First ever prime rib

A good friend of mine introduced me to Adam Perry Lang(APL)'s methods of grilling. Then he posted this video on Facebook.

While APL uses a lot of ingredients and steps, everything I've tried of his has turned out amazing. I found this recipe, or close to it, in his second cookbook BBQ 25. Of course I ended up altering it some. I started off with a 3+ lb choice boneless rib-eye roast. The green egg was set up for a 375° indirect cook.

After cutting a crosshatch pattern in the top of the roast and rubbing on some seasonings and beef paste it was ready for the grill.

After 20 minutes, it was time to baste with a herb, olive olive, butter concoction and throw on some russet potatoes. Potatoes were just tossed in olive oil and coated with kosher salt.

Basting every 10 minutes, you can see the burnt ends created by the crosshatch pattern are really starting to look great. Next time I might cut even deeper so we have more burnt ends. Also, had to move the potatoes to the front since the back of the grill was a little too hot.

The roast and potatoes timed out perfectly. Internal temp of the roast was at 125° and potatoes were all right around 210° according to the thermapen. Here just letting the roast rest for ten minutes in the "board dressing."

Unfortunately, the picture is a little blurry. The burnt ends barely made the serving plate, because everyone kept stealing them from the cutting board. Each slice was drug through the board dressing to add even more flavor. We could not have been happier with my first try at prime rib. In fact if I can make it this well every time, we'll be happy. I guess it's a good sign when the sister in law asks me to send her dad the recipe and the mother in law suggests she would like to have this for Christmas dinner.

Chicken wings on the grill

Most people have trouble getting wings crispy unless they are fried. A lot of recipes I've read for grilling wings the authors think they need to add all kinds of weird ingredients like cornstarch or marinate them with some special concoction. As long they are cooked indirect at a high enough temperature they will "fry" in their own fat. My favorite wing is first cooked crispy with no marinate to burn, just plain wings...at first. Then I like them tossed in the sauce and thrown back on the grill for direct heat to give just a little char. Maj and I personally don't think smoke and chicken mix well. The smoke seems to penetrate too much and can over power all other flavors. I know many people like smoked wings but the charcoal flavor is enough for us.

1. I started with 2 dozen Smart Chicken fresh wings. (We will never buy a huge bag of frozen wings again) The grill is setup to cook indirect at 425 degrees.

2. After 20 minutes, I flip and cook another 20 minutes.

3. (40 minutes of total cooking time) The wings are cooked all the way through and crispy. Now time to pull them off the grill and toss with buffalo sauce. I like to toss some with my secret Mt. Fuji sauce.

4. Meanwhile I removed the plate setter and opened the vents, so I could crank up the heat for a direct cook. Once the heat is somewhere over 500 degrees, I throw the sauce covered wings back on.

5. Once I get the last wing on I start flipping the first ones. I move quickly, maybe 1 minute per side.

Yummy Chicken Pot Pies

It's hard to believe that two people can eat fairly healthy food all Spring, Summer and Fall, but when the cold of Winter arrives, crave warm, home-cooked foods! That's how it came about that we set out to make Chicken Pot Pies. We started with Ina Garten's recipe and made changes to it based on our preferences. I'll list the modified recipe below. I will say that we made the portions small and served them as our entire meal, trying to alleviate some of our guilt. We made four (4) potpies in total. The two other people that tried them raved about them as well!

We started with our photos a little late. So see the recipe below. We started the photos after we made the pastry.

Divide the filling equally among 4 ovenproof bowls.
We used four small square bowls instead of the round ones that are typically used. They worked just as well and made the servings sizes a bit smaller.

Brush the outside edges of each bowl with the egg wash, then place the dough on top. Trim the square to 1/2-inch larger than the top of the bowl. Crimp the dough to fold over the side, pressing it to make it stick. Brush the dough with egg wash and make 3 slits in the top. Sprinkle with sea salt and cracked pepper.

Place on a baking sheet and bake for 1 hour at 375 degrees, or until the top is golden brown and the filling is bubbling hot. Voila!

Ingredients
3 whole (6 split) chicken breasts, bone-in, skin-on
3 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
5 cups organic chicken stock, preferably homemade
2 chicken bouillon cubes
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 cups yellow onions, chopped (2 onions)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 cups medium-diced carrots, blanched for 2 minutes
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley leaves

For the pastry:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/4 pound cold unsalted butter, diced
1/2 to 2/3 cup ice water
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash
Flaked sea salt and cracked black pepper
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Place the chicken breasts on a baking sheet and rub them with olive oil. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, or until cooked through. Set aside until cool enough to handle, then remove the meat from the bones and discard the skin. Cut the chicken into large dice. You will have 4 to 6 cups of cubed chicken.

In a small saucepan, heat the chicken stock and dissolve the bouillon cubes in the stock. In a large pot or Dutch oven, melt the butter and saute the onions over medium-low heat for 10 to 15 minutes, until translucent. Add the flour and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Add the hot chicken stock to the sauce. Simmer over low heat for 1 more minute, stirring, until thick. Add 2 teaspoons salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and heavy cream. Add the cubed chicken, carrots, and parsley. Mix well.

For the pastry, mix the flour, salt, and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Add the shortening and butter and mix quickly with your fingers until each piece is coated with flour. Pulse 10 times, or until the fat is the size of peas. With the motor running, add the ice water; process only enough to moisten the dough and have it just come together. Dump the dough out onto a floured board and knead quickly into a ball. Wrap the dough in plastic and allow it to rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Divide the filling equally among 4 ovenproof bowls. Divide the dough into quarters and roll each piece into an 8-inch square. Brush the outside edges of each bowl with the egg wash, then place the dough on top. Trim the square to 1/2-inch larger than the top of the bowl. Crimp the dough to fold over the side, pressing it to make it stick. Brush the dough with egg wash and make 3 slits in the top. Sprinkle with sea salt and cracked pepper. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 1 hour, or until the top is golden brown and the filling is bubbling hot.

Chicken Crescents

This recipe has evolved over time from an old college recipe made on the cheap to what it is today. Originally the ingredients were cream cheese, canned chicken, Pillsbury crescent rolls, butter and milk. The recipe I use today calls for grilled or baked chicken breasts, garlic, black pepper, chives, cream cheese, oregano, a little butter and Pillsbury crescent rolls. The updated recipe is MUCH better and more flavorful!

So here's how I made them:

I baked two larger boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I brought the butter and cream cheese to room temperature. Then I diced up the chives, crushed the garlic and gathered the other spices.

To make the filling dice up the chicken. You'll want to have about 2 cups of chicken once it's diced. Place that in a bowl. Add two cloves garlic, pepper and oregano to taste and two T. of chives. Then add 2T softened cream cheese and 1t softened butter. Mix all of this together by hand. Layout the crescent rolls on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Like this: 

Put about 1/2C of the chicken mixture in the center of each rectangle. You will then take one corner and meet it up with the corner opposite of it. Once all four corners have been pulled up to the top seal along the edges so that the crescents look like a little purse.

Once they were put together, I baked them at 375 degrees for 13-15 minutes. They should be golden brown when they are done.

This is the finished product. I highly recommend for an evening when you don't have time to really cook something from scratch! They are yummy and easy to assemble.

No knead sourdough bread on the Big Green Egg

We were planning on having our niece Taryn over for pizza the following day, so I whipped up a couple batches of pizza dough.  I've been wanting to try this recipe for bread baked in a dutch oven I saw on Alton Brown's Good Eats.  Since I had the flour out and the kitchen was already a mess I decided to give it a shot.  Okay, this probably isn't technically sourdough bread since I didn't use a sourdough starter.  It did sit for over 19 hrs and ended up with a little of a sourdough taste.  Nothing overwhelming but still enough that I'm comfortable with calling it such. 

First off I just threw together 17 1/2 oz (by weight) bread flour, 2 1/2 tsp kosher salt, 1/4 tsp active dry yeast and 12 fl oz filtered water.  Mixed it together by hand and was sure I messed up, because it didn't seem like it had enough water.  Very clumpy and weird.  I figured there was no reason to throw it away, covered it with plastic wrap and set the timer for 19 hrs.  (total time invested: 7 minutes) 

When 19 hrs were up it got a quick punch down, another 15 minute rest, then into a cornmeal dusted tea towel for a 2 hour bench proof.

Meanwhile I fired up the green egg grill for indirect cooking, threw on the dutch oven and stabilized the temperature at 450 degrees.

I threw the dough (corn meal and all) into the hot dutch oven and put the lid on for 30 minutes. Of course I closed the lid to the egg and kept monitoring temp to keep it around 450.

 
When the 30 minutes were up, I pulled off the lid and baked uncovered for another 15 minutes.
 

Time is up and the bread is done. I would have preferred the top to be a little darker. Might have to pull the lid off a little earlier next time.

 
Cooling and just waiting to be sliced!

Coq Au Vin, or no?

Staub Dutch Oven

When we received the Staub Dutch Oven as a wedding gift, I told JS the first thing I was going to make in it was Coq Au Vin. We were fresh off watching Julie and Julia and it seemed like a fun and challenging first recipe to try using such a fine piece of cookware. Only, it was Spring and then Summer and so it was too hot to be cooking in a Dutch Oven inside. The Coq Au Vin would have to wait until Fall.

This weekend were at Whole Foods, and JS spotted the fresh squid. We had bought it before and grilled it, much to our enjoyment. So we decided to buy some more! Only once we had it home, we decided that instead of grilling the squid, we'd make homemade calamari. JS had been dying to try and make it ever since he watched the Alton Brown episode "Squid Pro Quo."

We ended up making two kinds of calamari. We started with the Dry Fried Calamari (using Alton's recipe of course). 

To start we rinsed the squid and patted it dry.  We then sliced the tentacles in half and the tubes into 1/2 inch rings. 

Then we had to make the batter. JS threw together the flour, cornmeal, salt and pepper. While he was doing that, I poured 1 quart of grapeseed oil into the Dutch Oven. It had to be warmed slowly to 375 degrees F.  The batter was ready, as was the oil. Time to fry some squid! Per Alton's recipe, we took small handfuls, dredged the squid in the flour and cornmeal mixture and shook off the excess. Then lowered them into the grapeseed oil one by one.  We let the first batch cook for 1 minute. They weren't as golden or crispy as I like, so we left the second batch in for 2 minutes. It was at that point we realized it wasn't the timing, it was the batter. So we decided to make the rest using Alton's Wet Fried Calamari recipe.

This was way better! He still said to cook for 1 minute, but we found cooking for 2.5 mins was more to our liking. We served the calamari with hot pepperocini rings. It was no Coq Au Vin, but it was fun trying these new recipes!

I am only including the recipe for the second calamari. The first one isn't worth wasting your time to make.

Cheers!

Ingredients

• 1 quart grapeseed oil
• 1 pound squid, tubes and tentacles
• 1 egg
• 1 cup ice water
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Place the grapeseed oil in a 4 to 5-quart Dutch oven and place over medium-high heat. Heat oil until it reaches 375 degrees F.

Rinse the squid thoroughly and pat dry. Cut the tentacles in half lengthwise and the tubes into 1/2-inch rings. Set aside.

Place the egg, water and flour into a bowl and whisk thoroughly to combine. In small handfuls, dip the squid in the batter and shake off the excess. In batches, gently lower the squid into the hot oil. Cook for 2.5 minutes. The squid will not be browned, but lightly golden in color. Remove the squid and transfer to a cooling rack turned upside down set over a newspaper-lined sheet pan. Season with salt and pepper, as desired. Repeat until all of the squid is cooked. Make sure to check the temperature of the oil before each batch to ensure it is 375 degrees F. Serve immediately.

Homemade Pickles

I was going to wait until we actually try the pickles to post this, but what the heck. I am sure they are going to be good. With the amount of time I spent in search of dill, they better be nothing less than divine!

J and I went to the Farmer's Market yesterday where we picked up some patty pan squash and pickling cucumbers. Two things we have not bought before. I knew that I wanted to make the pickles this weekend, but we couldn't find any dill at the market, or Tomato Tomato, or Hy-vee. We did find some at Baker's thank goodness. And so the pickle making ensued:

I started by washing the cukes!

I then quartered the cucumbers and soaked them in an ice bath for an hour. I don't know why I was supposed to do that, but I saw it in some recipe somewhere, so I thought it was worth a shot since I only like crunchy pickles!

While I was waiting for an hour to pass, I started boiling the brining liquid and preparing the jars. I decided to try three variations of pickles. There are garlic and cayenne, cayenne garlic pepper, and celery garlic pepper. I put a clove of crushed garlic in each jar and then a little of each of the other ingredients (I really hate measuring as you'll see).

I then put the cucumbers in the jars, poured the brining liquid to the top, then placed the dill sprigs on top and closed the jars. I won't know how they will taste until tomorrow, but they look pretty darn good!

Brining Liquid

4 C water

2 T white vinegar

11/2 T Kosher salt

Put in a saucepan and bring to a boil. After two minutes removed from heat and poor into jars with cucumbers in them.

Other ingredients:

Pickling cucumbers

Crushed red pepper

Fresh garlic

Pepper

Fresh dill