Archive for the ‘bbq smoking’ Category
Lamb Shoulder with Black Sauce
With predicted temperatures into the high 70’s F today in our bit of Southern California, winter seems to be over so why not get the BBQ out of the shed and fire it up ? If even more of excuse were needed, this weekend is the Superbowl and all across the country people will be firing up grills and smokers and cooking barbecue. Today we will be doing a somewhat less common meat for this country (it is far more popular in my original home country of Britain) and cooking lamb shoulder.
Lamb shoulder after the application of the rub paste
Smoked Turkey Breast
Smoked Turkey Breast
For the last day of the year in this first year (well eight months really so far) of starting these adventures in BBQ, we will be finishing the old year and ushering in the new with a Smoked Turkey Breast. Since there is only one of the household eating it, we went with a smaller turkey breast rather than trying to cook a whole bird. The smoked turkey breast will be done Central Texas-style with a simple salt and black pepper rub – the so called Dalmation rub (because its just black and white see…). Read on to see how it turned out.
Hot Oak Smoked Salmon
Hot Oak Smoked Salmon
Being a half-pescatarian (or as a friend of mine once put it: “Occasionally I’m a bit naughty with fish”…), half-meatarian household, fish, especially salmon, is a fairly common feature and that is especially the case around the Christmas holidays. Today we are venturing into the brave new worlds of fish cooking and wet brining by brining and then cooking some oak smoked salmon. (Note that this is hot smoking not the cold smoking process that produces the smoked salmon you see in packets in stores and (if you are smart) you put on bagels with cream cheese. Cold smoking is a much more difficult process which needs very careful control over lots of things to avoid ending up with dodgy microbes in your food – the FDA has lots of scary information on this but if Meathead at Amazing Ribs says it’s not a good idea to try, that’s more than good enough for me to steer well clear…). Read on to see how our (hot-) smoked salmon turned out.
Smoked salmon cooking on the grill
Rubbed Pork Loin with Apple Bourbon BBQ Sauce
With temperatures into the mid 70’s, December in California can still be grilling and smoking time as we prove today by doing Rubbed Pork Loin with Apple Bourbon BBQ Sauce. This will be another new cut of pork for me try try (pigs seem to have plenty of different parts available for the BBQ cook to try out…). The pork loin will be seared off over medium-high heat before being moved to complete the cook on indirect heat.
Pork loin searing on the grill (Apologies for the less than great photo, this was about an 1 hour after sunset and it was almost totally dark)
Pork Tenderloin
It may be the end of Daylight Saving/Summer Time in the US and it may also be the start of November, but here in our part of California we’re still getting temperatures over 80 F (nearly 27 Celsius in those more sensible units) so summer grilling season continues on ! Today we are trying a new cut for me, pork tenderloin, which I’m going to be smoking over peach wood and then it will be getting a cherry preserve glaze.
Pork tenderloin on the grill.
Leftover rub/marinade ingredients?
So today I was constructing the marinade for the Pork Tenderloin with Cherry Preserves recipe (full article coming later) and the recipe called for 1/4 cup (approx. 60ml) of cherry cola to go in the marinade. I was at least able to buy a single small bottle in the grocery store/supermarket but now I am left with 532ml of a 591ml bottle (it’s really a 20 fluid ounce bottle being an American size, hence the somewhat odd amount of milliliters) of coke which I don’t drink… (The 70 grams of sugar per bottle kinda puts me off too).
The somewhat disturbing volume and “nutritional” ingredients on my cherry coke bottle leftover from the marinade.
This seems to be a somewhat common problem in barbecue, in that rub or marinade recipes need quite small amounts of ingredients that only come in much large quantities (This recipe also called for 1/2 teaspoon of minced garlic from a 4.5 oz jar, but at least I can put that in pasta sauce or whatever). Some can be reused for other things or kept for later uses but that isn’t really the case with my cherry coke…
Any thoughts of what to do with unwanted and part-used leftovers from barbecue preps?
Beef Short Ribs
In a timely overlap with the Formula 1 Grand Prix happening in Austin, TX, today we are trying barbecue beef short ribs for the first time. These will be cooked low and slow Texas-style for 6+ hours.