Fire Roasted Asian Chicken

This dish is based on an adaptation of Asian Ginger Spice Paste from Joy Of Cooking (the much maligned 1997 version). Joy of Cooking is one of my favorite cookbooks and is the standard of which I judge other cookbooks because of the information and technique it provides as opposed to just recipes.

I had to make some substitutions because I didn't know of any Spice Girls cover bands from Asia (Get it? "Asian Ginger Spice"? Ahhh forget it. It was funnier when I said it in my head.).

Fire Roasted Asian Chicken [Printable Recipe]


Ingredients
3 ea Chicken breast bone in, skin on
1/4 cup Ginger fresh, peeled, minced
1/8 cup Sesame Oil
1/8 cup Vegetable oil
1/4 cup Cilantro fresh, chopped, (optional)
1/4 cup Basil fresh, chopped
1/4 cup Mint fresh, chopped
3 ea Red chili dried, seeded, chopped
1 tablespoon Kosher Salt
1 tablespoon White pepper

Instructions
Mix all ingredients except the chicken into a paste. If you like heat, use a coarse mince of the ginger and include the red chili seeds. Otherwise, finely mince or grind the ginger and exclude the pepper seeds.

Lift the skin and work some of the paste under the skin of each breast. Working a seasoning under the skin is a fantastic tip for poultry.
Don't be afraid, get on in there!Also rub some on top and then let marinate refrigerated for 4-6 hours.Prepare a grill to 350f with direct and indirect heat zones. Grill the breasts skin side down over direct heat for 5 minutes.

Flip the breast skin side up and place over indirect heat. Let them roast at 350f until they register an internal temp of 160f. This took about 40 minutes, but go by temp, not time.Remove and let them rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Serving tip: Breasts are huge! I mean bone in chicken breasts. This is because they also include the tenderloin piece of meat. It's much more meat than your standard "boneless, skinless chicken breast". We often split one breast half for two servings. But if you do this, split immediately before serving so the juices don't all run out.

But since you guys didn't click off of this post after the horrible pun that I started with, I'll throw in a side dish at no extra cost (if'n you call now, operators are standing by, texting charges may apply, one order per household, must be 18 or older to order).

Chris' Teriyaki Carrots [printable recipe]Ingredients
5 ea Carrot peeled, cut into 1/8 to 1/4 inch slices
1/2 ea Red chili finely diced, seeded
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 1/2 teaspoons butter
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon Rice wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1-2 tablespoon Teriyaki sauce

Instructions
Melt butter over medium high heat in a saute pan. Add chicken stock, brown sugar, rice wine vinegar, salt, and pepper. Mix in the carrots and red pepper. For the red pepper I used a red hungarian wax pepper that I seeded and finely diced.

Cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until carrots are tender. Drain liquid and return carrots to pan.

Add teriyaki, toss, and simmer for another 2-3 minutes.

Peppered Beef Tenderloin with Portobello Marsala Sauce

This recipe was originally posted in Southern Living magazine in 2005 and we have made it a half dozen times. It is a relatively easy dish to prepare and it works well in the oven or on a grill. The tenderness of the beef and flavor of the marsala sauce have never failed to impress our guests. (Here it is served with parmesan roasted asparagus and garlic mashed potatoes last night.)

Portobello Marsala Sauce
8 ounce Baby portobello mushrooms sliced
3 tablespoon Butter divided
3 cloves Garlic minced
2 ea Shallot diced
2 cups Marsala wine
1 cup Chicken broth

Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a medium skillet over high heat; add mushrooms, and sauté 10 minutes or until mushrooms are browned and liquid is evaporated. Add 1 tablespoon butter, garlic, and shallots to skillet; sauté 5 minutes.

Stir in Marsala and chicken broth, stirring to loosen browned bits from bottom of skillet. Bring to a boil, and cook 20 minutes or until reduced by two-thirds. Remove from heat, and stir in remaining 1 tablespoon butter.

*1 (8-ounce) package sliced button mushrooms may be substituted.

Yield: Makes 1 1/2 cups

Peppered Beef Tenderloin with Portobello Marsala Sauce
2 teaspoon Pepper fresh ground
1 teaspoon Salt kosher
1 teaspoon Lemon pepper
1/4 teaspoon Granulated garlic
1/4 teaspoon Thyme dried
4 pounds Beef tenderloin trimmed
Portobello-Marsala Sauce see recipe above

Ask your butcher to trim the tenderloin, or do it yourself. Use a sharp, thin knife to cut away the top layer of fat and the thin (about 2-inch-wide) membrane called silver skin.

Garnishes: fresh thyme sprigs, roasted garlic bulbs

Combine first 5 ingredients; pat mixture evenly over beef. Cover and stand at room temperature 30 minutes.

Broil 6 inches from heat 15 minutes on a lightly greased rack in a roasting pan; reduce oven temperature to 375°, and bake 30 to 35 minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted into thickest portion registers 140° or to desired degree of doneness.

Remove from oven; let stand 10 minutes before slicing.

Serve with Portobello-Marsala Sauce (BigOven recipe 163395). Garnish, if desired.

Yield: Makes 6 to 8 servings

Cybil Brown Talley, Atlanta, Georgia
Southern Living, NOVEMBER 2005

Here are my changes/tips:
I like to use the butt end of the tenderloin with the "chain of bull" still attached. Normally you remove this side piece when trimming in fillet mignon, but since this is a roast, I wanted to keep some of the fat content. I did trim off the silver skin and excess pieces of fat, just not the whole strip. I cut the other 2/3rds into fillets.
Tie your roast for even cooking as shown above. Yes I know just three posts or so ago I was telling you to flatten your meat for even cooking and now I'm telling you to tie it to keep it round for even cooking. The difference is direct vs indirect cooking. In direct, all of your heat is coming from one direction as shown on the left, so if your meat is flat, it will be heated evenly. In indirect , heat is bouncing around and reflecting from all sorts of directions, so you want a more round "target" (your meat) so that heat will hit all surfaces somewhat evenly. (Nice graphic, huh? :) I spent a whole 5 minutes making it.)If doing on a grill, SEAR the roast at 600f for 60-90 seconds a side. Believe it or not, the string will not burn. Then cut the temp to 400-425f and ROAST the meat indirect until it hits your target temp. I'd estimate the roasting time at about 40 minutes, but I was watching the thermometer, not the clock.

The recipe calls for 140f internal which will be medium by the time it rests, because even after taking it off the grill, it will cook to at least 145f. I pulled ours at 135f and let it rest where it rose to 140f. This gave us some medium rare in the middle and the ends were more on the medium side of medium rare.
Wood: I used Jack Daniels Oak chips, which is my normal wood for beef like chuck roasts and briskets. I didn't really care for it with this cut, it was a bit strong. Next time I'll stick with plain lump coal.

Slice it and serve topped with the marsala sauce. Delicious stuff!

Alexis Cooks: Italian Sausage Fettucine

I love my wife.

I often joke that she's my sous chef, but in actuality, she's more like the general manager here at the "Cafe on The Grove". I might get the people saying "Oh you're such a good cook" but she's the one setting up the kitchen, stocking the pantry, tending the garden, and serving our guests (kids). In all honesty, I've got the easier part of the deal.

But tonight, she got to play Executive Chef and pulled it off perfectly. Rock on, Alexis! We've made this before but tonight the addition of the fresh herbs and pepper just nailed it.
Italian Sausage Fettuccine

Ingredients
5 ea Italian sausage
1 ea yellow onion
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Salt to taste
2 teaspoons parsley (subbed 2 T of fresh basil and oregano)
1 pinch cayenne
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons butter
2 teaspoons flour
2 cups milk (subbed 1 c milk, 1 cup half and half)
12 ounces fettuccine (subbed vermicelli instead)
added a finely diced red hungarian wax pepper

The herb substitutions helped make this dish tonight, IMO.

Instructions
Make a white sauce by melting the 2 T butter and whisking in the flour. Cook a few minutes and then add the milk or in our case, the milk and half and half. Continue to stir until thickened.

Start the water and boil the pasta. We found that we liked the vermicelli instead of the normal fettuccine. It goes well with this dish, but so would rigatoni or penne.

In another pan, crumble and brown the Italian sausage. We used sweet, but use mild or hot to suit your tastes. As the meat starts to brown, throw in the diced onion and continue cooking until onions are translucent and sausage is cooked through. Add the diced pepper.

Add the garlic powder, herbs, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper to the meat mixture, mixing well together. Toss the meat mixture with the white sauce and simmer while fettuccine is cooking.

Drain and rinse fettuccine. Ladle the meat and sauce mixture over the hot fettuccine.

It's been an hour since dinner and I still feel stuffed. I am a bear that his been hit my a tranquilizer dart on Animal Planet. This dish is just like Alexis, amazing and all kinds of good!

Roadside Chicken

Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because he heard about "roadside chicken".

I mean who hasn't? I've been hearing people rave about "roadside chicken" in BBQ forums for years but I never tried it. I feel like I'm the last person to get in on an inside joke.

There are basically two versions.
The Virtual Weber Bulletin Board version posted 4 years ago and has some 400+ comments and the Rick Bayless version. I tried the VWBB version this weekend and it was fantastic. Here it is as originally posted.Here are the quick things I did and my impressions:

• Substituted cider vinegar for white vinegar and added 1 teaspoon of dried oregano.
• Doubled the recipe for 1 spatchcocked chicken instead of doing individual pieces of chicken.
• Cooked the bird skin side down directly over a 350f fire for 5 minutes and then flipped it switched to indirect heat (plate setter on the Egg) at the same temp. It took about another hour and 20 minutes to reach 175f internal temp in the thigh (or 160f internal in the breast)
  
• Only splashed with the mix about every 20 minutes instead of every 5 as noted since (1) I am using the Big Green Egg, which minimizes moisture loss and (2) cooking a whole bird instead of pieces.
  

The results:
The yardbird restingPlated with mexican rice and corn on the cob with chili lime butterI cut a breast in half so you can see how juicy it isWe will definitely make this again. It's as good as any of the smoked, roasted or grilled chickens we have done and that is high praise. It had a tongue ratcheting flavor profile.

But it just reinforced in my mind that the ingredients are only one part of the recipe. When it comes to BBQ or really any type of cooking, your ingredients might be perfect but if your technique is lacking, the results will be marginal.

I think that is why so many bbq folks are so open and sharing with their recipes. They know that just having an ingredient list does NOT make one a pit master. The flavor comes from the ingredients but the texture, juiciness, and crispiness of the skin comes from mastery of your cooking*. That only comes with practice, practice, and a little bit more practice.

That's why I keep practicing. I haven't mastered it yet. But I do think I'm pretty damn good:)

*I guess this make's Plankton's obsession with stealing the secret recipe for the Krusty Krab's Crabby Patty a moot point if he doesn't have Sponge Bob's cooking expertise, right?

French Toast Fatty Sandwiches

I just made an obscenely good breakfast. It's probably even illegal in California. You'll have to forgive the picture quality, it was early and a bit overcast this morning.

First I smoked a fatty, which is simply a 1 lb breakfast sausage (I like Jimmy Dean Sage) rolled in some BBQ rub and then smoked about 90 minutes. That by itself is a treat. Once you have it smoked, you'll never be happy with fried sausage patties again.
While it was smoking, I made a compound butter. I used 8 tablespoons of butter, 3 tablespoons of maple syrup, and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract (real, not imitation). I could only get Grade A maple syrup, but I prefer Grade B, it's actually better IMO.
Mix the softened butter, syrup and vanilla together. You can whip it (when a butter comes along....you must whip it! Devo cooks) but I just mashed it with a fork. I put it on a piece of plastic wrap and rolled it back into a log. It only took about 30 minutes in the fridge to harden.

Once the fatty was done, I made french toast on the Big Green Egg using a cast iron grill plate that I bought at Lowes Home Improvement 2 years ago.
The egg bath for the bread is 4 eggs, 1/2 c milk, 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and cinnamon.

I put it all together....Can you say scrumpdillyicious?There, I knew you could.

Have a great week everyone!

Product Review: Jack Daniels Whiskey Barrel Charcoal

I don't care for whiskey. I had a bad experience with Southern Comfort when I was about 18 that left me literally crawling home from a neighbor's house. It seemed fun at the time but I could never drink it again after that.

I've never even had Jack Daniels, but when I smoke with oak chips, my absolute favorite is Jack Daniels oak barrel chips. When you open the bag, the nonintoxicating sweet smell of mash hits you. It produces a fragrant smoke that is great with beef. I even use it when grilling, despite the limited amount of contact time with the meat. I think I just like the smell, to be honest with you:) These are generally available at grocery stores, hardware stores, and even Wallyworld.

Earlier this summer, Alexis brought home a bag of Jack Daniels Whiskey Barrel Charcoal Briquettes and Smoker Blocks. I just now got around to trying it because I only use lump coal in th Egg. A few weeks ago, we used the offset smoker for a cook so I took the opportunity to try it out.

The package looks very slick with the Jack Daniels black label. But it is a relatively small bag at 6.8 pounds.

The product is standard sized briquettes and generously sized chunks of oak cut from the barrels used to age the whiskey.
The bag filled one Weber chimney starter. It seemed to start as fast as any normal briquettes. The instructions call from starting the coal first and then adding the wood once the coals get started.
The coal and smoking blocks gave me a couple of hours at 225f in a small offset smoker with a good amount of smoke, bordering on too much at times if I wasn't careful with my vents.

Overall, I think that Jack Daniels Whiskey Barrel Charcoal is a quality fuel for briquette type smokers but the price is a bit steep. I wouldn't use it regularly only because it costs significantly more for a smaller sized bag then other briquettes like Kingsford with Hickory that come in a larger package. Using it for a long cook would be an expensive proposition.

But I continue to strongly recommend the Jack Daniels Oak chips mixed with lump in the Big Green Egg.

SSAD

So I was looking at my favorite patch of basil this week and I was thinking of how in a few weeks or a month or two, my herbs will start dying off for the season. It made me SSAD.
My cooking is always so much better in the summer while fresh herbs abound. I'm going to try keeping them going inside this year by our well lit french door. It's worth a shot.