Category Archives: recipes etc

handy cross reference catagories

09.20.13
by

Whiskey Piggy

One dinner, three more meals…

From time to time, Sierra Canyon has a dinner and show deal. The show in this case was GREASE at the El Dorado Showroom. Bus picks us up, Tuesday at 5pm, takes us to the El Dorado, we eat at our choice of the Buffet, La Scala or the Roxy Steakhouse. Fixed price for dinner and show plus drinks. The Roxy was only $10 per person more than the Buffet, so we chose that. We had eaten at La Scala a couple of times.

This is about my meal(s). I ordered the pork chop called Whiskey Piggy.

Bourbon Whole Grain Mustard Marinated Center Cut Pork Chop — Pork Belly Greens — White Cheddar Bacon Mac & Cheese — Whiskey Glazed Pink Lady Apples (menu description)

Unstacked, so I could get at the food. The ball of Mac & Cheese on the right is breaded, deep fried and wrapped with the aforementioned greens.

The dinner was way good, served with bacon cheese bread to die for, but somehow, I didn’t manage to finish.

This is dinner at home the next day. All that we added to the Roxy meal was yellow beans. I made an identical plate for Carol. Not quite as pretty, but quite as tasty.

I didn’t take a picture, but today (Friday) I had the leftovers of that for lunch. Still good. All gone.

 

09.19.13
by

EGG Grilling

Wings and Fish on the Big Green Egg

I bought the Big Green Egg Cookbook, but it doesn’t seem to have recipes for things we like to cook and eat. By including my adapted recipes here, I can share them and know where to find them.

Seems like I’ve done nothing but grilling, lately. That’s not a bad thing. We’ve fallen into a cycle: Shop for food to grill, adapt recipes to the Big Green Egg, grill food, eat leftover grilled food, pull something out of the freezer to grill, go shopping.

This is about three recent meals; foods we love and with which we are familiar, but for various reasons we’ve never cooked them on the grill. Now is the time.

  • Chicken Wings
  • Cajun Catfish
  • Whole Petrale Sole

CHICKEN WINGS
Love chicken wings. Of course, they are a sports bar staple and I eat plenty of them there, but I rarely cook them at home. I don’t deep fry. When I do wings at home, I bake them, but that’s barely satisfactory.

So, I was delighted to see “The Key to a Truly Great Chicken Wing: Grill It.” by Mark Bittman in the September 1, 2013 NY Times Magazine.

He starts the way many grilling recipes start:

“Heat a charcoal or gas grill; the fire should be moderately hot and the rack 4 to 6 inches from the heat. Leave one side of the grill cooler for indirect cooking.
Put the wings on the cool side of the grill. Cover the grill, and cook, checking and turning once or twice, until most of the fat has been rendered and the wings are cooked through, 15 to 20 minutes.

While the wings cook, make your sauce.

When the wings are cooked, put them in a large bowl with the sauce, and toss to coat. Now put the wings on the hot part of the grill, and cook, uncovered, turning as necessary, until they’re nicely browned on both sides.”

That’s fine, but in my Big Green Egg, the fire is nine inches from the rack and I can’t build a 2 level fire, but I can control the temperature in the EGG.

What to do? Fool the wings into behaving the way MB wants. Continue reading →

08.17.13
by

Grilled Whole Fish

Love fish.

Have cooked whole fish, usually poached.

We go to Whole Food about once a month to get Newman’s Own Thin Pretzel Sticks. As far as we know, no other store in Reno carries them. When passing the display of whole fish on ice, we often remarked, “Can’t wait till we get the EGG, we’ll grill a whole fish.”

We now have the Big Green Egg and Thursday we bought a 1 1/2 pound Snapper at Whole Food. (We also got two bags of those pretzels, coffee filters, and a cantaloupe on sale.)

The fish lady helped us pick out the fish and cleaned and scaled it. She also gave us a bag of ice. We put the fish and ice in its own bag and put it on the floor of the back seat of our car, figuring it wouldn’t get too hot down there. When we got home, we put the whole shebang — bag, ice and fish — on a plate in the refrigerator.

Snapper waits for the fire.

I went recipe hunting. Weber’s Big Book of Grilling has a few recipes for whole fish — snapper, trout — but they depend on stuffing, or marinating or foil packets — no straightforward grilling. I looked on…

Cook’s Illustrated Guide to Grilling and Barbecue has a number of recipes and tips for grilling whole fish.

“Fish weighing more than 2 pounds will be hard to maneuver on the grill and should be avoided.”
“Rub the fish with olive oil and season with salt and pepper on the outside as well as the inside.”

“Use a sharp knife to make shallow diagonal slashes every 2 inches along both sides of the fish from top to bottom, beginning just behind the dorsal fin. This helps to ensure even cooking and also allows the cook to peek into the flesh to see if it is done.”

The Big Green Egg Cookbook has a recipe for Whole Snapper with Lemon and Rosemary. Just what I need, except they call for a 4 to 5 pound fish.

“Rinse the fish under cold water and pat dry with paper towels.”

They, too, call for slashing the skin on both sides of the fish, coating the fish with olive oil and seasoning with salt and pepper.

As the recipe title implies, they stuff the cavity of the fish with thin slices of garlic, thin slices of lemon and sprigs of fresh rosemary. (We didn’t have fresh rosemary, so we used fresh dill weed.)

They then go into the grilling method with the EGG:

Set the EGG for direct cooking with the porcelain coated grid and preheat to 350°F.

Snapper over the fire.

The fish was positioned on the grid,  so that it easily could be rolled from one side to the other.

I cooked the snapper 6 minutes per side starting at 400°F and second side at 350°F

It came out juicy and lovely, here served with chard and a bean salad.

Yum !

08.05.13
by

5 Guys come to Reno

We got our car washed recently. Kietzke Lane is a major north-south street in Reno. McCarran circles the city. Hutch’s Car Wash is on a corner of Kietzke and McCarran “behind the Union Bank” in one of those tangled shopping areas that makes no sense.

They do a really nice job on our car and there’s always a coupon in the RGJ or one of those “deal envelopes” that get tossed in our driveway.

As we left Hutch’s, we ran smack into 5 Guys Burgers and Fries. We had heard that they opened in Reno, but didn’t know exactly where. Well, they’re in the same tangled shopping area.

It was about quarter to noon on Friday, so we just parked and walked in.

Big noisy place. We found a line on the left side of the room next to stacked bags of potatoes. One woman was taking orders, so the line did not move extra quickly. When we got to her, we found out why. There are choices.

Who knew they could do such a thing? I went into brain-lock trying to quickly decide what I wanted on my “Little Cheeseburger.” Meanwhile, Carol was in my ear saying “I want relish, mushrooms and steak sauce.” Continue reading →

08.03.13
by

Hot and Juicy

The Perfect Steaks.

I’m still into trying new stuff — new ways of grilling on the Big Green Egg. When I took inventory of the garage freezer I found a Porterhouse steak on the bottom wrapped in white butcher paper. Not sure where or when I got it… probably from Blue Ribbon Meat, they use that kind of paper. Anyway, it was lovely, about 1 1/2 inches thick and with a nice size tenderloin.

I went to the Big Green Egg website in search of a cooking technique, and found this:

The Perfect Steaks (No author or source was listed.)

Ingredients:

2 steaks, 1-1/2 to 2-inches thick, preferably rib-eyes

1/4 cup kosher salt

1/2 tsp white pepper

2 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
Trim the steaks of any excess fat. Mix all of the dry ingredients together and apply to both sides of the steaks. Allow to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes before grilling.
Set the EGG® up for direct cooking. To increase sear marks use a cast iron cooking grid; for extra flavor add wood chips.
When the EGG is heated to 650°F, place the steaks on the grill and sear for two to three minutes.
Open the lid and flip the steaks onto a new section of the grid. After two to three more minutes, flip the steaks once more.
Completely shut down the EGG by closing the damper top and draft door. Let the steaks continue cooking for 3 to 4 minutes, until they reach the desired internal temperature (check with a meat thermometer).
Remove the steaks and let them rest for 5 minutes before serving.

I planned to steam green beans and grill them and grill a peach for dessert, as the steak rested. I had only one steak, but that’s enough for we two.

I set up for direct cooking and threw in soaked wood chips. The fire seemed rip roaring, and I had the bottom draft door full open and the top damper full open, but it didn’t look like the temps were going to go above 400°F.

Change of plans. Might as well grill the peach and green beans that I had planned to grill after the steak. When those were done the temps were still hanging around 400 so I just took the top damper off the EGG.

damper off… a new technique

This was not a technique noted in the recipe but Hoo Baby the temps started climbing. At 600 I threw on the steak and the temps just went up to 700 by the time 2 minutes had passed. Flipped the steak for another 2 minutes… by now the temps hovered around 650. Flipped and took the instant read temperature of the steak, about 85°F. Seared another minute on each side, inside temp 98. Flipped the steak and shut all the grill vents. Grill temps stuck about 500.

Left another 2 minutes, flipped; inside temp about 115, another 2 min, inside temp about 130, took off the steak and took its picture.

After resting about 4 minutes, internal temperature rose to 145, a little overcooked, but real juicy with a fine crust.

Accompanied by a baked sweet potato, blue lake beans and Romano beans.

So, the timing for my 1 1/2 inch porterhouse:
2 min + 2 + 1 + 1, shut down vents, 2 + 2 more minutes. Coulda shoulda taken off at 115 to 120°F.
Now I know.

07.24.13
by

Crepinettes with smoke.

Duck Crepinettes from Fatted Calf

I’ve done Crepinetts on my Weber Q and the EGG a few times now… On the Q, I preheated to at least 400°F, turned off the middle burner and cooked 8 minutes per side over the (off) middle burner. On the EGG, cook at about 400°F, 8 minutes per side. The Caul Fat holds the moisture in and they turn out perfect every time.

That EGG is smokin’

Today, I tried my EGG with smoke for the first time. I took two hands-full of Jack Daniel’s wood chips and soaked in the little blue bucket for about 90 minutes.Made a direct fire in the EGG and brought to 400°F… drained the wood chips and threw them on the charcoal fire. Much smoke immediately. Put on the grate, and added the oiled Crepinettes and closed the EGG adjusting to hold the temps at 400.
At 8 minutes, I turned the crepinettes and put on yellow beans that had been steamed for 10 minutes.

“Smoke gets in your eyes…”


At 16 minutes I shut down the grill…

served and ate that fine smoked food. What we have here is a whole new flavor treat. YUM.
Sadly, I’ve run out of crepinettes. Fatted Calf promises to start shipping soon. If I can’t wait, I’ll just have to make a San Francisco trip. Let’s see, what other foodie goodies do I need?

07.23.13
by

BEER BUTT CHICKEN

You’ve all heard of Beer Can Chicken — probably cooked it. Insert a half-full beer can up a chicken’s keister, put that assembly on the grill and wait for the yummy, moist chicken dinner.

Well, if you happen to own a Big Green Egg — or even if you don’t — BGE is happy to sell you a ceramic conical device called Sittin’ Chicken in which to place six ounces of beer and shove up the aforementioned keister. In this case, you call it Beer Butt Chicken.

Here’s how it goes…

First of all, buy an organic, free-range chicken. I got mine at the Farmers Market, and I’ve visited the farm where it was raised, so I know its a swell bird. Mine was a tad over five pounds.

 

My chicken listed a bit to the right, but did not fall over.

Chicken is on the EGG. The white thing is a “Ceramic Platesetter” and makes the EGG a roaster or smoker.

The chicken is roasted at 375°F and sprayed from time to time with a beer and cider and oil and vinegar mixture. Helps it brown and flavors up the skin.

Here’s my chicken after 40 minutes.

Here’s my chicken after 70 minutes. I took its thigh temperature and called it done.

Here we are, rested and ready to carve.

We invited son Brian and Natasza over for Sunday Dinner and to watch the British Open Golf Championship from Muirfield Scotland that I had taped. It is live at 5am PDT, not a good time for Sunday Dinner. Phil Mickelson — long one of my favorites — came from five strokes back to win. We were all very happy about that, and I won a couple of coin, as well.

Carved. Carcass in the background.

Brian made Vichyssoise for a first course. Its chilled creaminess welcome as it has been very hot in Reno.

And here is our table.

Later in the evening, golf over, guests gone and a cooling breeze on the front porch, Carol and I watched the moonrise.

07.19.13
by

ORANGE SUMMER

So many orange things are around in the summer. I’ve been eating some orange and yellow things for my breakfast and lunch. You’ll see:

Orange and Yellow Lunch
Melon
Canned pineapple chunks
A very fine cheese on crackers:

Fat Bottomed Girl, Bleeting Heart CA
Pasteurized Sheep’s Milk
Peter, at Wedge: A Cheese Shop got this cheese in for the first time recently when I was in the shop. He gave me a taste and I was hooked. Has a cool name, too.

Orange Breakfast
Hard cooked egg
Melon
Peach
I don’t know how you do your peaches, but I peel mine with a vegetable peeler, then cut it off the pit in wedge sections. Be sure and do all this peeling and cutting over your plate so you capture all the juices.

Another Orange Breakfast of melon and peach layered over thin sliced baked ham.
We get both our melons and peaches at the same farm stand at the Saturday Farmer’s Market on California Avenue near Keystone. I don’t remember the name of the stand, but I’ll look when I’m there tomorrow. Minton Family Farm, Yuba City CA

Here’s melon and a hard cooked egg accompanied by home made pimento cheese spread on crackers.

And finally, for now:
Ambrosia melon, “yellow” watermelon, and peach for breakfast…
More cut up peach soaking in rum for dessert tonight.
My peaches went beyond ripe, so I had to peel two at once. Turns out that’s not such a bad thing. Sadly, the “yellow” watermelon had almost no flavor (the rum-soaked peaches had lots of flavor).

06.13.13
by

LUNCH :: Double Header

In Michael Pollan’s book Food Rules: An Eaters Manual, “Eat until you’re 80% full,” is one rule that I must pay attention to, especially in Reno. Serving portions are most often outsized, to the point where they make a dinner, a take-home lunch and a half-lunch — the subject of the day.

Even cooking at home for two, things are not often easily divisible and savable; an ear of corn, a tomato, a potato, a quart of home made tomato sauce, a can of almost anything. The point is, we’ll probably cook more than we can — or want to — eat.

So I developed the half-lunch. I use glass storage containers and my favorites — from Crate and Barrel — are a 2-cup bowl and an almost-cup bowl. The former is probably a lunch, the latter a half-lunch.

the two-cup and almost-cup containers

Today, I dined on two half-lunches:

TOMATO SAUCE with SAUSAGE and NOODLES

Pedigree:

  1. A quart of Cherokee Purple Georgiana Brennan Roasted tomato sauce made and canned in September 2011. Used to make a dinner of spaghetti with sausage.
  2. Sort of hot Italian sausage. We skinned and mixed 3 links of hot sausage with 1 link of mild sausage. (Also the reverse for Carol’s taste.) This was used with the sauce for the spaghetti dinner.
  3. Some of each of the sauce and sausage constituted the leftover parts of the full lunch.
  4. A ball of dried Kamfen Hong Kong Style Egg Noodles. Cooked and added to the sauce and sausage.
  5. Since a ball of dried noodles is a finite thing, I added compatible portions of sauce and sausage.

Viola! I had a half-lunch left over.

the noodles

BEANS and TOMATO and KNOCKWURST and CELERY

Pedigree:

  1. One tomato. The first fresh tomato of the season from the California Ave. Farmers Market. Peeled and chunked.
  2. Some Prim Manteca beans cooked in the previous days to use in many ways. (I love beans.)
  3. Some celery sliced off an almost used up head… the lovely solid whitish part near the root end.
  4. A splash of chicken broth to keep everything wet.
  5. One Hebrew National knockwurst, cooked in the midst of that stuff.

That was my full lunch. By the time I was 80% full, I had a half-lunch left over. (I ate all the knockwurst.)

When I made my half lunch, I added some grilled green beans that accompanied grilled fish a day or so ago.

And there you have a lunch double-header. I’ll do it again sometime.

05.20.13
by

QUAIL

California Quail

I can’t believe I haven’t written about Fatted Calf Fig and Sausage Stuffed Quail. I first made it in September of 2010 and have cooked it one or more times a year since. It is so good and rich and well, different. Here’s the way Fatted Calf announced it:

Finally Figs
Finally, figs!  Beautiful, fat, dusky figs oozing with droplets of ambrosial sap from nearby Capay valley! That means, finally, fig and sausage stuffed quail.   And not just any quail but beautiful, plump, naturally raised Wolfe Ranch (http://wolfequail.com/) quail from Vacaville.
Farmer Brent Wolfe has been raising quail and other poultry his entire life and has developed his own breeding stock.  That means that the quail spend their entire lives on Brent’s Vacaville Ranch.  And Brent’s quail grow big, much bigger than your average quail, making them just perfect for stuffing.
The quail come straight from the farm to the Fatted Calf kitchen where they take a brief bath in brine that keeps them moist and delicious.  They are then stuffed with perfectly ripe figs encased in a blanket of lemon and herb sausage.   Roast in a hot oven or on the grill and as the skin turns golden brown and the sausage juices baste the quail internally, the fig becomes molten caramel.  Savor the first bite, finally!

I’d have to say that the quail was every bit as good as it sounds

A little research told me that less than a week after we dined on the Fatted Calf Quail, we left for Kyiv, Ukriane to attend son Brian’s wedding service and meet Natasza’s parents. Quail seemed to slip down the list of writing subjects.

In any case, we took pictures the first time and again when we grilled it last week, so here’s making up for lost time.

Could not be simpler to prepare:
• Brown the quail.
• Roast the quail.
• Make some elegant accompaniments.

Naked Quail stuffed with sausage and a fat fig

Brown the quail; roast the quail

It took about 8 minutes to brown the quail on all sides, then another 12 minutes or so to get it to an internal  temperature of 160°F; a total of 20 minutes. Continue reading →