Dateline: May 24, 2020 THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME BURGER EVER!

I have been browsing in my smoking/barbecuing/grilling cookbooks and came upon this recipe.  I made one or two slight modifications in ingredients, but technique and process was as written.

This particular book, "Smoke and Spice", by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison was one that has sat on my bookshelf for years.  This recipe spoke to me, hence I gave it a whirl.  Oh, man, oh, man, am I ever glad I did.  This had to be the BEST BURGER I have 1) ever made, 2) ever tasted!

I was unable to find a web page with the recipe, so I typed it up.  Apologies to the Jamison's.

Humdinger Hamburgers

This is the way to one-up uppity neighbors who brag about their grilled hamburgers.  Smoking make the ground meat taste like tenderloin.

Wild Willy's Number One-derful Rub 

3 T paprika, I used Hungarian

1 T ground black pepper

1 T smoked salt, (he called for just salt, I used alder smoked sea salt)

1 T brown sugar, (he called for just white sugar)

1.5 t chili powder, (I used chipotle)

1.5 t garlic powder

1.5 t onion powder

1/4 t cayenne, (I left it out because of the chipotle)

2 lb "cheapest grade" ground beef, (I used grass-fed 80-20 as it was all I could get, and used 1 lb for                the two of us)

1/2 medium onion, chopped fine

3 chopped roasted green chiles, (I used a can of Ortega chopped green chiles, 3 T)

1 t air dried shallots (my addition, not in his recipe)

Basic Beer Mop

6 oz beer

1/4 c cider vinegar

1/4 c water

2 T canola or corn oil

1/4 medium onion, chopped

1 garlic clove minced

1.5 t Worcestershire sauce

1.5 t Wild Willy's Rub from above

I did not use the mop, but in the interest of authenticity, I am including their recipe.

About 1 to 2 hours before you plan to barbecue, combine the rub ingredients in a small bowl.  In another bowl, mix together the hamburger, onion, peppers and shallots with your hands.  (Be very gentle with the meat, do not over work or your end product will be dry, my addition).  For the mixture into 4 thick patties and apply the dry rub thoroughly to all surfaces, reserving at least 1.5 t of the spice mixture for the mop.  Cover the patties with plastic and refrigerate them.

Prepare smoker for barbecuing, bringing the temperature to 200° F to 220° F.

Remove the patties from the refrigerator and let them sit at room temperature for 15 minutes.

If you plan to baste the meat, stir the mop ingredients together in a small saucepan and warm over low heat.  

Transfer the patties to the smoker and cook for about 1 hour, mopping every 20 in a wood-burning pit, or as appropriate for your style of smoker.  (I did not mop, used my pellet smoker.)

Serve the burgers on a toasted bun.  Try a bite before reaching for any optional toppings or condiments, all good but less than essential with the richly flavored meat.

(My change up, I seared the burgers in a frying pan when they reached the 135° F mark.)

I thought that this would be okay, enjoyable, but not life changing.  This really was the best burger I have ever eaten.  If you don't have a smoker, then create one and use it in your oven or buy a stovetop one.  You can thank me later!

I had pretzel buns.  Next time I will use potato rolls that are squishier.  It was really tough getting it into our mouths.  The burger is a perfect medium rare all the way through.  It was really juicy and amazingly flavorful.  It had a bit of a spice kick, and that made me happy.  I did put dijon mustard on the bun and nothing else.  Followed it up with a tomato and onion salad.  The recipe made 2 SUBSTANTIAL burgers, one just over 8 oz, and the second just over 10 oz.  You really didn't need anything other than the salad.

This is a true revelation and a keeper of a recipe.  It is fairly easy, but not quick.  Luckily, one can read, power wash the deck, have a drink, or sit in the sun, (perhaps all four).  Let me know via the comments at the end if you tried this and did it ruin all other burger experiences for you!

Dateline: May 23, 2020 Meat Glue and How Delicious You Are!

While my husband and I had a zoom call happy hour with friends, (hello Beth and Rich), I had a chicken on the rotisserie in the oven.  Underneath the chicken was a mix of white and sweet potatoes.

When the call was finished, I checked the temp, the chicken was certainly done, the taters were soft, so it was dinner time.

I cut the chicken up into 8 parts, usually I do 10, but it was a small bird and one breast completely fell apart when I cut it up.  That was sort of 10 parts!

The best part of the meal was the meat glue on my fingers from eating the wings.  OMG, that is some amazing shit.  I made sure to tell Bill to NOT THROW THAT STUFF AWAY BUT STORE IT SEPARATELY FROM THE BONES.

The taters were amazing.  Bill had to move them away from me, or I would still be at the table saying to myself, "just one more and then I will stop."  I rounded out the meal with the left over frenched string beans from last night that never got eaten.  Along with some left over Chianti, I was a happy puppy.

Meat Glue Glossed

Cut up Chicken

String Beans

This meal made me remember why rotisserie chicken is so popular.  It was awesome.  The chicken virtually cut itself apart, and the deliciousness that stuck to my fingers was soooooo good.  Already trying to figure out how to utilize that culinary gold.  You can see my reflection in the spoon!  Hilarious!

Dateline: May 22, 2020 A shrimp walks into a bar and asks the snapper....

Cleaned and dusted with Flour and Cornmeal

First batch frying up

for the snapper, Chettinad Fish Fry

There was an error in the Shrimp recipe that I will tell you about.  After frying the garlic,  draining it, you add the white pepper, black pepper, lime zest, AND SALT.  Proceed as written after that.

Here is the fried garlic, peppers, salt, and lime zest

second batch frying along with celery, garlic and scallions

cilantro, scallions, and celery

Finished product

The tasting came while we were on a zoom phone call with two friends, (Hi Lizzie and Ben).  The flavor was very much spot on, the shrimp were crispy, but not shatteringly so.  I think this was because I was making the snapper and the shrimp had to hang out in the oven for about 20 minutes.

It turned out that the shrimp was plenty for dinner, we each had 6.  Neither of us reaching for the fish, rice or green beans!

I am never quite sure if FreshDirect will provide all the things that I have ordered.  Many times, I get a notice that something was not available.  Last week it was a whole red snapper.  So to cover my bases, I ordered a pound of shrimp in case the snapper went by the wayside.  

Both arrived this morning.  Now I had 2 items that needed to be cooked ASAP.

My friend Jennifer, when I asked her if she had any requests, suggested shrimp or fish.  This was the genesis for the whole fish and shrimp in the order.

For the shrimp I chose to make Typhoon Shelter Shrimp and   

The fish was a bit more complicated.  First you had to create the masala paste, then score the fish and rub with a little bit of salt

The masala paste

Scored and smeared fish

After scoring the fish, smear the paste into all the slits and all over the skin of the fish.  Don't forget getting it into the cavity.  

Starting the fry

the flip 

Finished Product

I can't comment on the fish as we didn't even nibble on it!  I tasted the masala paste at the outset, and discovered that it was on the bitter side.  I added about 2 t agave syrup and 1/2 T of salt.  It tasted much better, still spicy, but more rounded and integrated.  These additions are for 4 times the amount of masala in the attached recipe.

Dateline: May 21, 2020 Turkey Tenderloins, Coated and Grilled

I needed to cook up the last of last week's Fresh Direct order.  That left just the turkey tenderloins.  Instead of smoking them, I am going to grill them.  They have been bagged up with the rub awaiting time to cook.

The Rub

1 T Hungarian paprika

1.5 t mustard powder

1 T brown sugar

1 t Galena Street rub for Chicken from Penzey's

1 t granulated shallots

1 t toasted szechwan pepper corns

1/2 t Hungarian Rib Rub

1 t black pepper

Dry the tenderloins off and coat with some oil.  Mix the ingredients of the rub together and break up any clumps of sugar.  Sprinkle liberally over the tenderloins on all sides and place turkey into a plastic bag in the fridge until ready to grill.

Asparagus grilled as well.

Dressed up awaiting  show time

Jumbled all together

spread out and getting cooked

Beautifully browned turkey

cut and ready for the plate

dessert:  grilled pineapple, yum

I made an additional salad of tomatoes, sweet onion, and red bell pepper dressed with sherry vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper.  It was really delicious!  The pineapple was spectacular, sweet and caramelized slightly, and just softened up a bit.  In a word, yum.

The tenderloins had a lovely crust to them.  The rub also caramelized a bit and the interplay of sweet and spicy was a nice flavor combo with the bland turkey.  The asparagus were dressed with oil, salt, and pepper, before getting up on the grill.  They were delicious as well.

This was a good back pocket recipe.  I will keep the rub and supplement with a bit more salt next time.  I liked the sweet coupled with the spice.  Salt would add an additional layer of savory into that mix.

Dateline: May 20, 2020 Ribs With Rub-A-Dub-Dub

I had ordered a single rack of St. Louis style ribs from FreshDirect, and that is what arrived.  A rack that was maybe as large as a baby back order.  No worries, I was going to rub and smoke today.

The Rub

1 T Hungarian Paprika

1 t chipotle chili powder

1 t ancho chili powder

1 t Galena Street rub from Penzey's

1 t salt

1 T brown sugar

2 t onion powder

2 t garlic powder

1 t black pepper

1 t mustard powder

1 t lemon pepper

Mix together well, especially to blend in the brown sugar.  Hold to the side

The Ribs

Remove the membrane from the back of the ribs.  Rub the rack all over with worcestershire sauce both front and back.  Coat and rub in the rub on both sides and set aside while you start up the smoker.  By the time the smoker is up to temp, the ribs will have developed a wetness to them as the meat absorbs the spices.

Set up your initial temperature to be between 225° and 250° F.  When the smoker is up to temp, add the ribs and close the lid.  Leave it alone for a couple of hours.  Keep in mind the old adage:  If you are looking, you are not cooking.  Monitor the temp to be sure that the smoker doesn't go wacky and shoot up to 300° F.  After about 4.5 hours, flip the orientation of the ribs.  Meaning move the right side to the left, or if you are using a rib rack, top to bottom.  

At about 6 hours, use an instant read thermometer to check that 1) the temp is around 185 - 200° F, along with 2) the bone ends are starting to poke through, 3) when you grab 2 adjacent bones and pull in opposite directions, the meat tears, 4) holding the rack in the center using tongs, it flops in half, threatening to tear in half.  Any 2 of the 4 can indicate cook time is done.

Remove from the smoker and cut into individual ribs.

Sit down and eat!

Check out the smoke ring....corn was smoked too!A

The ribs had a nice chew to them.  The end ribs were a little more done, and had a pleasant crispiness to their edges.  The rub had a wonderful, well, to me, smokey-sweetness to it that was addictive.  I ate more of them than I really needed to!  Followed up with a lovely salad and tonight was a little slice of heaven on earth!

Beet, feta, onion, red bell pepper, tomatoes, and lettuce salad

Dateline: May 17, 2020 Pit Beef and When Will It Be Ready?

Alabama cleaned up.  

Yesterday I pulled my smoking/barbecuing cookbooks down and scrolled through them.  I had a large piece of chuck, between 6 and 7 lbs, that needed cooking and I wanted to smoke it.  The issue was with what flavor profile.  Most of what I saw was meh.  So I decided to check around on the web and found a Serious Eats treatise on smoked chuck roast.

I generously seasoned the roast with salt and pepper and it sits in the smoker at this moment, 9 am, Sunday morning.  I am having the same smoke issues as previously noted, and am trying to solve the problem.  These are dry pellets.

Barely 45 minutes in

smoking tube 

It's now time for yoga so playing with this will have to wait until after that.  

At 11:30

At noon

This is an exciting documentation for me.  I am watching the smoke cover the meat and soon the bark will start to develop.  I put a probe into the meat and it was registering around 140° at 1 pm.  That is 4.5 hours in.  Not a bad place to be.

At 1:00

Little puffer doing ok

I am happy with the smoke production, not sure if it is the smoking tube or the pellets.  In the scope of things, it doesn't really matter!

I will need to prep the potatoes that I am going to smoke and make some cole slaw or some other salad-y accompaniment.  Possibly smoking it too!

Sun dappled and taters.  At 2:40

The meat has been hanging out at 155° for the last 2 hours.  A little too cool for the stall to hit.  I want a nice bark on it and it is starting to develop slowly.

I have been very productive today.  Not only did the meat go into the smoker at 8:15 am, but I planted all the bulbs I had remaining, found a leak in the irrigation system, repackaged the kim chee into mason jars and put into the fridge, and made a margarita base which is chilling in the fridge as well primed for a 5 pm zoom call!  I'm ready for that 'rita now!

I was going to put soil and mulch down today, but with the break in the line, I wanted to be able to find the break easily.  So mulching and soil will have to wait until after the line gets repaired.

At 3:20

At 3:30

At 4:50

At 9:40

Somewhere around 4:50, I wrapped the roast in butcher's paper, and took the potatoes off.  It was clear it was not going to be ready for dinner!  We ordered Indian from a local place, happy to support them in these crazy times.

About 7, I took the roast off the grill, shut the grill down and brought the roast into the apartment.  The oven had been preheating at 220°F and into the oven it went.  At 9:40, I stuck a fork into the meat, it offered no resistance so I removed the paper wrap but the beef on a new sheet pan and put it back into the oven for about 30 minutes to crisp the bark up.  

Looking at the latest 9:40 photo, you can clearly see the grain running up and down.  J. Kenji Lopez-Alt suggests bisecting the roast parallel to the grain and then flip each piece cut side down and slice against the grain for the tenderest meat.  It will certainly be easier doing that than slicing the whole roast against the grain.

There was plenty of juice and fatty drippings all over the removed paper.  That means that the roast is moist and not over cooked.  The last smoking I did, pork shoulder, I went by internal temp and not by tenderness.  Consequently, the meat was a bit dry.  I don't think that will happen here.  The internal temp when unwrapped was 187°F.  

I will rewrap the roast and let it come down to about 140°F before putting it to bed in the fridge.  Tomorrow will be a delicious day.

The meat cooked for 14 hours!  And it smells great!

It's tomorrow!  Yeah, we're going to have smoked meat, we're going to have smoked meat, yeah us, yeah, us!

I can't wait for dinner time.  In fact, I was so excited about dinner, I forgot to eat brekkies! And, it was close to 2 when I realized I hadn't eaten anything yet.  Left over Indian baigan bharta and jeera rice.  Delicious!

I have the components for the smoked potato salad ready.  Chopped green and red things, cucumbers, blanched green beans, cherry tomatoes, red bell pepper, red onion, parsley, and rosemary, in one bag, and in another bag are the smoked taters that have been salted and doused with vinegar.  I will combine into a single entity with some mayo that has been spiced with chipotle and smoked paprika.  My mouth is watering already, and dinner is hours away!

Here is the mixed veggies and salted smoked potato salad

The dressing consists of a couple of tablespoons of mayo, a tablespoon of dijon mustard, 2 teaspoons of the adobo sauce from canned chipotle peppers, 2 big pinches of kosher salt, lots of ground pepper, a couple of tablespoons of white wine vinegar, and half a lemon worth of juice.  Stir together, should be thin in consistency, and pour over salad and mix well to coat everything.

The beef is in the oven I am hoping to warm and crisp it up some.

All warmed up to 140°

Yum

Check out that smoke ring!

This was really good.  The outside barky pieces were chewy, but not too tough.  The inner slices were nice and tender and had enough chew to make it interesting.  Coupled with the potato veggie salad, a meal that is memorable.

Two opposable thumbs up!

Dateline: May 16, 2020 Alabama banished and Pork Tenderloin is in

Today, we cleaned up our little corner of Alabama on our deck in Brooklyn, NY.  We put all the grills, (3, but who is counting?  Oh, my husband is!) into reasonable places and cleaned up the fence, grill areas, and plantings.  The area is able to be used easily, and those things that are necessary for each grill set up are right there next to that grill!  A miracle.

It took us the better part of a sunny afternoon, and we are both a bit sunburnt and a bit loopy.  Me, I'm loopy from a can of Saturday Session Sauvignon Blanc and a killer margarita.  I have adjusted my recipe for the margarita, 2 parts tequila, 1 part triple sec, 1/2 part lime juice, 1/2 part lemon juice, 4 dashes of Fee Brothers Fee Foam in a shaker with ice.  Shake until the whole thing until it sounds full, strain into a glass with new ice, with a float of mezcal on top.  Sit back, enjoy the world going to pot and ponder dinner.

Fuck!  Dinner!  I had 2 smallish pork tenderloins marinating in the fridge.  The marinade was a sliced jalapeno, several cloves of garlic sliced, a thumb of ginger sliced and the remainder of a bottle of vinho verde.  Shake in some ancho chili pepper, some chipotle chili pepper and some lemon pepper and squish all around the tenderloins!  Put in fridge again, and forget about it.

At about 6pm I started the grill up using apple wood pellets and when it got to 350° F I put the meat and unshucked corn on the cob onto the grates.  Closed the lid and walked away to talk to a neighbor.  About 20 minutes later came in to slurp off the margarita, and slowly wandered out to check on the grill.

Everything was going fine, except that I discovered that the hot spot of the grill is to the left, not the right so I switched the meat and corn around.  Closed the lid and walked away to the rest of my margarita!

Meat reached 145°F and I took it off the grill along with the corn.  Set the table, microwaved the broccoli from the other night and dinner was done.  The corn was superb, clearly not local, but absolutely delicious.  When I tasted the meat, the first flavor that hit was jalapeno. After that, came the smoke.  Not much garlic or ginger came through.  It was the grassiness of the jalapeno that I caught, not the spice.

sliced pork tenderloin

reheated broccoli

full plate

I had a second piece of corn and am thinking about going back into the kitchen for the last ear while Bill is on a Zoom call.  Teehee.  Also, it is obvious that I am an around the cob corn eater, not a down the line eater.  Just sayin'.  I have a pineapple, watermelon, apple, or pear waiting for dessert.  Or I could be really bad and eat a spoonful of the, wait for it, dark chocolate hummus.  I had to try it.  It is awesome!  A little on the grainy side because of the beans, but nice and chocolate-y with a slight sweetness.  Tribe brand.

PS:  In case you were wondering, my mod that I did yesterday worked great.  The lavalock welting kept the heat in and the grill running true to temp for the cook.

Dateline: May 15, 2020 Tidal Pool and Farm Field

I just took some pizza dough out of the freezer, homemade, sourdough, no less.  After thinking about what to do with it, I took out a second piece and it is defrosting as I type.

I had a hankering for pizza, but I have no sauce, no mozzarella, no ricotta, so traditional options are off the table.  Of course, I could send the husband-unit out to the store for such things, but prefer not to do that.  So what can I do with pizza in a different direction?  Clam pizza!  And in foraging in the freezer, I found some left over lahmacun.  Problem solved! (Please pardon the self-linkage.)

My concept for the clam pizza is to stretch out the dough when it is thawed, slather it with garlic oil, layer with the chopped clams, cover that with fine threads of pecorino cheese and oregano.  Perhaps a few of the killer cherry tomatoes that I have sitting on the counter?  Cut side up, so as to not water down the clamminess of the pie.  Maybe a little bit more garlic oil mixed with some of the clam juices.  I want to grill it.  I have a pizza ring for my Akorn King Griller and am thinking today maybe the day to take that bad, bad girl out for a test run.

The pizza ring is a stainless steel ring with handles and a slot in the front which is positioned on the grill and theoretically turns it into a pizza oven.  That's the theory, now to test that hypothesis!

With that much air flow going into the grill, it should get screaming hot, just like a pizza oven and the pizza should cook in about 5-ish minutes or so.  Copious testing notes will be made!  No, probably not, I will rely on the blog to help me remember what the hell I did with it!  For the lamhacun, I will attempt it on the aforementioned pizza oven experiment.

As an aside, last night I made a small mod to my pellet grill.  I added some lavalock insulating tape to the edges where the lid meets the grill.  My thought was that the smoker needs this so that the smoke stays in the smoker and exits out only through the smoke chimney. We will see, it needs 24 hours to fully cure.  I have enough tape to redo the rim of the Akorn if the spirit moves me.  Right now, that grill is doing ok.

I know you are dying to know how cheap am I really?  Well, the lump charcoal that got wet over the winter is slowly drying out and when I grilled another chicken last night, I know, too much chicken, but with the Cov-id meat issues, it was all I could get hold of, anyway, it was not as stinky, in fact, not stinky at all.  What came through was the citrus in the Peruvian marinade that FreshDirect puts on their prepped chicken.  It was really tasty.  A possible explanation for last night's positive outcome was that I let the grill get up to 400° F before adjusting the vents down.  It maintained a lovely 400°-425° F for the entire cook, without much wavering!  That chicken was cooked perfectly in about 40-45 minutes.

What to serve with these experiments?  A salad is always nice, maybe some shishito peppers blistered on the said same grill?  Maybe for dessert some grilled pineapple, or grilled watermelon!  All of the fruit will need to be inspected as to its ripeness and suitability for grilling.  The possibilities abound!

Here we go with tonight's dinner:

Pancetta

First off, I cleaned and sauteed the mushroom and pancetta.

'Shrooms

Then I went out to the grill and started a roaring fire.  I put in the pizza ring, and realized that it was not going to get screaming hot anytime this century, so I took it out and opened the vents and closed the lid.  While I waited for the grill to heat up, I rolled out the dough on a grill mat.  My thinking was that it would be easier to manipulate and to get in and out if it was on something and not just dough stuck to grates.

dough flecked with garlic oil

This, above, is sourdough pizza dough that has been dappled with garlic oil and bits of fine garlic. 

On the right, is a bit of crisped up pancetta that I will sprinkle about on top of the pizzas

mushrooms, sauteed

crisped up pancetta

I considered putting raw mushrooms on the pizza, but opted to sautee them in a bit of garlic and olive oil.

 To the left, is the pre-fired clam pie.  Under the shroud of pecorino cheese are 2 drained cans of chopped clams and fresh oregano leaves.  The cloud of cheese is then topped with some pancetta, hot pepper flakes, thinly sliced fresh garlic, and black pepper.

The second pie, was an amalgamation of left over lahmacun, sauteed mushrooms, pancetta, and garlic oil.

The clam pie went into the oven first.  When I got outside the grill had climbed to 800°F, so the pizza would cook very, very fast.  I opened up the grill put the ring into place and closed the lid.  I now had to wrestle the grill mat into the opening with tongs and watch it carefully.  As the clam pizza was bubbling away, I checked the bottom and it was really getting scorched.  I slid it off the mat onto the grill grates and kept peeking.  It was obvious that the bottom was going to become cinderized if I didn't get it off immediately. 

Onto a sheet pan and into the house.  I got the torch from the closet and got the spinach leaves ready and I torched the top side to cook the crust and brown the top some.  I was afraid that the dough would be quite raw in the center, but it was not.

Next went the lahmacun and mushroom pie into the oven with a more modest layer of pecorino on top.  This one too, quickly got charred on the bottom, and removed quickly and torched.

Out of the balance of the spinach that I washed, a chopped cucumber, 3 scallions, and a handful of cherry tomatoes rounded out the salad going with the meal.  I dressed the salad with lemon juice and left over garlic oil.

Lahmacun + Mushroom Pie

I think next time, I will put the pies onto the grill from the top, rather than thru the small opening at grate level.

Secondly, I will put a pizza stone on the grill and cook on that rather than on the grates or on a mat on the grates.

Thirdly, the flavors of both pies were outstanding.  The cinnamon in the lahmacun gave the pizza an interesting taste profile.  Not Italian, shifting further south into a blending with the Mideast perhaps.  I had never had a pizza like that before.  The clam pie was not clammy enough for me.  I think that was because I did not put any of the clam juice on the pie for fear that it would get soggy.  Visually, the spinach added something, but flavor wise it brought nothing to the party.

I would urge people to give the Lahmacun pie a try.  The mushrooms takes it away from its Turkish roots, into a more Mediterranean tasting experience.  Loved both pies and will continue to try to perfect grilling a pizza as the season progresses.