about grinding meat was to make sure it's cold as possible without being frozen, so that it pushes through the grinder easily without mushing or binding, so i put the bowl i was using in the freezer for about a half an hour.
i ground up the bacon and shrimp together, using the 4 setting on the mixer. i can't lie, the ground shrimp and bacon mixture was disgusting, to the point that i was getting discouraged that this wouldn't work. it was a mushy mess, but i soldiered on with my plan. i added a few shakes of soy sauce, quite a bit of fresh ground pepper, some ground garlic and ground ginger, a bit of salt, and probably a tablespoon of sesame oil, then mixed it together with my hands. i formed up about five pretty large patties. i might have been able to stretch it into six, but i wanted to be sure they were big enough to fill a bun. they don't form up as easily as beef, but you can get them into a patty shape and arrange them on a plate or cutting board as you wait to cook them up.
i was planning on cooking them on my cast iron skillet all along, but i don't know if i could have grilled them if i wanted to. they might have slid through the grate. i heated up my skillet with some grape seed oil until it was nice and hot (just starting to smoke a little). i was able to fit three patties in my skillet at a time and once i put them on, i reduced the heat to medium and put a lid on it. i cooked them about 3-4 minutes a side, but just like with cooking shrimp whole, they firmed up and lost their translucence as they cooked, so it was pretty easy to tell when they were done. once cooked, they had browned up pretty well and looked very much like burgers.
while the burgers were cooking, amanda sliced up an avocado and i diced up half a chipotle pepper and mixed it into about a third of a cup of mayo with about a tablespoon of the adobe sauce. we tend to use those really thin sandwich rounds for our burgers. we started this mostly to cut down on the amount of wheat amanda had to deal with, but ended up really liking that it minimized the non-burger part of the equation.
so we served up the bacon/shrimp burgers with avocado and chipotle mayo and the result was simply outstanding. as you'd expect, it's the flavor of bacon wrapped shrimp, but in a nice big patty. The texture was pleasing. The patties held together well, better than an average hamburger actually, and were nice and juicy. the bacon flavor was very present, but it still tasted mostly like a big hunk of shrimp, with a lot of great added flavor. i thought the avocado and chipotle mayo were a good choice, but you could probably go with a teriaki sauce or some other condiment of choice. they were good enough that i ground up another two pounds of shrimp the next day with a pound of bacon and put six patties in the freezer. i don't know if you could make them without a grinder, although maybe you could try it with a food processor.
so here's the recipe (i'm just guessing, because i didn't actually measure anything):
1.75-2 lbs of shrimp (you'll lose a little, but not much, in the grinder)
12-16 oz of bacon
2-3 tbsp of soy sauce
1 tbsp of sesame oil
2 tsp of garlic powder
2 tsp of ground ginger
1 tbsp of ground pepper
1 tsp of salt
grind shrimp and bacon together. mix together with all other ingredients. form into patties. pan fry, in a cast iron skillet if possible. serve with sliced avocado and chipotle mayo (or your preferred accouterments). enjoy!
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Sunday, March 25, 2012
beer braised beef and beerisotto
out of nowhere, amanda sent me a link to this cooking competition and encouraged me to enter. at first i thought she was joking, but when i actually started considering it, i realized she wasn't. it looked like fun and a neat challenge to try to make something new, which i enjoy. the contest allowed for one co-competitor, so i asked my friend chris lalos if he wanted to get in on it and he graciously accepted.
i had made braised short ribs and risotto on new year's eve and the guy at revival market said suggested beer, as well as bourbon, as an alternative to wine, so that's the first thing i thought of. of course, the short ribs from revival market were a bit more expensive than i would want to serve to 250-300 people. also, the logistics of cooking enough ribs to feed that many people seemed complicated. i opted to try chuck roast to see if that would be similarly tasty, while also being less expensive and eaiser to get in larger hunks.
the sponsor for the event was brooklyn brewery, which i'm aware has a very nice brown ale. this seemed like a good choice to use in the braising liquid, being rich and malty. i had tried a few iterations with various ingredients, but eventually settled on braising with onions, garlic, carrots, parsnips, rosemary, thyme, beef stock, and of course brooklyn brown ale. for the risotto, i used about 1/3 beer and 2/3 stock, garlic, ground thyme and rosemary, mushrooms, spinach, and parmesan cheese.
the event started at 1pm and you had to arrive by noon to set up and be ready for attendees. i figured on braising the beef for about 3.5 hours, so i wanted to start cooking at around 7:30 to be done around 11, to be able to reduce the liquid for the sauce, pack up and drive over to the competition.
i started with about 11 lbs of pretty good looking choice chuck roast...
i had generously seasoned them with salt and pepper and put them in the fridge overnight. the first step in actually cooking the beef, was to sear each roast on all sides. i heated some olive oil in my large stainless steel pot and seared the roasts for about a minute on each side.
after searing the roasts, i added a little butter to the pot and cooked the onions until they were near translucent. then i added the garlic and let it cook just a bit, but not too long to burn the garlic. i deglazed the pan with beer and let it boil to reduce it down a bit.
i'd like to say that this is when everybody voted for our food and we won the competition, but alas, we did not win any of the judge or audience awards. we did receive a lot of compliments and some great support from our friends (inluding the chuck-in-law). it really was a lot of fun and extremely gratifying, even though we didn't win. a lot of the other entries were very impressive and many of them seemed quite experienced at entering competitions like this. it was an honor to feel like we were toe-to-toe with the other ameteur cooks. all in all, it was a great experience and i'd definitely consider doing something like this again.
ingredients list, as we made it for the competition:
i had made braised short ribs and risotto on new year's eve and the guy at revival market said suggested beer, as well as bourbon, as an alternative to wine, so that's the first thing i thought of. of course, the short ribs from revival market were a bit more expensive than i would want to serve to 250-300 people. also, the logistics of cooking enough ribs to feed that many people seemed complicated. i opted to try chuck roast to see if that would be similarly tasty, while also being less expensive and eaiser to get in larger hunks.
the sponsor for the event was brooklyn brewery, which i'm aware has a very nice brown ale. this seemed like a good choice to use in the braising liquid, being rich and malty. i had tried a few iterations with various ingredients, but eventually settled on braising with onions, garlic, carrots, parsnips, rosemary, thyme, beef stock, and of course brooklyn brown ale. for the risotto, i used about 1/3 beer and 2/3 stock, garlic, ground thyme and rosemary, mushrooms, spinach, and parmesan cheese.
the event started at 1pm and you had to arrive by noon to set up and be ready for attendees. i figured on braising the beef for about 3.5 hours, so i wanted to start cooking at around 7:30 to be done around 11, to be able to reduce the liquid for the sauce, pack up and drive over to the competition.
i started with about 11 lbs of pretty good looking choice chuck roast...
after boiling down the beer by about half, i added in the remaining vegetables and the roasts, as well as a sachet i made with fresh thyme, rosemary, and whole black peppercorns in a cheesecloth. i would have liked to tie the end of the cheesecloth, but i didn't have any string or twine, so i just rested it over the edge of the pot and put the lid over it to keep the herbs from escaping into the liquid (i don't want them in the final sauce and through my experimentation, discovered that retrieving them was a pain in the a**)
at this point, it's just a matter of waiting for the beef to braise for about three hours. with about an hour and a half left in the cooking time, i started on the risotto. i started by sauteing the mushrooms and spinach with the garlic in olive oil. i added the arborio rice for a bit towards the end. i then began to add beer and beef stock two cups at a time, letting it absorb almost completely before adding the next round of liquid. i stirred it occasionally to keep it from burning on the bottom. my friend chris lalos let me use his le creuset pot, since i didn't have enough big pots to do three roasts and the risotto. it's quite nice and i'd like one for my own.
with the risotto going, the beef finished braising until it started to come apart easily with a fork. i carefully removed the roasts from the pots and trimmed off as much of the fat as possible. i knew we'd be giving out small portions to the tasters and didn't want anybody to end up with just a hunk of fat. as for the liquid, i removed the sachet, as well as the carrots and parsnips (as best as i could), and turned the heat up high to begin reducing down the liquid for the sauce. i added a little sugar to sweeten up the sauce a bit. with as much liquid as i had for all this beef, it took about a half an hour to get the sauce to a nice thick and sticky consistency. when the sauce was done, i put the beef back in the pot and stirred it together to coat the beef in the sauce.
with the beef ready to go, we just had to wait for the risotto to finish, then we packed up and headed out to the competition. we waited until we got to the competition to add the parmesan cheese, mostly because we filled the risotto pot about to the brim and didn't want to attempt to add anything more to it or attempt to stir it. we were worried that we might be running a bit late, but the timing actually worked out perfectly. we didn't realize that other contestants were going to have elaborate decorations, tablecloths, signs, and other whatnots. we didn't bring anything of the sort, so after dumping our beef and risotto into the chafing dish they provided for us, our set up was complete. we were feeling self conscious that we didn't even bring a tablecloth, so we laid out the old blue towel i had used to transport the hot pot of beef in my car and called that our tablecloth.
ingredients list, as we made it for the competition:
beer braised beef
- 3-4 lb chuck roast (x3 if you're making it for 300 people to have a 1-2 oz serving)
- about 1/2 a large onion per roast, roughly chopped
- 2-3 cloves of garlic per roast, minced
- 1/2 lb or so of parsnips per roast, peeled and chopped into pieces that are big enough to retrieve later
- 1/2 lb or so of carrots per roast, peeled and chopped into pieces that are big enough to retrieve later
- 1-2 good size sprigs of fresh rosemary, per roast (wrapped in the cheesecloth sachet)
- 2-3 good size sprigs of fresh thyme, per roast (wrapped in the cheesecloth sachet)
- about 1 tbsp of whole peppercorns, per roast (wrapped in the cheesecloth sachet)
- olive oil for browning the roast and the onions
- plenty of salt, both for seasoning the roast ahead of time (with ground pepper) and for seasoning the braising liquid (in accordance with your taste for salt)
- few shakes of red pepper flakes to add a little kick
- 1 1/2-2 brown ales per roast
- beef stock to add enough liquid to cover about 3/4 of roast
- about 1 tbsp of granulated sugar per roast to add to the sauce
beerisotto
- arborio rice (7 cups if you're making 21 cups of risotto)
- 1 cup of brown ale per cup of rice
- 2 cups of beef stock per cup of rice
- about a handful of diced mushrooms per cup of rice
- about a handful of chopped fresh spinach per cup of rice
- 1-2 cloves of garlic per cup of rice, finely chopped
- about a cup of parmesan cheese per cup of rice
- salt and pepper to taste
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
amanda friendly pizza
i didn't intend for this to be a one entry a month blog, but that's the pace i'm on. i'll see if i can't pick it up. it might be partly that i haven't made much really new and interesting food that i've been proud enough of to make into a post, so i'm going to post about one of the first gluten-free, amanda-friendly dishes i started making last winter.
when amanda first discovered her allergies, one of the foods she immediately started missing was pizza. with wheat dough and tomato sauce, it was pretty much right out the window. she was heart-broken. in an effort to cheer her up and prove that we can make tasty foods that fit into her diet, we found this website and picked out this recipe. for the dough, we found this mix and figured we'd try it. i can't remember what all toppings we went with the first time, but now that it's firmly in our dinner rotation, we usually go with spinach, artichoke hearts, ground italian sausage, diced leeks (which are our go-to substitute for onions), cubes of mozzarella (in lieu of shredded), parmesan, and fresh basil (since we've got plenty growing in our "garden"), or most commonly some subset thereof. when we're in the mood for some added gluttony, we'll throw some bacon on there.
the romesco sauce turned out to be an absolute revelation. it's great just to dip lentil chips into or toss with pasta like a pesto sauce. the pizza certainly isn't like what you'd get at pizza hut, but it's delicious in its own right. the crust is unique and although not very bready, holds together better than most homemade pizza doughs. we use a pizza stone, which helps, but if you're following the package on the bob's mill package, i'd recommend extending the times a little to make sure it's crispy (just so you can see it brown a little before putting the toppings on.
we've also mixed it up with creamy pesto sauce instead of the romesco, but that makes it a bit more fattening. for the pesto sauce, i just saute some garlic in butter, then add a few tablespoons of pesto sauce, a few tablespoons of heavy cream, and a few tablespoons of parmesan until it looks about like what i think of creamy pesto sauce. it makes for pretty awesome pizza.
here's the ingredients list:
for the romesco sauce:
-1/4 cup of almonds (i've used pecans when i didn't have almonds)
-jar of roasted red peppers
-2 cloves garlic (or several smaller ones)
-1 tbsp fresh rosemary (when we have enough in the garden, 1 tsp of the dry stuff when we don't)
-1 tbsp fresh oregano (we always have more oregano than we can ever use)
-1 tsp sugar
-1 tsp salt
-2 tbsp red wine vinegar
-pinch of cayenne (i usually go with a shake)
-1/2 cup olive oil
for the crust
-bob's gluten-free pizza dough mix
-1 1/2 cups warm water
-2 eggs
-2 tbsp olive oil
toppings
-1/2 lb italian sausage
-1/2 package frozen spinach
-1/2 of 8oz block of mozzarella (better the mozzarella, better the pizza)
-1 chopped leak
-1/2 a jar of artichoke hearts
the romesco sauce recipe makes enough for two pizzas as does the dough mix, so you'll notice all the toppings are conveniently purchased to make two pizzas as well.
when amanda first discovered her allergies, one of the foods she immediately started missing was pizza. with wheat dough and tomato sauce, it was pretty much right out the window. she was heart-broken. in an effort to cheer her up and prove that we can make tasty foods that fit into her diet, we found this website and picked out this recipe. for the dough, we found this mix and figured we'd try it. i can't remember what all toppings we went with the first time, but now that it's firmly in our dinner rotation, we usually go with spinach, artichoke hearts, ground italian sausage, diced leeks (which are our go-to substitute for onions), cubes of mozzarella (in lieu of shredded), parmesan, and fresh basil (since we've got plenty growing in our "garden"), or most commonly some subset thereof. when we're in the mood for some added gluttony, we'll throw some bacon on there.
the romesco sauce turned out to be an absolute revelation. it's great just to dip lentil chips into or toss with pasta like a pesto sauce. the pizza certainly isn't like what you'd get at pizza hut, but it's delicious in its own right. the crust is unique and although not very bready, holds together better than most homemade pizza doughs. we use a pizza stone, which helps, but if you're following the package on the bob's mill package, i'd recommend extending the times a little to make sure it's crispy (just so you can see it brown a little before putting the toppings on.
we've also mixed it up with creamy pesto sauce instead of the romesco, but that makes it a bit more fattening. for the pesto sauce, i just saute some garlic in butter, then add a few tablespoons of pesto sauce, a few tablespoons of heavy cream, and a few tablespoons of parmesan until it looks about like what i think of creamy pesto sauce. it makes for pretty awesome pizza.
here's the ingredients list:
for the romesco sauce:
-1/4 cup of almonds (i've used pecans when i didn't have almonds)
-jar of roasted red peppers
-2 cloves garlic (or several smaller ones)
-1 tbsp fresh rosemary (when we have enough in the garden, 1 tsp of the dry stuff when we don't)
-1 tbsp fresh oregano (we always have more oregano than we can ever use)
-1 tsp sugar
-1 tsp salt
-2 tbsp red wine vinegar
-pinch of cayenne (i usually go with a shake)
-1/2 cup olive oil
for the crust
-bob's gluten-free pizza dough mix
-1 1/2 cups warm water
-2 eggs
-2 tbsp olive oil
toppings
-1/2 lb italian sausage
-1/2 package frozen spinach
-1/2 of 8oz block of mozzarella (better the mozzarella, better the pizza)
-1 chopped leak
-1/2 a jar of artichoke hearts
the romesco sauce recipe makes enough for two pizzas as does the dough mix, so you'll notice all the toppings are conveniently purchased to make two pizzas as well.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
braised beef short ribs
amanda had sent me a link to this website as something to think about maybe doing someday. "renowned" chefs from some of houston's most cherished restaurants take you on a tour to some of the places they enjoy that you may never have experienced and try to educate you on the culinary culture of houston. it looks pretty cool, albeit expensive, but it was interesting reading through the bios of the chefs that participate in the tours. i had been to some of their restaurants, but clicking through to the links of others got me excited to try some new places. also, it got me to stumble onto revival market, which apparently had been started by a couple local chefs that wanted to open a market where people could get fresh, local meats, produce, and other products to take some of the philosophies of these restaurants into their own kitchens. reading through the website got me excited to check it out and try some of their food.
so we went there without really having a plan, just to see what they had. it's a pretty small store. they have a display counter along the back wall with cheeses, various cured or prepared meats (charcuterie i guess is what you call it), and various cuts of lamb, pork, beef, and poultry. they have a fridge on the right wall with premade soups and chili, fresh stocks, dairy products, and other refrigerated items. they have a small, somewhat limited produce section that wraps around to the front wall. then they have some house products in a display in the middle, such as sauces, jams, olive oils, etc. that's about it. i was most excited about the prospect of fresh, local meats, so that's where i headed.
they had some pretty incredible looking steaks and pork rib chops, but i wanted to try something i'd never done before. the guy behind the counter was extremely helpful and asked if i had any questions. they had quite a few beef short ribs in the display and i asked what you do with beef short ribs, since i'd never cooked them before. he got very excited and ran down a step by step set of instructions for braising them in red wine. i'd made braised lamb shanks in red wine and that had made amanda very sick and we decided that cooking with red wine was on the no-no list, presumably because of brewer's yeast that is likely not filtered out of the wine and only gets concentrated in the sauce. he said we could use bourbon as a substitute (she does much better with distilled spirits), so we decided to give it a shot. he cut us three large short ribs (he said one large one should be enough for one person, but we got a third just in case) and we were on our way.
he said to salt the meat and leave it in the fridge uncovered overnight, so that was step one. we had made a slow cooked beef roast to take with us to big bend the week before, so we had some leftover carrots, celery, and a leek. he also recommended potatoes, but we opted to leave those out. of course, we used plenty of garlic. the next day, around 3pm, i heated a large sauce pot with a few tablespoons of olive oil and seared the ribs on all sides, removing them to a plate and leaving the juices and charred bits in the pot. i had prechopped my carrots, celery, leek, and garlic. i don't know if there was supposed to be more of a stepwise process to adding the liquids and vegetables, but i just sort of wung it. i added about half of a 375 of jim beam, which caused the pot to smoke pretty good. i dumped all of my veggies in, then added about a cup and a half of beef stock. i also added a few sprigs of fresh rosemary from our "garden", some ground thyme (because i don't have fresh thyme), a bay leaf, and ground probably about two tsp of black pepper into the pot. i added the ribs back in and added a bit more beef stock until the ribs were almost, but not quite fully submerged. i let the liquid come to a boil, then reduced the heat and started waiting.
i flipped the ribs about every half an hour and let them cook about two hours in total. i took the ribs out, put them on a platter, and wrapped them in foil to keep them warm while i reduced the sauce. i took out the bay leaf and the sprigs of rosemary, then used my immersion blender to blend the softened vegetables into the sauce. i turned the heat to high and boiled the liquid down until the sauce was thickened.
i made a parmesan and asparagus risotto to go with it, so we had the ribs with the risotto and the reduced sauce on top. the ribs were fantastic, extremely tender, coming clean off the bone, but not falling apart. the ribs had a great flavor, but the sauce really set them off, with the concrated flavors of the bourbon, veggies, herbs, and stock. all in all, i was extremely pleased and am excited to try it again.
here's the ingredients as i made it:
3 large beef short ribs, salted and left uncovered in fridge overnight
about 200 mL of bourbon
about 2 cups of beef stock
2 tbsp olive oil for browning ribs
4 cloves of garlic
2 cups chopped carrots
1 cup chopped leaks
1 cup chopped celery
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
2 tsp ground thyme
2 tsp ground black pepper
1 bay leaf
so we went there without really having a plan, just to see what they had. it's a pretty small store. they have a display counter along the back wall with cheeses, various cured or prepared meats (charcuterie i guess is what you call it), and various cuts of lamb, pork, beef, and poultry. they have a fridge on the right wall with premade soups and chili, fresh stocks, dairy products, and other refrigerated items. they have a small, somewhat limited produce section that wraps around to the front wall. then they have some house products in a display in the middle, such as sauces, jams, olive oils, etc. that's about it. i was most excited about the prospect of fresh, local meats, so that's where i headed.
they had some pretty incredible looking steaks and pork rib chops, but i wanted to try something i'd never done before. the guy behind the counter was extremely helpful and asked if i had any questions. they had quite a few beef short ribs in the display and i asked what you do with beef short ribs, since i'd never cooked them before. he got very excited and ran down a step by step set of instructions for braising them in red wine. i'd made braised lamb shanks in red wine and that had made amanda very sick and we decided that cooking with red wine was on the no-no list, presumably because of brewer's yeast that is likely not filtered out of the wine and only gets concentrated in the sauce. he said we could use bourbon as a substitute (she does much better with distilled spirits), so we decided to give it a shot. he cut us three large short ribs (he said one large one should be enough for one person, but we got a third just in case) and we were on our way.
he said to salt the meat and leave it in the fridge uncovered overnight, so that was step one. we had made a slow cooked beef roast to take with us to big bend the week before, so we had some leftover carrots, celery, and a leek. he also recommended potatoes, but we opted to leave those out. of course, we used plenty of garlic. the next day, around 3pm, i heated a large sauce pot with a few tablespoons of olive oil and seared the ribs on all sides, removing them to a plate and leaving the juices and charred bits in the pot. i had prechopped my carrots, celery, leek, and garlic. i don't know if there was supposed to be more of a stepwise process to adding the liquids and vegetables, but i just sort of wung it. i added about half of a 375 of jim beam, which caused the pot to smoke pretty good. i dumped all of my veggies in, then added about a cup and a half of beef stock. i also added a few sprigs of fresh rosemary from our "garden", some ground thyme (because i don't have fresh thyme), a bay leaf, and ground probably about two tsp of black pepper into the pot. i added the ribs back in and added a bit more beef stock until the ribs were almost, but not quite fully submerged. i let the liquid come to a boil, then reduced the heat and started waiting.
i flipped the ribs about every half an hour and let them cook about two hours in total. i took the ribs out, put them on a platter, and wrapped them in foil to keep them warm while i reduced the sauce. i took out the bay leaf and the sprigs of rosemary, then used my immersion blender to blend the softened vegetables into the sauce. i turned the heat to high and boiled the liquid down until the sauce was thickened.
i made a parmesan and asparagus risotto to go with it, so we had the ribs with the risotto and the reduced sauce on top. the ribs were fantastic, extremely tender, coming clean off the bone, but not falling apart. the ribs had a great flavor, but the sauce really set them off, with the concrated flavors of the bourbon, veggies, herbs, and stock. all in all, i was extremely pleased and am excited to try it again.
here's the ingredients as i made it:
3 large beef short ribs, salted and left uncovered in fridge overnight
about 200 mL of bourbon
about 2 cups of beef stock
2 tbsp olive oil for browning ribs
4 cloves of garlic
2 cups chopped carrots
1 cup chopped leaks
1 cup chopped celery
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
2 tsp ground thyme
2 tsp ground black pepper
1 bay leaf
Sunday, December 4, 2011
smoked sirloin
i've been wanting to try this for some time now, pretty much ever since i got into smoking. texas land and cattle is a steakhouse, which may just be a texas establishment, that features smoked sirloin as their signature dish. it's unique, tender and flavorful, and seemed like something that could be replicated at home, so when i had it at the restaurant, i instantly wanted to try making it myself.
i wasn't able to find a whole sirloin roast in the grocery store when i went looking, so i went to pete's fine meats, which is a meat market near my office. i've been there for sandwiches and have bought exotic meats there before, but hadn't ever bought any beef from them. it's a little chaotic going there. they don't have a prices displayed with the meat or a price list that was easily visible. it certainly seems like the kind of place where you're supposed to know what you're doing when you go in there. i had hoped i could engage somebody in a discussion about what i was intending to do and what i was looking for, but it didn't quite work out that way. the guy asked me what i wanted, i said sirloin, he said how much, i said four pounds, he took a big ol' hunk of sirloin to the table behind the counter, cut off about four pounds, trimmed it up, showed it to me, i didn't know what to say other than "looks good to me", and off i went with my sirloin, not really knowing if it was exactly the right cut and trim for smoking. the websites i had been looking at talked about a fat cap, and this piece i had was pretty well trimmed. all i could do at this point, was give it a shot and hope it worked out (and i REALLY hoped it worked out, cause as it turns out, sirloin from pete's fine meats ain't too cheap).
i consulted several different websites for tips about how to smoke a sirloin. i'm not going to bother linking any of them, because they mostly say the same thing and i didn't really use a single one as a reference. the big take aways were, keep the heat around 240-250, flip it after an hour and again every half hour, and cook until the internal temperature is 135 for medium rare (about 30 min per pound). the texas land and cattle version has a black pepper crust, so i brushed the sirloin with a little olive oil, then covered it with a liberal amount of about a 50/50 mix of coarse ground pepper and salt, probably about a 1/4 cup each.
amanda's parents have an awesome primo grill, which allows you to have very tight control over the temperature. it has two compartments for the charcoal (they use lump charcoal, not briquettes), so you can have the heat off to one side and the meat on the other. we soaked about half a bag (not sure the size) of hickory chips and when the primo was up to temp, put about half of our chips on the coals and put the sirloin on the rack. we also had some cheddar cheese, wrapped in cheese cloth and placed in a bread pan, that we added as well. amanda's mom has been smoking cheese for a while with great results, so we figured why not toss some in while we've got the smoke going.
amanda's parents also have an electronic meat thermometer with the little remote display, so we stuck the probe in the side of the meat at the start to be able to monitor the internal temperature as it cooked. i flipped it after an hour (adding the rest of the hickory chips), but opted not to flip it again, since every time you open the smoker, it takes some time to regain the temperature (although not as long as with my smoker, since the primo is ceramic, holding the heat a lot better, and has a much tighter sealed chamber). it took just about exactly two hours to get the thermometer to read 135, at which time we took it out, wrapped it in foil, and let it rest for about 20 minutes, mostly because we were trying to deep fry a pork roast at the same time and the timing wasn't working out very well. i'd do a whole other entry about the deep fried pork roast, but it wasn't as spectacular as i'd hoped. i'll wait until we have better results, maybe with a deep fried ham.
so the moment of truth had arrived. we unwrapped the sirloin and sliced it up for serving (to go with our steamed asparagus and some awesome roasted potato mash that amanda made). it was a perfect medium rare, maybe even closer to rare. i don't know that it had a very discernible smoke ring, but it had an amazing smoke flavor and the black pepper crust was really nice. it was super tender and just absolutely delicious. we had bought some boar's head horseradish sauce, which was a nice compliment to dip the sirloin into. really, this was probably the best meal i had ever taken part in preparing, and it instantly vaulted to the top of my go-to list for future "special occasion" meals. i'm thinking next time i might try to make some sort of gorgonzola cream sauce, just to add a different twist from the horseradish sauce.
so the "recipe" as i made it:
4 lbs sirloin roast
~2 tbsp olive oil for brushing
1/4 cup coarse ground pepper
1/4 cup salt
1/2 bag of hickory chips
brush sirloin with olive oil. cover liberally with salt and coarse ground pepper. bring smoker to 250 degrees, add half of hickory chips and place sirloin on the rack. flip after one hour and add remaining chips. cook until internal temperature reads 135 degrees. wrap in foil and let rest for about 20 minutes. slice and serve with prepared horseradish sauce.
i wasn't able to find a whole sirloin roast in the grocery store when i went looking, so i went to pete's fine meats, which is a meat market near my office. i've been there for sandwiches and have bought exotic meats there before, but hadn't ever bought any beef from them. it's a little chaotic going there. they don't have a prices displayed with the meat or a price list that was easily visible. it certainly seems like the kind of place where you're supposed to know what you're doing when you go in there. i had hoped i could engage somebody in a discussion about what i was intending to do and what i was looking for, but it didn't quite work out that way. the guy asked me what i wanted, i said sirloin, he said how much, i said four pounds, he took a big ol' hunk of sirloin to the table behind the counter, cut off about four pounds, trimmed it up, showed it to me, i didn't know what to say other than "looks good to me", and off i went with my sirloin, not really knowing if it was exactly the right cut and trim for smoking. the websites i had been looking at talked about a fat cap, and this piece i had was pretty well trimmed. all i could do at this point, was give it a shot and hope it worked out (and i REALLY hoped it worked out, cause as it turns out, sirloin from pete's fine meats ain't too cheap).
i consulted several different websites for tips about how to smoke a sirloin. i'm not going to bother linking any of them, because they mostly say the same thing and i didn't really use a single one as a reference. the big take aways were, keep the heat around 240-250, flip it after an hour and again every half hour, and cook until the internal temperature is 135 for medium rare (about 30 min per pound). the texas land and cattle version has a black pepper crust, so i brushed the sirloin with a little olive oil, then covered it with a liberal amount of about a 50/50 mix of coarse ground pepper and salt, probably about a 1/4 cup each.
amanda's parents have an awesome primo grill, which allows you to have very tight control over the temperature. it has two compartments for the charcoal (they use lump charcoal, not briquettes), so you can have the heat off to one side and the meat on the other. we soaked about half a bag (not sure the size) of hickory chips and when the primo was up to temp, put about half of our chips on the coals and put the sirloin on the rack. we also had some cheddar cheese, wrapped in cheese cloth and placed in a bread pan, that we added as well. amanda's mom has been smoking cheese for a while with great results, so we figured why not toss some in while we've got the smoke going.
amanda's parents also have an electronic meat thermometer with the little remote display, so we stuck the probe in the side of the meat at the start to be able to monitor the internal temperature as it cooked. i flipped it after an hour (adding the rest of the hickory chips), but opted not to flip it again, since every time you open the smoker, it takes some time to regain the temperature (although not as long as with my smoker, since the primo is ceramic, holding the heat a lot better, and has a much tighter sealed chamber). it took just about exactly two hours to get the thermometer to read 135, at which time we took it out, wrapped it in foil, and let it rest for about 20 minutes, mostly because we were trying to deep fry a pork roast at the same time and the timing wasn't working out very well. i'd do a whole other entry about the deep fried pork roast, but it wasn't as spectacular as i'd hoped. i'll wait until we have better results, maybe with a deep fried ham.
so the moment of truth had arrived. we unwrapped the sirloin and sliced it up for serving (to go with our steamed asparagus and some awesome roasted potato mash that amanda made). it was a perfect medium rare, maybe even closer to rare. i don't know that it had a very discernible smoke ring, but it had an amazing smoke flavor and the black pepper crust was really nice. it was super tender and just absolutely delicious. we had bought some boar's head horseradish sauce, which was a nice compliment to dip the sirloin into. really, this was probably the best meal i had ever taken part in preparing, and it instantly vaulted to the top of my go-to list for future "special occasion" meals. i'm thinking next time i might try to make some sort of gorgonzola cream sauce, just to add a different twist from the horseradish sauce.
so the "recipe" as i made it:
4 lbs sirloin roast
~2 tbsp olive oil for brushing
1/4 cup coarse ground pepper
1/4 cup salt
1/2 bag of hickory chips
brush sirloin with olive oil. cover liberally with salt and coarse ground pepper. bring smoker to 250 degrees, add half of hickory chips and place sirloin on the rack. flip after one hour and add remaining chips. cook until internal temperature reads 135 degrees. wrap in foil and let rest for about 20 minutes. slice and serve with prepared horseradish sauce.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream
when you're looking for excuses to use pumpkin pie spice that you just bought, you'd think one of the first things you'd make is pumpkin pie. where's the creativity in that, though?
i've been trying different ice cream recipes since being gifted an ice cream maker by my friend, chris, who accidentally bought three of them online. i'd say that's another story, but there's not really much of a story to it. he intended to buy just one, accidentally clicked "add to cart" three times and ended up with three. being the nice guy he is, he gave me one. anyway, i've done pistachio, banana walnut, coffee, and cookies 'n cream, and i'm slowly learning different things that make it richer, creamier, or less of both (sometimes learning the hard way is best). i've by no means mastered anything, but i've got the hang of it enough to get more adventurous in trying more unconventional flavors.
pumpkin pie ice cream seemed seasonally appropriate and would the aforementioned excuse to try said recently purchased pumpkin pie spice. i'd like to say that I wung it and just invented my own recipe, but i looked online and found this one to at least determine how much canned pumpkin to use. i actually used whole milk instead of half and half, vanilla extract instead of whole bean vanilla, and obviously used my pumkin pie spice blend instead of the individual spices in the recipe. i also halved the recipe, since three cups of liquid is about all my ice cream maker can handle.
it turned out remarkably well and unsurprisingly tastes just like pumpkin pie, but with the cool, creamy texture of ice cream. it wasn't quite as smooth as some of the batches i had made that just infuse the milk with flavor (like coffee or pistachio), rather than adding ingredients that contribute to the volume of the mixture (had the same problem with the banana walnut), but it was still a very nice texture.
here's the recipe as i made it:
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 a can of pumpkin
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup of brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice blend
i brought the milk to boil with the sugar, spice blend, and vanilla just to dissolve the sugar, then cooled a bit before adding the pumpkin and chilling for a couple of hours in the fridge. i added the cream just before putting in the ice cream maker.
i've been trying different ice cream recipes since being gifted an ice cream maker by my friend, chris, who accidentally bought three of them online. i'd say that's another story, but there's not really much of a story to it. he intended to buy just one, accidentally clicked "add to cart" three times and ended up with three. being the nice guy he is, he gave me one. anyway, i've done pistachio, banana walnut, coffee, and cookies 'n cream, and i'm slowly learning different things that make it richer, creamier, or less of both (sometimes learning the hard way is best). i've by no means mastered anything, but i've got the hang of it enough to get more adventurous in trying more unconventional flavors.
pumpkin pie ice cream seemed seasonally appropriate and would the aforementioned excuse to try said recently purchased pumpkin pie spice. i'd like to say that I wung it and just invented my own recipe, but i looked online and found this one to at least determine how much canned pumpkin to use. i actually used whole milk instead of half and half, vanilla extract instead of whole bean vanilla, and obviously used my pumkin pie spice blend instead of the individual spices in the recipe. i also halved the recipe, since three cups of liquid is about all my ice cream maker can handle.
it turned out remarkably well and unsurprisingly tastes just like pumpkin pie, but with the cool, creamy texture of ice cream. it wasn't quite as smooth as some of the batches i had made that just infuse the milk with flavor (like coffee or pistachio), rather than adding ingredients that contribute to the volume of the mixture (had the same problem with the banana walnut), but it was still a very nice texture.
here's the recipe as i made it:
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 a can of pumpkin
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup of brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice blend
i brought the milk to boil with the sugar, spice blend, and vanilla just to dissolve the sugar, then cooled a bit before adding the pumpkin and chilling for a couple of hours in the fridge. i added the cream just before putting in the ice cream maker.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
gluten-free pumpkin pie spice pancakes
amanda and i are on a biking kick right now. the weather is relatively cool here in houston, so we've come up with destinations that give us an excuse to get out on our bikes and explore various bike routes for getting around town. last week, we biked up to the heights to penzey's spices. amanda had been told it was a great place to check out for foodies, which she has declared that i now am. it really is a neat store and without quite yet being discerning connoisseurs of herbs and spices, we opted to just try some spice blends and see if it was worth the premium prices and going out of our way to come back and try more of their product line. we got a couple different rubs and a pumpkin pie spice blend that smelled just awesome. that's what brings me to the pancakes.
we hadn't tried doing much with our gluten-free flour yet, other than using it as a substitute for regular flour for pork schnitzel and chicken fried bacon (not bad, but just not the same). amanda was really excited about the idea of pumpkin spice pancakes, so i looked for a basic gluten-free pancake recipe online. i found this one, which seemed pretty straight forward and didn't use any ingredients i didn't have. i added a tsp of xanthum gum, which is supposed to make recipes using gluten-free flour a bit fluffier and more like recipes using regular flour. for the record, i used milk made from powdered milk, since we don't keep regular milk around, and i used canola oil instead of butter. i also added three tsp of the pumpkin spice mix to make them pumpkin spice pancakes.
i'm happy to say the result was fantastic. the texture wasn't quite like normal fluffy pancakes, but it was very pleasing; kinda doughy, almost like warm, chewy flatbread. the flavor was outstanding. the cinnamon and nutmeg in the spice blend is reminiscent of how i was taught to make french toast and the allspice, cloves, and other spices in the mix give it a really nice and very interesting flavor, obviously hinting towards pumpkin pie. this one is definitely going into our breakfast rotation and we may share it with the in-laws next time we're out in cypress. we also might mix up all the dry ingredients to bring with us and maybe make for my family up in massachusetts over thanksgiving.
here's the ingredient list as we made it:
2 cups of gluten-free flour (i just went with heaping cups instead of dirtying another measuring cup trying to get the extra 1/3)
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder (has corn starch, but we let it go)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp xanthum gum
3 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups of milk (made from powdered milk)
2 tbsp canola oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
we hadn't tried doing much with our gluten-free flour yet, other than using it as a substitute for regular flour for pork schnitzel and chicken fried bacon (not bad, but just not the same). amanda was really excited about the idea of pumpkin spice pancakes, so i looked for a basic gluten-free pancake recipe online. i found this one, which seemed pretty straight forward and didn't use any ingredients i didn't have. i added a tsp of xanthum gum, which is supposed to make recipes using gluten-free flour a bit fluffier and more like recipes using regular flour. for the record, i used milk made from powdered milk, since we don't keep regular milk around, and i used canola oil instead of butter. i also added three tsp of the pumpkin spice mix to make them pumpkin spice pancakes.
i'm happy to say the result was fantastic. the texture wasn't quite like normal fluffy pancakes, but it was very pleasing; kinda doughy, almost like warm, chewy flatbread. the flavor was outstanding. the cinnamon and nutmeg in the spice blend is reminiscent of how i was taught to make french toast and the allspice, cloves, and other spices in the mix give it a really nice and very interesting flavor, obviously hinting towards pumpkin pie. this one is definitely going into our breakfast rotation and we may share it with the in-laws next time we're out in cypress. we also might mix up all the dry ingredients to bring with us and maybe make for my family up in massachusetts over thanksgiving.
here's the ingredient list as we made it:
2 cups of gluten-free flour (i just went with heaping cups instead of dirtying another measuring cup trying to get the extra 1/3)
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder (has corn starch, but we let it go)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp xanthum gum
3 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups of milk (made from powdered milk)
2 tbsp canola oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
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