Reverse Seared Cowboy Steak Sandwich

This sandwich defies a bit of conventional wisdom. 

Instead of throwing the steaks over rocket hot flames for a few minutes per side, I used the “reverse sear”. The “reverse sear” is a technique championed by Chris Finney where you slow roast the meat first and THEN sear it at the end. Reverse searing gives the most evenly cooked steaks I have had.

I received a free sample of McCormick's Grill Mates Cowboy Rub, one of their new flavors for 2011. It is an audacious rub with ground chilies, garlic, onion and other seasonings. It has a touch of coffee in it which may sound weird but that has been a big trend in beef rubs. I dislike coffee as a drink. However, a hint of ground coffee in a beef rub brings out a rustic edge to your steaks and I like it.

Are you ready for this? I cooked it on the gas grill side of my Smoke Hollow grill combo unit. Yes, I used a gasser. My Big Green Egg friends are laughing at me right now, but 70% of Americans that grill use a gas grill. I just want to show that you can replicate the techniques of what I do on my Big Green Eggs on other types of grills.

Reverse Seared Cowboy Steak Sandwich

source: www.nibblemethis.com

serves: 4

4 teaspoons McCormick's Grill Mates Cowboy Rub (divided)

½ cup mayonnaise

1 1/2 Tablespoons steak sauce

2 ea strip steaks, 1” thick

8 slices French bread, about ½ thick and cut at a sharp angle

8 slices manchego cheese

4 leaves green leaf lettuce

Mix together the mayonnaise, steak sauce and 2 teaspoons of the Cowboy Rub in a small bowl. Let it chill in the refrigerator.

Rub the steaks with the remaining 2 teaspoons of the Cowboy Rub. Use a little more if needed to cover the entire steaks.  Let the steaks rest for about 30 minutes at room temperature.

Flavor you can see.  I like the coarse texture of this rub.

Set your grill up for an indirect cook at 250f. For a gas grill, this would be turning on one burner at one end and leaving the others off. Adjust the single burner until your cooking temp is 250f. 

Only the burner on the far right is on and it is on low.  The pan & rack rig was not needed after all.

Slow roast the seasoned steaks at the other end of the grill (thus “indirect) with the lid closed until the steaks hit an internal temperature of 125f. This took about 40 minutes for mine but cook according to the internal temperature, not time. Don't worry, the steaks will not look done at this point.

Now sear the steaks for just about a minute per side. For charcoal, you would just move them from the indirect to direct heat. For gas grills, crank up the burner to high for a few minutes with the lid open and then move the steaks over the direct heat.

I used the Smoke Hollow's sear burner.  Worked great!

Remove the steaks from the grill and let them rest for at least 10 minutes. Meanwhile toast the bread slices on the grill.

Slice the steaks as thinly as you can. Try not to eat it all while slicing...it's for the sandwiches.

Medium rare all the way through. 

Top one piece of toast with lettuce and two slices of the manchego cheese. Add one fourth of the sliced steak. Top with another piece of toast that has been slathered with the Cowboy mayonnaise. Repeat for the other three sandwiches.

Biting through the crisp toast into the tender steak is Nirvana. The tang of the bold mayo and the hint of saltiness from the manchego cheese balance each other. We've made this three times and it is even better when the steaks are grilled over coals and oak.

Fire Roasted Chicken Enchiladas

You can do this recipe 100% in your kitchen and without a grill. Just insert the word “oven” or "stove top" every time you see “grill”.

Sure you'll lose out on the smoky flavor but it's more than that. You are missing out on the experience of cooking out doors while the sun is setting, the cicadas are singing their summer song, and all of your neighbors are outside soaking up life.

Like the Kingsford commercial says, “Slow down and grill.”

We served these with the Texas Ranchero style of Bush's Grillin' Beans, a perfect match. Earlier this year I did a sponsored post with Bush's and I had to do the standard “FTC disclaimer”. Well that was over months ago and now I can say freely, I love Bush's Grillin' Beans, no disclaimer required. They really are my favorite beans.

Fire Roasted Chicken Enchiladas

2 Tbsp unsalted butter

1 cup onion, finely diced (I used a mix of red and yellow onion)

¾ cup red bell pepper, finely diced

¼ cup diced fresh chilies (see note)

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups chicken, shredded or chopped (leftover grilled chicken works the best)

2 ea green onion, chopped

2 Tbsp cilantro, fresh chopped

½ cup Monterrey jack cheese, shredded

White Enchilada Sauce Ingredients

3 Tbsp unsalted butter

¼ cup all-purpose flour

2 cups chicken broth

¾ tsp chili powder

¾ tsp kosher salt

¼ tsp cumin, roasted

¼ tsp coriander

½ cup Locust Grove Farms La Mancha cheese (the best American manchego cheese)
1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup Monterrey jack cheese, shredded

10 ea fajita size flour tortillas

Preheat your grill to 350f.

Heat a skillet over medium-high heat and add 2 Tbsp of butter. Saute the red and yellow onion, bell pepper, and chilies for 5 minutes or until tender. 

NOTE: I used a blend of mild and medium heat chilies from my local farmers market. Use a blend of chilies that suits the heat level you like. If it is offseason, you can use a 4 ounce can of green chilies. You'll need twice the amount to get the same flavor of fresh.

Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Take off heat and let cool for another minute.

In a large bowl, add the veggie mixture, chicken, green onion, cilantro and ½ cup Monterrey jack cheese. This will the filling for your enchiladas.

Using the same skillet from before, add and melt the 3 Tbsp butter. Whisk together with the flour for 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly. Be careful not to let it burn.

Slowly add the chicken broth, whisking until blended. Bring to a simmer. Remove from heat and add the spices and manchego cheese, whisk until blended. You might have carpal tunnel syndrome by now. Quit whining and keep whisking. Now add the sour cream and....yes, whisk until blended.

Add ½ cup of this enchilada sauce to the filling and toss to coat.

Take a tortilla and dip in the rest of the enchilada sauce. Top with about 1/3^rd cup of the filling. Roll up and place seam side down in a 9 x 13” stoneware. Repeat until you have all the enchiladas rolled.

Ladle the remaining sauce over the enchiladas and scrape any goodies left in the filling bowl on top. Sprinkle with the last of the cheese.

Fire roast the dish over indirect heat for 35 minutes, uncovered. 

TIP FOR BIG GREEN EGG folks:  The plate setter does provide indirect cooking but if you put a pan directly on it, you will have conductive AND convective heat so the bottom gets hotter, quicker.  Use some kind of spacer between the plate setter and pan to minimize the conductive heat.  I just use some stainless chain links.  Egg "feet" work great too.  

It is done when it is all melted together, bubbling, and the exposed edges of the tortilla are starting to turn crispy brown. 

Garnish with sour cream, green onion, and cotija cheese.

[Standard Disclaimer]

No compensation was received for this post from any mentioned companies, brands, or varieties.

Grilled Peppers and Sausage with Cheese Grits

The smell of sausages, onions, and peppers grilling over coals is hard to resist.

Whether at a festival or in your own back yard, the aroma created by the roasting veggies and the rendered fat dripping onto the sizzling red hot coals below is captivating. So when I saw this recipe in the July issue of Southern Living I knew I had to try it. 

Grilled Peppers and Sausage with Cheese Grits

I'm not going to post my adaptation of the recipe because the only things I did different were

1. Used a blend of green bell pepper and red ancient sweet peppers
2. Used mild Italian sausage instead of “garlic pork sausage” but I added some grilled garlic

So if you want the recipe, click here: Southern Living's Grilled Peppers and Sausage with Cheese Grits.

It was sooooo hot and humid out when I started grilling at noon....

[Audience: “How hot was it?”]

….that even the vegetables were sweating!

I started my coal and got my Big Green Egg going at 400f. While the grill came to temp, I cut the veggies and tossed them in the oil and herbs.

I ended up adding more thyme than the 1 tsp the recipe indicated.

I leave them veggie pieces in big 2” sizes like this to make them easier to handle on the grill. Less pieces to flip and less likely to fall through the grill grates. I cut them in half diagonally after they cook.

I also butterfly the sausages lengthwise so they cook more evenly all the way through. I find at 400f, 8 minutes total time is perfect. I flip every two minutes during that time. 

When they are finished grilling, it's hard not to just skip everything else and just eat these on hoagie rolls!

Served over the basil cheese grits...

The dish was “pretty good”. There was nothing wrong with it, it just wasn't WOW.  I mean how can you go wrong with sausage peppers and onions? Well, I guess you could go wrong by using quick cooking grits like the recipe called for.  

Damn! If quick cooking grits are what you “Ewww I hate grits” people tried, I don't blame you. I'd hate them too! I know Southern Living was including this under Quick Fix Suppers but this would be so much better using proper stone ground grits. The grits portion of this dish was underwhelming.

I'd also like some type of sauce to marry the sausage and peppers to the grits. I'm spoiled by Puleo's Grille and their Shrimp and Grits which is similar to this dish, except they add shrimp, real grits, and a tasso gravy that is so addicting that it should be classified as a narcotic. Or maybe just tossing the grilled ingredients with a creole butter at the end would have pulled the two components together better.

Anyway, like I said, not a bad recipe. But when I make it again, I'll make those two changes.

Smoke Hollow Smoker-Grill-Sear Combo Unit

I got a new cooker this week – a Smoke Hollow combo unit.

It's going out on the deck as soon as I get a cover for it.

I know, I know, like I need another grill. But look at it this way – I'm consolidating. This is replacing the two Brinkmann units that have been living in my garage for 2 years. So I am actually going from 6 grills to 5.

Rod from Florida asked me last week, if I have two Big Green Eggs, the “world's best smoker/grill/oven” why do I need anything else? It's a great question. I don't NEED anything else. But here's why I like using other grills at times:

• Nostalgia – I learned to smoke on a cantankerous offset smoker and it's fun to revisit that.
• Challenge – I like the skills test of handling fire management on other cookers.
• Readers – I don't want people thinking, “I can't cook that, I don't have a Big Green Egg.”

Why the Smoke Hollow?

I looked at other gas/charcoal smoker units such as the Char-griller and Brinkmann models but chose the Smoke Hollow for quality and design reasons. I liked the larger size of the Smoke Hollow's fire box (which came included, not an add on purchase like the other two). The charcoal tray in the grill is adjustable, giving another level of heat control besides just the vents.

Assembly

I have to give major kudos to the folks at Outdoor Leisure Products because despite having a lot of parts, this was one of the easiest assembly jobs I have done. The screws/bolts/nuts were in a blister pack and plainly identified. Everything was labeled to avoid confusion.  They designed it to be easy to put together by doing little things like using one size/type of bolt 90% of the time. The instructions are clearly written, easy to understand and get this...in real English. I put this together by myself in 2 hours at a leisurely pace and with minimal inadvertent swear words.

First Run

You have to season new cookers by coating the interior with a coat of oil and burning a medium hot fire for an hour.

The fire box is much more spacious than the SnP.  Using peach logs and coal here.

I had 4 almost empty bags of different types of Kingsford.  Used them all! 

About halfway through the burn in, I couldn't bear to let it waste all that heat for nothing so I threw on some Italian sausage, onion, and peppers for a quick, tasty dinner. 

Initial Impressions

I like the quality of the unit and how it cooked the first time.  The charcoal grill runs like I expected. I think the fire box is going to handle small logs and split wood easily.  The sear burner gets HOT almost instantly. It gives me plenty of options for cooking for a crowd. This is an upgrade from my two Brinkmann units that it replaced.

There are two modifications I will make.

1. I plan to install a Rutland or similar gasket around the lid of the grill/smoker chamber to close the air gap between the base and lid. It doesn't matter while grilling so much but would be an issue when smoking.
2. Seal the two 1/4” openings at the base of the grill/smoker chamber on the left side where it meets the gas unit. I'm just going to put a small ball of JB Weld there.

I'm happy with our purchase and know I will enjoy using the Smoke Hollow cooker. 

[Standard Disclaimer] We bought ours at Sam's Club for full price.  I kept waiting for them to lower the price later in the season but they got down to two units so I pulled the trigger.

Review: Draper's BBQ Smokin' Sauce

This might surprise some of you but I rarely make my own BBQ sauces.   In fact I am bit of a sauce ho.

I do make my own pulled pork sauce and my mustard sauce, but I generally use prepared sauces for other things.   I have about a dozen open sauces in my fridge right now. Alexis picks up sauces (usually based on the names), I buy them at festivals, and I get people sending me samples. 

So the last thing I need to be doing is ordering sauces by mail. But that's what I did last week. I had been hearing so much about Shane Draper's BBQSmokin' Sauce from folks on the forums and BBQ circuit that I had to try it.

I bought a bottle of the rub and sauce online and was amazed to receive it 36 hours later. Turns out Shane lives across the state line from us and was rushing to get his holiday weekend orders out so his customers would have them in time. The small sauce bottlers are all about quality and customer service.

I tested the rub and sauce out on your average yard bird this weekend. I seasoned the spatchcocked chicken with a good dose of Draper's A.P. Rub. 

Then I gave the bird a little over an hour of “applied charcoal therapy” bone side down over a 325f fire on a raised grill grate (8-9” from the heat source).

I mopped the chicken every 10-15 minutes with a mop mixture made of...

½ cup cider vinegar

½ cup Draper's BBQSmokin' Sauce

½ cup beer

1 tsp Draper's A.P. Rub

1 splash hot sauce

When the bird reached an internal temp of 150f, I brushed some straight Smokin' Sauce onto it and let it finish out to 160f.

The aroma of the sauce cooked on to the chicken filled the house as I brought it in to rest. I didn't even have to call Trevor upstairs to come eat, the smell brought him down.

The sauce's consistency is thicker than the vinegary Carolina style sauces but thinner than the corn syrup laden commercial sauces on your grocery store aisles. Cooked on to the chicken it was right where it needed to be.

When I tasted the sauce by itself earlier, I thought it had too strong of a fruity and tomato flavor. But when it was grilled with the meat I think it had just the right balance of sweet, smoky, and a small bit of heat. I've also tried this on brisket and I liked it even better on beef.

I can't say how Draper'sBBQ Smokin' Sauce and AP Rub will do used in a competition since that's not my gig. But it works great in the back yard.

[Standard Disclaimer] blah blah blah, the usual.  I have no affiliation and get no compensation from Drapers' BBQ and paid full price for the sauce and rub.  

Master Forge Wireless Thermometer

Remote probe thermometers are a vital tool for barbecuing and roasting large cuts of meat. Unlike instant read thermometers, these units stay in the meat during the cook and give you constant readings of the internal temperature.

Unfortunately, the hail storm at the end of April broke my drawer containing my remote probe units and all of them were ruined by the rain. I recently purchased my first replacement, a Master Forge Wireless Thermometer (Model0023557). Master Forge is Lowe's Home Improvement Stores' brand of grills and grilling accessories. I purchased it for $29.99 which is about $10 more than the usual wired models I have bought in the past.

Here's what you get for $30.

So far I have used it about 28 service hours. I have used it for bbq and roasting pork butts, brisket, chicken, and beef roasts. It is early but I have formed some initial impressions of this unit. 

• It registers accurate temps. I double check with my Thermapen at the end of cooking.
• It works within the 100ft range advertised. I can leave my grill and get readings on the receiver anywhere in my house, even on the second floor.
• It has a braided wire lead to the probe. The plain braided leads be used in higher cooking temps. Several cheaper units have plastic or rubber sheaths around the cable but those are typically limited to cooking temps below 400f.
• The pre-programmed settings are useless to me, I just use the manual programming mode to set the target temps. For example, the lowest preprogrammed target for pork is 160f. That is pork dust if you are doing a pork loin.
• Battery life is okay so far.
• I like the styling and size of the unit. The downside is that it is the size and shape of a smart phone so be careful not to try to answer your thermometer when your phone rings :)

Love the portability of the wireless receiver.

This seems to be a good unit and I am satisfied with it so far.  It works as promoted.

For about $5 dollars more and plus shipping, I could have bought a Maverick ET-73, the gold standard for remote probe thermometers. That unit includes a dual probe so you can monitor the meat temp AND the cooking temp. I'll get one of those too, it was just easier to buy the Master Forge unit since it was readily available at Lowes.

UPDATE:  I have gone through two of these units and found they aren't durable.  Both have developed quirks, such as displaying some temps as Celsius when the actual temperature shown is actually in Fahrenheit, display blanking out, and locking up.  Others have reported not being able to get any support for this unit in terms of replacement parts or assistance despite it being Lowes store brand.  I would recommend that you look at other units than the Master Forge. 

[Standard Disclaimer]

Fire Roasted Beef Tenderloin

Have you ever made one of those recipes where at the beginning, you question the quantities of on or more ingredients? And then during the process, you question the quantities of on or more ingredients?

Roasted Beef Tenderloin with Smoky Tomato-Chili Salsa from Wolfgang Puck's Live, Love, Eat! was one of those for me last week. The quantities of the liquids for the salsa seemed ridiculously out of proportion. Fortunately, Alexis and I adjusted on the fly and ended up salvaging the salsa by adding more chunky ingredients to balance out the soupy mess into a reasonable salsa.

The end result was a buttery tender beef roast and a flavor filled salsa that were a food marriage made in heaven.

Perhaps there was a conversion error when they were writing the book. Maybe they just had huge roma tomatoes. Either way, Puck can cook circles around me and it is still a good cook book. I've had it for 5 years or so and everything else I have made from it has been quite good. 

Here is what we ended up doing.

Fire Roasted Beef Tenderloin with Smoky Salsa

Inspired by Live, Love, Eat! By Wolfgang Puck

2 lb beef tenderloin roast (I used a center cut section)

1 Tbsp Dead End BBQ beefrub (sub 1.5 tsp salt, 1 tsp black pepper, ½ tsp garlic powder)

10 small Roma tomatoes, cored

1 small onion, sliced

2 ea chipotle, seeded and diced

½ cup basil, chopped

6 cloves garlic

¼ cup lime juice

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

2 tsp sugar

2 tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

½ cup olive oil

Prepare grill for direct heat at 400f or medium high heat. Roast the tomatoes, onion slices and garlic, turning every few minutes until the onions are tender and the tomatoes and garlic are blackened and blistered. Remove from heat and let cool. Cut your grill heat to 250f and set up for indirect heat.

Veggies fresh from our garden.

Don't freak out if they split.

Use a cocktail toothpick to make grilling garlic easy.

Meanwhile, whisk the lime juice, balsamic vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper together. Slowly add in the oil while you continue to whisk.

Chop the veggies once cooled. Add the chipotle and basil, tossing to mix. Add the liquid mixture until you have the consistency you want for the salsa.

Rub your beef tenderloin with the beef rub and cook over indirect heat (250f as previously noted) until it reaches the internal temperature for the degree of doneness you want. I wanted medium rare so I was shooting for 125f to 130f. This took almost exactly one hour on my Big Green Egg but go by temps, not times.

Change your grill to a direct heat set up and bring the grill heat to 450-500f. Now grill the roast directly over the heat source for about 1 minute per side just to get a darker browning for the outer crust. Let rest for at least 15 minutes. I had a little of the liquid left from the salsa mix and brushed it on as a glaze during the rest.

Slice and serve with the salsa.

We annihilated this dish. There was NOTHING left between the four of us. The salsa is not your normal tomato salsa since it uses basil instead of cilantro and has balsamic vinegar added.  But it is perfectly paired with the normally bland but tender beef fillet. It acts more as a "sauce-ah" than a salsa.

The benefit of the “reverse sear” technique is obvious in the picture above.  Instead of having varying degrees of doneness, the roast is medium rare almost all the way through.

So back to my question, have you ever had one of those recipes where you just KNEW one of the quantities was wrong before you started?

Don't forget, if you need ideas or recipes for the grill this 4th of July - check out Grilling.com.