True North Barbeque

“Talkin’ Moroccan” Pork Loin Rack

May 242013

(NOTE: This is one of the things on here that would really benefit from a couple of explanatory photographs. Annoyingly, I didn’t take any when I made this because it was an off-the-cuff experiment and I didn’t expect to be able to write it up immediately. Who knew? I will update this with real photos in the next week or so. Until then, you just have to make do.)

If you have ever been to a restaurant that offers northern African cuisine you will have noticed that the way the aromas in the place are somehow more enticing than any place else. The scents are all things you have experienced before – warm and aromatic spices like cinnamon and cumin and coriander – but it’s not the combination that makes them so memorable, it’s they way they infuse the space and hit your nose. You don’t just smell them, you almost feel them.

There is, of course, a trick. People in the northwestern horn of Africa – Tunisia, Algeria, and especially Morocco – mix their spices into a warm paste with the hot drippings from seared meats and then slather the result onto the meat before roasting. The hot fat opens up the spices and enriches them, making them penetrate the meat more easily and giving them an incredibly pervasive aroma that will give you a serious case of hound-dog drooling while it cooks. In Africa this technique is usually used for lamb or goat, but I got to thinking about how it might work out for a nice cut of pork. Since the traditional lamb spices don’t pair overly well with pig, I lazily co-opted my go-to pork rub as the base. While the technique is Moroccan-inspired, the flavours are not. But fear not. The results are, quite frankly, spectacular.

I did it in the Big Green Egg, but it would work quite nicely (just not with the same depth of flavour) in a regular oven. You do need a big oven-proof skillet to make this work, and a meat thermometer is a must. So grab your gear and read on for the incredibly simple details.

Punch Up Your Fajitas With Flatiron

Beef, Grilling No Responses »

May 082013

So yeah. While these pages are here to celebrate and promote the delectable art of cooking barbeque, I have (as mentioned in the past) nothing against grilling. Grilling is not barbeque, but grilling is good. Grilling makes sense for a lot of everyday meals. And grilling is the only way to make fajitas.

I’ve made a lot of fajitas, and I have always used flank steak. It’s the fajita standard. But my butcher recently suggested using flatiron steak instead, and it was a revelation. Flatiron has the same general texture and shape as flank steak, but has a much more desirable marbling of fat. That means you get bigger and deeper beef taste that you ever can with the overly-lean flank. If you haven’t tried working with flatiron steak, now is the time.

There are a couple of things you do need to know. One, not every butcher knows what they are doing here, so ask around. The standard cut of a flatiron has a nasty piece of fascia or sinew running through the entirety of the plate. If you are going to use flatiron for fajitas, your butcher needs to separate the two chunks of muscle and take that “shingle” out of the centre. You end up with two slightly-but-not-much-thinner cuts than the traditional single flank steak. Two, you must cut across the grain when you serve this, but if you have ever made fajitas before you know how this works so there’s no real surprise there.

If you love fajitas, you need to give this a try. Slices of this would also be spectacular in a thai-inspired steak salad, or tossed in a bowl of fresh noodles. In the standard butcher’s beef roster it is listed as cut #1114D, with the official name “Top Blade Steak”. Ask your butcher next time you are shopping for beef and see if you can get yourself into a couple of slabs of this. A standard cut of flatiron is just about 1 kilgram, so after it trimmed of the fascia and split into two it will easily feed four in a regular fajita tortialls-n-fixin’s setup.

Enjoy.

Charcoal Reviews Revisited

Gear No Responses »

Apr 222013

Once again our old friend spring has, well, sprung. You’ve probably already wandered out to the garage or shed and looked at your stock of cooking supplies and said to yourself “Damn, I’m going to need charcoal.” Before you head to the store, take a few minutes and revisit the reviews of some of my favourite charcoals from the last couple of seasons:

Wicked Good Weekend Warrior Blend – My favourite all-purpose lump

Charcos – A startlingly-good cocoanut charcoal brick

Basque’s Sugar Maple Lump – A sweet maple grilling charcoal

Nature’s Mesquite – The friendliest all-mesquite charcoal lump

Now get out there and get cooking!

Bacon & Bourbon Marmalade

Gettin' Saucy, Pork, Starters No Responses »

Sep 042012

There was a time when bacon jams and bacon marmalades were exceptionally rare things. A handful of people made them at home, you might have found a jar or two in the homemade preserves at a specialty food or craft fair, and that was it. Now it seems like bacon spreads of whatever description are the flavour du jour in the culinary world – hell, I’m pretty sure I saw it on the shelves at 7-11 the other day.

This is not a bad thing. The more the merrier, I always say. But leave the store-bought stuff for the plebes. I have tasted a lot of bacon marmalade and I have yet to taste one as good as this. Or, quite frankly, even close. You don’t need any special equipment, but it is easiest (and, I think best) if you have a slow cooker. Beyond that it is just some chopping, some stirring, and an afternoon of amazing smells in your kitchen.

Read on for the ingredients and details.

“Don’t Go Bacon My Heart” Oatmeal Cookies

Sweets No Responses »

Aug 112012

Oatmeal cookies. With bacon. And bourbon. Really, there’s nothing else to say.

Let’s get to work.

“Baby Got Smashed” Pan Roasted Potatoes

Not Meat, Sides No Responses »

Jul 182012

This is a super-fast and super-easy way to put potatoes on the plate without resorting to the same-old same-old boring ideas. It’s one part boiled potatoes, one part baked, one part mashed, one part “fully loaded” and all parts delicious. It is also versatile – while it is best when cooked in a Big Green Egg, it works just fine in the oven, on the no-heat side of a two burner grill, or even directly over the coals if you keep an eye on it.

Regardless of how you cook these, however, you must have a cast-iron skillet. That part is what the kids call non-negotiable. Otherwise, all you need are a handful of ingredients, a pot of water, and a heat source. And I’m pretty sure you have all of those. Ready? Go.

Brining 101

Beef, Birds, General Drivel, Grilling, Pork 2 Responses »

Jun 132012

Let’s cut right to the chase: People are intimidated by brine. They shouldn’t be, but they are. Brining is simple, relatively foolproof if you remember one important rule, and makes a massive difference in the quality of your finished meat. So it’s time to cast aside the fear and uncertainty – brining is good, and it’s time you started doing it.

A few ground rules to start: One, brining is generally reserved for poultry and pork. Beef isn’t really going to benefit from this and it is going to be too rough on the texture of fish and seafood. Two, you should always brine your poultry or pork if your cooking method is dry. Three (and this is the super important rule you must remember), your brine needs to be ice cold before the meat is immersed. Cold brine is happy brine. And four, large and giant-sized Ziploc bags are your best friends.

With these basic thoughts firmly stuck in the back our our minds, let’s begin. The basic brine for both pork and poultry is dead simple. For every half chicken (or equivalent) or every two pork chops (or equivalent) you will need:

1 litre (4 cups) of boiling water
50 ml (a scant 1/4 cup) of brown sugar
50 ml (a scant 1/4 cup) of kosher salt

That’s it. That is the whole shebang. I told you this was simple.

So – dissolve your sugar and your salt into the boiling water in a large bowl. You are going to have to stir this pretty well to get it to completely dissolve, becuase it is right on the edge of how much sugar and salt the water can actually take on. When it is completely dissolved, put the bowl of brine in the fridge (or freezer if you are in a hurry, but see the note below for a caveat or two) and chill it completely.

Cold brine is happy brine.

Once the brine is nicely chilled, you can add your meat. Grab a Ziploc bag that is large enough to hold both your meat and all of the brine you made, carefully pour the brine into it, and then add the meat. Adding the meat last helps you avoid pouring disasters, trust me. Now pop it back into the fridge, with the following list of times in mind:

Chicken or any game hen – 1 hour
Pork chops or ribs – 2 hours
Pork loin – 4 hours
Pork shoulder – overnight
Turkey drums or breast – overnight
Full turkey – 24 hours

When your time is up remove the meat from the brine and pat it completely dry (inside and out!) before you start to season or cook it. For pork, be sure to let the meat rest at room temperature so it can warm up before you start to cook, but poultry can hit the roaster / grill / smoker / whatever right away.

A Note About The Freezer: If you are in a hurry and need to chill your brine in the freezer instead of the fridge, be sure to cover it with a sheet of waxed paper so you dont get a tiny blizzard of crystals in your ice box.

And that is pretty much it. Roast or grill or smoke your brined and dried meat excatly as you would have before. Your actual cooking technique will not change, but your results definitely will. Once you get going with this you can start to add some flavour to the brine – orange zest, sage and cloves for roast turkey; juniper berries, garlic and rosemary for grilled pork; lemon zest, garlic and tarragon for roast chicken and other small fowl; garlic, crushed peppercorns, and ginger for grilled bird. Play with it, the possibilites are endless. Just remember: Add these things after the brine has cooled, otherwise you risk getting a nasty bitter note in your food.

And did I mention that cold brine is happy brine? Yes? Good.

Play with it. Experiment. Have fun. But most of all, do this. Every time.

“First Date” Poached Garlic Aioli

Gettin' Saucy 2 Responses »

Jun 022012

Here’s a fact: If you cook barbeque, you are going eat a lot of sandwiches at some point. This isn’t a bad thing, not at all. There is something almost magical about the combination of barbeque meat and really good bread.

But just because “meat and bread” is an awesome combo, that doesn’t mean you should stop there. The right condiments can take a great sandwich into the taste stratosphere. And I’m not talking about run-of-the-mill supermarket mayo here. I’m talking garlic, and lots of it. I’m talking flavour.

The simplicity of this garlic concoction means that it pairs perfectly with all of the mainline barbeque meats – beef, pork, or chicken – and it’s dead easy to make. Convenient and energy efficient, too … the next time you have your oven (or better yet, your Big Green Egg) already cooking something at the remarkably common temperature of 175 degrees (that’s about 350 Fahrenheit for you folks in the good ol’ USA) you can pop this in at the same time.

Ready to whip up some garlicky goodness? Keep reading!

“Goes Both Ways” Citrus Custard Cream

Sweets No Responses »

Feb 222012

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.

A Big Green Egg Pro Tip

Gear, General Drivel No Responses »

Feb 212012

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.

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