I know the title is more than a bit pedestrian. Trust me, I’m working on it. And I have much more of my typical introductory text to type out. But you can come back for that stuff later – I didn’t want to delay posting the actual recipe because this is a something that just couldn’t wait. You want to make this now.
Let’s get to it.
I’m going to start the Big February Dessert Extravaganza Of Doom with something that’s not really a dessert in it’s own – although in one of its two incarnations is very well could be. The first salvo in our effort to battle the mid-winter blahs is in fact a dessert condiment.
That’s right. I said “dessert condiment”.
This particular recipe grew out of the idea that it might be nice to have something other than ice cream as the topping on a warm dessert once in a while. Specifically, something with more of a liquid texture for topping cobbler or dumpling sorts of desserts where it might be nice to have something to soak into the doughy vehicle that carries the fruit. Combine that thought with my recent jonesing for frozen custard – while you can get frozen custard all over the U.S. midwest, its generally unknown in the rest of North America – and you get this: A sweet and citrus-tanged custard cream that can be poured over warm desserts like a thick devon cream or can be popped into your ice cream maker to make a deliciously light frozen custard.
Like the title says, it goes both ways.
Interested? Keep reading and lets whip up a batch. Get this ready today and tomorrow I’ll give you something new to pour it onto. With bacon.
The Big Green Egg is famous for holding constant temperatures for long periods of time with minimal attention and fuss. This is a good thing. But what if you want to change the temperature in a hurry? If you need to cool things off, there isn’t a lot you can do but close the dampers and wait. But if you need to raise the temperature a couple of hundred degrees – or just want to get your Egg up to ludicrous levels of heat for a steakhouse style sear without waiting around – you need to get your hands on a secret weapon.
You need to buy a blow dryer.
Watch the sales and pick yourself up a compact blow dryer when you see one on the cheap. Shop smart and you can find a decent one for around ten bucks. You don’t care about the heat output, just how much air it can move. Compact dryers generally have a shorter, wider barrel that shoves a lot of volume down the pipe and they are easy to tuck away with the rest of your tools.
Now, whenever you need to build some big heat in a hurry just remove the daisy wheel from the top of the egg, open up the bottom damper all the way, and blast your hair dryer into the now-gaping bottom vent. It will only take a couple of minutes to go from “low and slow” to “flaming death”.
You have a month or two before the barbecue season starts again in earnest, so start combing the sale flyers each weekend and get yourself one of these little gems while you wait. It’s a pro tool that you need to have.
There is no way of getting around this, so I will just throw it out there: February is a shit month for cooking barbeque in the Great White North.
So to change things up a bit and to help shake off the mid-winter blahs, I hereby declare this dessert week. Dessert is a crucial part of any great barbeque – the only thing better that rich saucy tender smoky meat is a big load of sweet and gooey dessert afterwards. Now is the time to try out some new after-dinner ideas and build up a repertoire of sweet finishers that you can tuck into your bag of tricks and pull out come spring and summer.
In my professional opinion, you should cook and eat a new dessert at least 14 times before serving it to guests. For, er, research purposes. Fill up your sugar bin and stay tuned – I’ll try and post three sweet ideas over the next three days.
One of the more interesting things about brisket is the “Costco effect” – the bigger your go, the better the price. You see partial points in the grocery store, things that look about the size of a badass steak, but you pay literally twice as much per kilogram for that as you do when you but the whole shebang. This is what we call good value.
The downside, of course, is the ol’ “what the hell do I do with all this meat” problem. Generally you want to cook brisket whole to take advantage of the natural flavoring that comes out of the connective tissue, but unless you happen to have 38 of your closest friends and neighbours over for dinner, it can be a little overwhelming. So how about something to do with half of a brisket? You can slice a full slab in half, cook half now and either freeze the second half for a future project or grind it up for the World’s Best Burger Blend.
So here we go. A simplified take on a very traditional Mexican beef preparation called machaca. Big rich beefy goodness tempered with cinnamon and coffee and ancho chilies. This version takes minimal effort, packs huge flavour, and makes the best damn tacos on the planet. If you can find the time, make this either the morning of your meal or the day before so you can let the meat cool in the liquid before you shred and serve it. Now keep reading and get ready to make some magic.
This particular pico de gallo use to have a really sucky name. That was unfortunate. Now, however, it has an awesome name which is entirely fitting since it is an awesome flavour mix. The new name just sort of popped out – I was doing some Chrstmas baking and shouting random and generally wrong lyrics to the Brave Combo version of Must Be Santa and there it was. Ho ho ho.
So. This is an easy pico that makes any sort of roasted or grilled pork into a festival of summery brightness. There are just a handful of ingredients and the actual “putting it together” time is short. However, you will want to start making this about 2 hours before you plan to eat it – the watermelon needs to drain for a bit and you want to give some time at the end for the flavours to come together.
And a big special super thanks to Pippa at the Cheese Shoppe On Locke for information and advice about the feta!
The readers have spoken, and due to popular demand … Cookin’ Comix returns! Enjoy!
After my brief digression about the difference between “salsa” and “pico de gallo”, a couple of people wrote to ask if I had a quick recipe for actual salsa.
Darn tootin’ I do.
Actually, if we are going to be 100% accurate about this, I’ve already posted a recipe for salsa with the Sweet Habanero Splash. However, rather than just being my regular acerbic self and telling them to wake up and pay attention, I am going to get fully into the spirit of the holidays here and pony up a second salsa recipe. This one is amazingly simple, a lot less lethal than the habanero stuff, and is probably something you will want to keep in the fridge 365 days a year. You need a blender or food processor, just so you know. Keep reading for all the details.
Awesome George dropped me a line regarding the Mango Pico De Gallo:
Hey guy! I made your mango pico and it was pretty f’n good, but if you put a bit of habanero into it is AWESOME. Have you tried that? I used about an eighth of a pepper for a double batch of your stuff, it made for good heat while still being mostly mango.
Hey guy back! Thanks for the props, and for the idea. Veteran readers will remember that I have pimped the fruity sweetness of habanero peppers in recipes past. But I hadn’t gotten around to adding it to the mango pico. In fact, since I always keep a jar of Sweet Habanero Splash in the fridge, I’m going to experiment using that. I’ll let you know how it goes!
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