Happy Easter!
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BBQ Time: Slow Smoked and Seared NY Steaks
On to more pleasant things from my last post. Recently, we finally got a break in the weather here, and we brought out the smoker and the Weber kettle grill. Our mission: reverse seared New York steaks.
Not much of a secret that I prefer Ribeye steaks. Better marbling means they’re typically more moist and tender than other steak cuts. We couldn’t find any decent quality Ribeyes though
Side Note: My Meat Buying Guide can be seen here
After rubbing some salt, pepper and garlic into both sides, they were ready to go on the smoker for a reverse sear. That’s when you slow cook the meat first, and then add a sear to it at the end. The most common reason to do so is that you’re using a smoker. A standard sear will seal the meat and keep smoke from getting in. Slow cooking (like on a smoker) will use a low enough heat that you won’t lose any juice anyway.
As the video shows, a hot cast iron pan is a great way to reverse sear meat, but I typically use the Weber charcoal grill to try and add a little extra flavor to the steak along with those traditional grill rack marks. A pan is great for a full sear though.
MY usual technique (as mentioned in a few older posts) is to pull the meat when it reaches an internal temperature of 100 F, and then finish it on the grill to a perfect medium rare 135 F temperature. That last 35 degrees is a fairly ideal point for getting as much smoke in AND having enough time to put a real sear on the meat. That is IF the charcoal grill is fully hot before throwing the steaks on.
I kind of goofed that last part this time BUT still turned out some fine looking steaks that tasted even better:
And here’s a peak inside:
Perfect medium rare pink all the way through. And they went nice with some fresh bread and veggies on the side. Unfortunately I was too busy eating to get pictures. 😀
One last tip here: Using briquette charcoal can be fairly wasteful for just searing meat. We’re literally talking a few minutes on each side. After that, you have to cover the grill and let it burn itself out.
There IS an alternative though. One of the key benefits of ‘lump’ type charcoal is that you can smother it with an completely unvented lid and reignite it later.
Sort of Authentic Pho
AKA “What the Pho” 😀 To get that joke, one must understand the correct pronunciation of the dish: F-uh, as if you’re starting to drop an f-bomb.
OK, enough bad humor.
I call this “sort of” authentic Pho because I bypassed the painfully slow process of hand making the broth by boiling beef bones. I got the recipe from an issue of “Cook’s Illustrated Best soups and Stews from Around the World”; one of the various ‘best recipe’ titles that Cook’s Illustrated cycles through in it’s publishing.
I changed a few other things from their recipe as well.
First is that they advocated boiling a pound of hamburger in water to make extra flavoring for the ready made broth in the recipe. The trouble here is that they wanted the hamburger thrown out when you strain the broth to get the solids from the spices out. I’m not big on wasting food so it stayed in. Blasphemy to purists I’m sure but again, I’m not going to waste a full pound of beef.
If you want to go the easy route and still get strong beef flavor out of the broth while not using ground beef, drop a packet or cube of low sodium beef bullion into the broth.
Second is we both are not fans of soy beans, so we left those out. 😛
Let’s Get Cooking
First, this will make 6 to 8 decent sized bowls of Pho.
I’m going to proceed under the premise that readers also don’t feel like spending 8 hours boiling bones to make broth and will likewise use store bought bone or beef broth and optionally add beef bullion to that.
As an added tip to avoid having to later pour hot soup through a fine mesh strainer or cheese cloth, I highly advise putting most of the solid spices into a tea defuser / tea ball / cooking infuser like this one I got from Amazon:
You MAY actually need a pair of them given all the ginger and such that is supposed to be added to the broth.
Oh and as an added note, much like my recent Chile Verde recipe, this is too much good stuff to fit in a normal sized Crock-Pot. You’ll need a jumbo one or a decent sized soup pot.
My Modified Version of the “Cooks Illustrated” Recipe:
First the Ingredients
2 Onions, quartered through root end
12 cups of beef (or bone) broth. This works out to 3 of the standard 4 cup cartons sold in the U.S.
1/4 cup of fish sauce
1 (4 inch or 10 cm) piece of Ginger, sliced into thin rounds
1 Cinnamon Stick
2 tablespoons of Sugar
6 Star Anise pods
6 whole cloves
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon black whole peppercorns
1 (1 pound or 453 grams) boneless strip steak, trimmed and halved
14 to 16 ounces of rice noodles
1/3 cup of chopped fresh Cilantro
3 Scallions, sliced thin
Optional Ingredients and Garnishes
Bean Sprouts
Fresh Thai or Italian Basil sprigs
Lime wedges
Hoisin Sauce
Sriracha Sauce
Ingredient Notes:
I actually left out the sugar accidentally and didn’t miss it at all. I also added a couple cloves of pressed garlic to the broth because garlic addict. 🙂 A little extra cilantro got used as garnish as well. Finally, of the list above, the lime was the best garnish to me in terms of really accenting the flavor. Just go light and work your way up.
Oh and as for the ginger… I have NO idea how much that’s actually supposed to be. Their description makes it sound like ginger comes in neat little log rolls. Trust your cooking instincts there is all I can advise. Our food turned out fine.
I put the ginger, star anise, cloves and cinnamon stick (after breaking it into 3 pieces) into the defuser. As for the pepper, I used coarse ground black pepper instead and added it directly to the broth. One teaspoon will not overpower a full pot of Pho broth.
Lastly, with the 8 onion quarters, 6 of them were supposed to be cooked with the hamburger that was added to the broth and later filtered out. Using this more direct method, you could drop them into the broth and let them simmer, fishing them out later with a ladle or slotted spoon, OR save an onion and just add some onion powder or dehydrated onion to the broth. Neither are ‘official’ since Pho broth is supposed to be pure liquid, but the final product tasted great to me.
The remaining half an onion is supposed to be sliced super thin to add to the finished Pho. I used a mandolin for that .
Not this type:
This Type:
The Cooking Process:
Cooking can be relatively fast with this method, but I advise slow cooking to let the broth simmer and fully absorb the flavor from the spices. Ideally an hour and a half to two hours.
Start by adding the broth, optional bullion, onions (if so desired), black pepper and two cups of water to your soup pot. Put the spices into the defuser as noted above then add the defuser to the liquid mix. Heat the mix on high and bring it to a hard boil briefly. Once it hits a hard boil, reduce the heat and let it simmer. The magazine says 45 minutes. I’m a huge fan of low and slow however.
While the broth is simmering, put the steak into the freezer for 30 to 45 minutes. The goal is to get it to be cold enough to be firm and easy to thin slice, bit not actually frozen. If you’re lucky enough to have a deli slicer for meat at home, cutting the beef into thin strips will be super easy. If not, a properly sharp knife will do the job fine once the meat is firm.
Getting the meat as thin as possible is important because traditionally the meat is cooked in the bowl by the sheer heat of the broth.
Next up, while the steak is firming and the broth is simmering, we deal with the rice noodles. They take a little different process than wheat based pasta.
First place the noodles in a large container and cover them with hot tap water. Soak them until they’re pliable; about 10 to 15 minutes. Once they’re pliable, drain them then put them into a pot with 4 quarts of boiling water until almost tender. This will only take 30 seconds to a minute. Immediately drain the noodles and divide them among individual bowls.
Turn back up the heat on the broth to bring it to a rolling boil again. While it’s reaching that point, divide up the steak and shaved onion into the individual bowls. Serve immediately along with the previously listed extra garnishes and some extra fish sauce as a possible additional garnish.
A Couple Final Notes:
First, if you’re like me and have issues with potentially getting scalded by soup being dished out at a rolling boil… You can bypass the need to do that by cooking the rice noodles till fully tender. Also, you’ll want to spread the steak pieces out on a plate and microwave them for 30 seconds or so; until they’re losing the red and are light pink. Bring the broth back up to the point it’s just starting to boil and then add it to the bowls as above. The noodles will be soft and the steak pieces should finish cooking also while still being very tender.
Next, for those who get apoplectic over the idea of eating red meat (like my mother), I’m told that there are restaurants out there who substitute chicken broth and chicken breast for the beef ingredients and it supposedly works fine. Never tried it. I’m just putting it out there as an option for those with dietary restrictions or preferences. 🙂
Lastly, a warning! If you’ve never used Fish Sauce before…
It smells like dead fish that’s sat out in the sun decomposing for a couple weeks. The quarter cup that’s added to the broth quickly loses it’s scent and adds just a hint of flavor to the dish. I certainly wouldn’t want an open bottle sitting on my table as an added garnish though. “How It’s Made” (a TV show that walks viewers through the creation of various things) says fish sauce is used in Asia as a substitute for salt.
That being the case, I’m tempted to try soy sauce as a replacement.
Either way, the food turned out spectacular. My first time making it, but we will definitely be making it again. Is it official, purist Pho? I don’t know. Tastes good however. 😀
Baby Yoda with Subtitles:
I was going to do something deep and philosophical today but I ran out of mental energy. Instead here’s something fun; scenes from “The Mandalorian” explaining The Child’s dialog.
And because there’s never enough, there IS more!
And that’s enough for this time. 🙂
Learn From Kitty!!!
Nuff Said? Good, because teaching tired kitty out
The Art of the Brisket Sandwich & Judging BBQ
A belated ‘Meals Monday’ Post and it’s going to be a two for one! First there’s the brisket sandwiches.
OK, the plating isn’t as pretty as my usual pics, but I was in a hurry to eat. 😀 Can you blame me with the smoke ring showing on that overhanging meat?
So how does one create the prefect brisket sandwich? Fresh smoked brisket on a warm hot cross pretzel roll, add a tiny pit of mayo to the bottom and a little BBQ sauce on top of the meat; just enough to add a little flavor and moisture. Then top with smoked gouda cheese. 🙂
Devour immediately.
Fun story here also. That is not MY brisket. We finally found a good BBQ place here. You wouldn’t think it would be that hard in Tennessee, but that’s a story for another time.
So we’re out driving along, running errands and we stop at a traffic light right next to this old gas station. Windows are up, and we still smell something heavenly. It was coming from the gas station, which had been converted into a little restaurant tailor made for Diners Drive-Ins and Dives. We just had to whip in there and check it out.
We’ve actually tried three different restaurants recommended on Triple D, and this was quite a bit better. The guy had two stick burners (some BBQ lingo for y’all) out back and was cranking out some amazing ribs, brisket, pulled pork, chicken and sausage. Well, the brisket was so good we bought an extra pound to take home. Hence the Sandwiches. 🙂
What Makes Great BBQ?
Opinions vary there, but I’m going to give you a couple of competition judging standards. No, I’m not a competitor, but I’ve networked with several and a judge or two also. Personally, I’ve found the closer I get to these guidelines, the better the meat tastes too, so there you go.
A Smoke Ring:
It doesn’t matter what you’re cooking; ribs, brisket, chicken even turkey (which isn’t normally a competition item), you have to have a good smoke ring on the meat. This is the indication that the wood fire flavor has permeated the meat.
That red ring around the outside of the meat is the smoke ring. If you want to learn the science of what creates a smoke ring, there’s a great article at BarbequeBible.com. For everyone else, I’m just going to continue.
Bark!
Bark, quite simply, is a combination of a modest surface char AND surface seasonings darkening during cooking. A good bark will be on the crispy side and add texture to the meat. Getting a good bark is tricky, and all but impossible with a pellet smoker like I use. Sugar as part of the rub is a common way to get a “good” bark, as it readily darkens and hardens with the heat of the BBQ. NOT something I personally advocate.
Moisture
Rather obvious here, but you want any meat to be moist and tender. Not too dry.
Tensile Strength
I’m not sure what they proper judging term here is, but the idea is that the meat should stay together, not just fall apart. If ribs or brisket just fall apart, it means they were overcooked. Too tough: not cooked enough.
Perfect competition standard is that the meat should come apart with a light tug.
For ribs, that means the meat stays on the bone until bitten, or gently pulled upon. Then it should be tender when chewed.
Brisket has a bit more ornate standard, but Texans take their brisket seriously, LOL.
A slice of brisket should stay together if draped over a finger or held by two fingers at one end of the slice. If it can do that and is still tender to eat, you got a good one.
Similar ideas hold true with chicken or pulled pork. Chicken should stay on the bone, but come free easily when pulled, and pork shoulder roast should stay together until it’s pulled apart (hence the name pulled pork).
Flavor:
Another obvious one, but it merits a note. Ideally when smoking meat, you should be able to taste the smoke flavor, not just see the smoke ring. Some BBQ places use oak for example. Fairly common wood and easy to get ahold of. BUT it leaves very little flavor in the meat compared to something like hickory, mesquite or maple.
Maple is considered ideal for pork, as it adds a sweet smoky flavor to the meat.
There you have it though; a basic guideline to determine if you’re really getting top notch BBQ, or you’re missing out. 😉
How To Trim Pork Ribs St Louis Style
Yes, it’s time for another ‘Meals Monday’. I’m determined to get back on track here. 🙂
As it turns out, the apartment complex here allows BBQing under specific conditions. Essentially no open flame unless you’re using the charcoal grills in the rec area next to the pool area. Since the smoker is NOT open flame, I can BBQ here.
This was originally planned to be a recap of yesterday’s dinner as I cooked for my sister for the first time. One of my specialties also; pork spare ribs.
Well, yesterday turned into kind of a complete nuclear train wreck. Very little of which had anything to do with the food. The ribs did turn out to be a pretty poor quality meat though; tough and gristly. Not much worthy of showcasing here.
Lesson there: Don’t buy meat from Sam’s Club. Period.
HOWEVER, another opportunity did present itself. That being that ribs are cut and packaged differently depending upon where you live. In California, if I bought pork ribs, it would be just the straight rack. Here in Tennessee, you get the skirt and rib tips included with the rack.
With that in mind, I dug up a good video on how to properly trim pork ribs into a St. Louis style rack:
Personally, I prefer St Louis style. Primarily because I’ve gotten too many “baby back” racks that had no meat to speak of on them. I’ve found that if they’re properly slow cooked, side ribs AKA St Louis ribs can be every bit as tender as baby back ribs also.
Enjoy. 🙂
Proof: Squirrels are EVIL!!!
Updated; got a YouTube video link so the video will play here.
There we go… The video finally made it to YouTube
Star Wars History and Story Ideas…
My mind tends to wander a mile a minute when I’m doing mindless labor like packing and painting. Now despite the fact I should be working on my Witchfire series and the other writing that I’ve mentioned in the past, I find my thoughts drifting towards a few Star Wars ideas I mentioned far ago.
So my story ideas circle around a character of mine from the game Star Wars: The Old Republic. I realize most of you won’t be familiar with the game, so a quick bit of background. It’s a game set in the Star Wars Universe, but about a thousand years before the movies.
Side Note: At the time the game was released in 2011, it’s content was at least more or less canon. Since Disney has taken over an turned things on it’s head, I have NO idea if that’s still true. Their pattern SEEMS to be if they license it, it’s canon. If not, or it’s before their time, it isn’t. Bioware still has license, soooo…
The technology level is about the same as the movies. Apparently technology can only advance so far when you’ve hit that level. The Empire and the Republic both exist side by side and in conflict with each other. The Empire has many more Sith dark side force users than the movie however.
There’s some background to that also. Sometime between the game and the movies, the Sith got into a massive internal struggle and they all but obliterated themselves. The strongest survivor (by far) was a Sith named Darth Bane who created the “Law of Two” which says there’s only ever two Sith Lords; a master and an apprentice. Bane deemed legions of Sith to be a threat to themselves even more than the universe. But at the time of the game, there are still several Sith, all jockeying for power within the Empire.
Enter my character; Adoxia:
As a quick note, the bone color looking things on her face are actually jewelry.
She’s a pureblood Sith. What’s that you ask? The Sith were originally a red skinned humanoid race that were strong with the dark side of the force. They were largely untrained though and quickly conquered by the first fallen Jedi. From the combined teachings of the Pureblood Sith, and the fallen Jedi, the Sith Order arose. The pureblood SIth were quickly becoming an endangered species at the time the game was set. Interbreeding with human SIth and steady warfare had greatly reduced their numbers.
Adoxia goes through all the standard Sith trials and then fights her way through all the traps and politics of the Empire to become a Sith Lord. She tires of all the bloodshed though and also realizes as her adventures progress that the humans on the dark council are going out of their way to feed the Purebloods to the wolves and solidify their own power. Not too hard a task either since the Purebloods were the elites of the Empire for centuries and have the hubris to show for it.
Adoxia defects to the Republic and tries to train as a Jedi. While extremely capable, she has has an extremely hard time going from the passionate philosophy of the Sith to the emotionally dead ideology of the Jedi. This was 2011, so the revamped ideas of the Jedi as suppressing all emotion and connections that the prequel movies put out was already in full force canon-wise. Yes that was a deliberate pun also.
Philosophical discussions with a few other players who were dissatisfied with that new canon, AND the mean spirited power gaming on the Empire side and the lackluster play on the Republic side led to me (or rather Adoxia) creating the Order of the Grey.
Yes, God help me *I* may be partially responsible for the wishy washy grey, morally ambiguous force users that Disney is now trying to push on us.
MY Order of the Grey was a spin on the existing Revanite philosophy in the game though, and more accurately based on a true interpretation of Buddhism’s teachings regarding emotion. The original Jedi concept, as I mentioned, was based loosely on Buddhist teachings. Proof Lucas didn’t actually write the original trilogy, but that’s another post.
So, the Order of the Grey taught that emotions were part of life and not to be blocked out. They were to be kept in check and balanced by reason and logic. Properly focused positive emotions were particularly good so long as they didn’t reach the level of unhealthy attachment. There’s also a right and wrong to the universe, and Order of the Grey members were encouraged to pursue morally correct action along the lines of the Jedi. There was enough of a Sith influence to allow for a bit more extreme options than a Jedi might like though. Jedi were always supposed to try to find peaceful options, and take prisoners alive for example. The Grey might just put down a mad dog attacker.
Long explanations aside; my story ideas (kinky and not) were for stories continuing Adoxia’s adventures. Perhaps in her time, perhaps in the time of the movies. One previous Star Wars book has already established that a hyperdrive malfunction can result in time travel…
Would Adoxia be good, would she be bad? Still undecided there. I can see all kinds of scenarios though.
What Writers Can Learn From Comic Books
Payoff for something hinted at a couple days ago. 🙂
Some of my readers may still think of comic books as a kid’s media. Reality is, that started going away in the 60s. They deal with all kinds of social issues and topics that would be considered more mature. They just also do it in a grandiose setting much like ancient myths. I’ve read them for decades, and I’ve seen the good and bad in the work. I believe there are multiple lessons for other writers to take away from them as well. So, here we go:
- Begin with the end in mind: I know about half the writers out there at least partially fly by the seat of their pants. That’s OK, BUT, know the direction you’re heading. If you have an outline (mental or written) of how that final chapter is going to go, you will have an easier time getting your characters to that point. For better or worse, this is one thing the comic companies are good at doing. We have a 12 issue story arc that will end with X being defeated this way.
2. Think About the Long Term Implications of the Story’s Events: This is mainly for authors writing sequels. You never know when that one shot story or novel will inspire you to write more however. You may have fans push for a sequel also. This is something the comic companies have done very poorly since the 80s, hence all the reboots. Actions have consequences, even in good fiction. Destruction will cause public insecurity and backlash. Captured doomsday devices are potentially going to end up in wrong hands again, etc…
My favorite example here it Geoff Johns unleashing a whole rainbow of different Lantern rings on the DC Universe. It was pretty clearly, “oh this is cool, let’s take it a step farther” thinking with no thought for the impact on the story universe. So we went from Sinestro having a yellow ring, to him recruiting an army of yellow ringed psychos terrorizing the universe with the yellow rings. Then there were Red Rings based on rage, then came Blue rings based on hope, and Violet rings based on passion (not love), Indigo rings based on Compassion, an Orange Ring based on greed, White Rings based on Life, and Black Rings based on Death that reanimated dead characters as zombie black lanterns… By the time all was said and done, DC had the universe overflowing with various lanterns running amok. They had to go back and destroy most of the rings to restore some semblance of balance to the story universe. Recently, not having learned, they started doubling down and introduced non-visible light spectrum rings for hidden emotions like shame.
Learn from this. It doesn’t matter if it’s a spy story and the bad guy discovers our secret agent’s real name and that they have a family. There’s long term implications there of the bad guy repeatedly coming after the family, and selling the information to other villains so they can do the same. It’s OK to do that, just have a plan on how to handle it long term, like the family being relocated with new identities.
3 Every Character Should Have A Purpose: The comic companies have gotten big the last decade or so on throwing out new characters in the hopes of appealing to new readers. On the surface, that may seem logical. It’s really trying to side step the fact that the story telling is suffering. It’s treating a symptom, not the cause. The characters are frequently introduced with little though and poor or no backstories also.
Principle characters should have a decent backstory to define their motivations and goals. It can be as simple as the heroine works with the hero because they’re childhood friends and she has a secret crush. It’s a reason for them to be there, then all you need is what skills, observations, connections, etc… do they add to the story, and how those will come into play in the story.
Even minor or cameo character should have a reason for being there. The co-worker passed in the hall tells the protagonist about an event, etc… If they’re just there to show the office has a staff, they’re not needed in the story.
Note that major characters / the protagonist should have as much depth as possible also. Stan Lee talked about how what made Spider-Man successful was that it wasn’t his powers that let him win the day so often, it was Peter’s heart and scientific knowledge. The more clearly the character is defined, the easier it is to avoid that Mary Sue ending where the protagonist is simply better than the antagonist at their game.
4 Make your heroes actually be heroes and your villains be villains: A major failing of almost all mass media anymore. There’s precious little difference between protagonists and antagonists in so many TV stories, movies, etc…
A villain with depth is great. Magneto from the X-Men being a classic example. He has a cause, and a reason why he goes about it the way he does. At the end of the day though, he’s still a villain. The irony of the character that’s lost on many modern readers is that he was oppressed by Nazis so he feels justified in using the same logic and ideology as Nazis to protect mutants.
Nowadays, everything is moral relativism though, and some try to justify that as realism. It’s about as realistic as saying there’s no difference between a peace loving Muslim and a suicide bomber. Think about all the best selling books and movies in recent memory also. Every one of them had a hero that was standing up for what was right. Everything from Hunger Games to Avengers. The heroes may be flawed, and should be to some degree, but at their core, they’re still heroes. Likewise no matter how the villains try to justify themselves, or how tragic a character they might be, they’re still villains.
5 Do NOT Get Overly Preachy with Social Messages: Something the Twitter crowd doesn’t understand. You LOSE and outright alienate more readers this way than you gain. Comics have gotten BAD about this the last decade also. It’s the same kind of mentality that led Jussie Smollett to do what he did, with the same result that less people are going to be willing to listen to similar issues in the future.
Social issues have had a place in story telling since the dawn of time. Comics started with them in the 60s. They did a fine job up until the 90s also. My favorite old example is a Captain America storyline where the government tried to compel him back into gvernment service. It was a great story about the meaning of patriotism. Steve ultimately told the government to stuff it, and that while he believed in the country and the American Dream, the government had no right to control a citizen’s life. It was a good story that acknowledged the good and bad of patriotism and loyalty in general; how there had to be common sense and balance. Compare that with today how everything is about how horrible the West is while more and more of it’s critics flee TO the West.
Even when part of a story is racism or sexism; things with no upside… Don’t aggressively beat people to death with it, or portray any group as all bad. Yes, there are sexist men out there, but labeling every straight male in your story as a rapist is unrealistic and will alienate the average reader. Strive for a rational portrayal of social issues and you’ll reach more people.
OK, long post. Took forever to write also. Hopefully I gave some of my fellow authors some food for thought however. 🙂
Silk Chatters 