My latest kitchen adventure involved slow smoking a tomahawk cut two pound Ribeye steak, and some homemade (not quite) Macaroni and Cheese. OK, so first the side dish.
I say not quite Mac because every pasta shape has a different name. The store was cleaned out of the usual mini sea shell shaped pasta I like (it does a great job of holding cheese), and most of what was left in-stock was known to be poor quality brands. I ended up settling on Orecchiette. Close enough, I figured.
Add in some diced panchetta and ton of cheese and we had the start of something good:
I know, odd combination of cheeses, but it worked… Other than how oily the cheddar was. After the cheese was melted and the pasta cooked, into the pan it went with some panko bread crumbs on top. Cook till the Panko is golden brown and we had a delicious side dish:
Yes, I got a little too much pepper on top to make a pretty picture. It did stir into the mix fine though.
Hint; they’re not really talking about food here, LOL
And then there was the giant, man-eating steak, slow smoked for two and a half hours:
Normally, I’d have pulled it off the smoker at 100 degrees internal temperature and then dropped it on the charcoal grill just long enough to get a nice sear and reach a perfect medium rare internal temp of 135. No charcoal grills allowed at the apartments though.
We divided the steak in two and each had half, since it was a steak-asaurus.
And that was Labor Day dinner here at Chateau de Silk.
Oh yes… The baked potato. A standard gourmet preparation there. After washing the potato, pat it dry, then rub olive oil into it and douse with salt, pepper and garlic. Baked unwrapped. You’ll get an amazingly tasty crisp skin. on the tater.
Yes, a 2 for 1 here. After trying the Korean Bulgogi recipe that’s been in my family for a good 40 years on chicken, I threatened to try it on pork as well. When I did spare ribs yesterday, I did just that. One one rack of ribs anyway. The other was old school Texas.
All that was missing was a little green onion added to the Asian ribs as garnish, and some sauce for the regular ribs, but that came later. 😉
The flavor was heavenly on both. I’ve seen a ton of complicated recipes to get ribs to turn out flavorful on a pellet smoker. Nothing beats plain old LOW and slow at 185 for 6 hours however. The only extra is a light basting with apple juice every 45 minutes or so to keep them moist. Results? Judge for yourself:
Magnificent smoke ring on both of them, and deep flavor. The Bulgogi ribs tasted like the best Chinese (well, Korean) restaurant food you’ve ever had. 🙂
OK so actually, Tri-Tip is sirloin, not round, LOL. I’m past due for another cooking post however, and I finally managed to find a tri-tip out here. That alone took an act of God. I had no idea when I moved that Tennessee was full of BBQ Philistines who didn’t know what Tri-Tip was, LOL.
These also came pre-marinated, which I didn’t care for, but it was a case of beggars can’t be choosers.
Meat Buying Tip: Do NOT buy the dry pre-seasoned meats from the local grocery store (or Costco). They use the old, nearly expired pieces to make those, and let the spices piled on them cover up that the meat is turning color. Pre-packaged marinade cuts of meat tend to be lower quality as well.
Anyhow, I managed to turn this one into a solid success:
Add in some side dishes and we had a great meal:
One problem with marinading meats shows in the slices above. It’s clearly tender, but the marinade blocked much of the smoke flavor from getting into the meat. The smoke ring is faint, and not very deep.
So let’s hop in the way-back machine and go back to the start though. 😁 I had talked last time I tried “beer can” chicken that I was going to do it again as soon as I got a normal sized porcelain ‘throne’, so that it would actually fit in the smoker. Well, the replacements came in a few days ago.
So, it was time to get busy! Since these chicken thrones make for virtually unlimited options in what you use to steam the inside of the chicken, I decided to do something really different. My uncle brought back a marinade recipe decades ago from Korea when he was in the Navy. Looking online, apparently it’s bulgogi, but it’s not anywhere as sickeningly sweet as the stuff I’ve tried from Costco and a few other places. So anyway… Yeah… Insert Hipster joke or meme here.
Being bulgogi, it’s intended for beef, but I branched out and tried it on chicken with great success (so long as you don’t over-marinate it). Here’s that recipe, in the quantities he used it for a couple of pounds of short ribs:
Korean Short Rib Marinade (bulgogi)
1/3 a cup of soy sauce
1/3 a cup of water
1/4 cup of white or yellow onion, chopped
1 or 2 scallions (green onions), chopped
2 Tablespoons of sesame seeds
2 Tablespoons of sugar
2 cloves of finely minced or pressed garlic
1/2 a teaspoon of pepper
A couple of quick notes here:
First, the original recipe also called for 1/4 a teaspoon of MSG. Given the bad rap that MSG has, I don’t use it though. I’ve also considered adding a tablespoon or two of freshly grated ginger, but haven’t tried it yet.
I’ve tried this on several cuts of beef such as tri-tip and tenderloin with great results. It works good with chicken also, but marinade times will vary. Beef you can do overnight and have great flavor when you cook. Chicken, you only want to do about an hour to and hour and a half per pound. I suspect it would work well on pork also IF it’s done for the same time as the chicken.
This is also one of those sauces that is best made the day before. It gives the flavors time to blend fully. That gives you the faint nutty flavor of the sesame seeds and the savoriness of the garlic and onion also. If you just throw it together and go, esp without thorough mixing, it’ll taste more like a cross between Teriyaki and Soy Sauce.
Lastly, Soy Sauce: I typically use low sodium soy sauce for food, BUT in the case of this marinade, I use regular soy sauce. The reason being that the marinade acts like a brine and tenderizes the meat. That’s primarily due to the salt in the soy sauce. Besides, with it being diluted with equal parts water, it’s not that strong.
Back to the Chicken!
So, I whipped up the marinade and put it and the chicken into a pot:
the smell was heavenly
Because this was a nearly 4 pound chicken, and the pot wasn’t exactly a snug fit, I had to increase all the marinade recipe portions. I used a full 2 cups of soy sauce and water. I could have used less if I had broke the chicken down but then I couldn’t have put it on the throne. About 2/3 of a cup of the finished marinade went into the ‘throne’ also, instead of into the pot.
I let the chicken marinate 4 hours, then pulled it out of the pot and patted it dry with a paper towel. The next step was to rub some salt pepper and garlic into the skin. Given that I was doing an Asian dish, I added some sesame seeds also. With that, we were ready to go.
If I had been thinking, and had any on hand, I likely would have substituted Chinese five spice for the salt, pepper and garlic rub. I smoked it low and SLOW for two hours, which got the internal temperature to about 125 F. At that point, I turned the pellet smoker up to 350 F and cooked it for another 25 minutes to get the internal temperature to a proper 165 degrees F and crisp up the skin.
It turned out better than I’d hoped. Between the marinade, and the steaming from the throne, the chicken was so moist and tender it was unreal. Add some homemade white cheddar biscuits and mixed veggies on the side, and it was a fabulous meal:
And if you really want to see how moist that chicken turned out, check out this drumstick:
The color is due to a combination of the marinade and being smoked low and slow for two hours. It was properly cooked to 165 F internal temperature (as previously mentioned). 👍
I’m a day late posting it too, but I’ve been in a mood lately. None the less, here’s the homemade meatloaf that I cooked on the smoker last night. 😊
OK, a little greasy in that fresh off the smoker picture, and I used a pizza tray as opposed to a bread pan so that more smoke would permeate the meat. Here’s the plated final result:
The bread items were lunch leftovers brought home by my other half, so that saved me a little cooking, LOL. The red around the outer edge of the meat is not ketchup either; that’s the actual smoke flavor penetrating the meat.
That shot shows the smoke ring, such as it was, and how moist the meatloaf was. Unfortunately I forgot and put the A1 sauce on the surface early, and that kept the smoke from penetrating deeper.
THE RECIPE:
First, credit where it’s due; my recipe is a modified version of “Not Your Momma’s Meatloaf” from the Traeger Grills website. Traeger actually has some fairly good recipes, BUT they don’t know how to use their own (junk) grills low and slow. Everything at least used to be 350 degrees. Might as well use an oven at that temperature. You won’t get any smoke flavor.
Ingredients:
1 1/4 Lb of Ground Beef – not more than 20% fat content to avoid excessive grease
1 Lb of sausage of your choice, or another meat like pork or veal. I used Italian sausage last night.
2 Eggs, beaten
1 Cup of bread crumbs.
1 Cup of milk
1/4 Cup of diced Onion, ideally a mild variety.
2 Teaspoons of Salt
1 Teaspoon of garlic powder
1/2 Teaspoon of Sage
1/4 cup Worcestershire Sauce
A-1 Steak Sauce or BBQ Sauce to be added later
Prep Work:
Prep on this is pretty easy. First, mix together everything except the meats and the BBQ or A1 sauce in a bowl. After it’s all blended together nicely, add in the meat and thoroughly work everything together. Typically, this is hand work, but I’ve found my Kitchenaid stand mixer works fine and keeps my hands neater. Just allow a little extra time vs hand mixing.
At this point, I add the meatloaf to a bread pan to give it some shape. If you’re preparing this early, you can cover the pan and put it in the fridge at this point. It’ll maintain a better shape during cooking as an added bonus.
Prep is very quick if you’re organized and the meat is fresh or defrosted. It should only take about 15 minutes.
Cooking:
There are a couple of options here. First is to just put it in an oven at 350 degrees and cook it for about an hour. If you go this route, just put the steak sauce or BBQ sauce on the top before it goes in the oven.
Side Note: Steak or BBQ sauce gives the meatloaf a more robust flavor than Ketchup in my opinion.
Now, if you have a smoker of either sort (stick burner or pellet grill), get it to about 200 degrees F and put the meatloaf on a wire rack or a ventilated pizza tray like I used. It’ll take a little over 2 hours to cook this way, but the meatloaf will be even moister and have that delicious wood fire flavor. When you’re about 20 minutes till finish, baste on the steak sauce or BBQ sauce, and turn up the heat to 350 or so. That will put a nice reverse sear on the meat, and make sure that sauce is baked on.
Putting the sauce on sooner will block the smoke penetration, which is why you wait if slow cooking.
Pull the meatloaf off the heat when it hits an internal temperature of about 140 F, let it rest for 5 to 10 minutes, then serve.
Another Meals Monday here (and the other pics I was going to post and blog about disappeared), so here we are with a couple of quick almost Italian dinner ideas.
First is an easy Italian Meatball sandwich:
It’s an easy fix; toast some pre-purchased bakery rolls, add smoked gouda and some pre-made meatballs:
Never had this brand before but man they’re as good as homemade. I did have to cook them in the air fryer though, which took about 10 to 12 minutes.
Add the meatballs, warm up some decent bottled marinara (there are a couple of store bought sauces that are edible) and add that… You’re good to go in 15 minutes. 😀
DIY Quick Pizza:
Another fast option. Start with a quality frozen cheese pizza. Digiorno and Screaming Sicilian are really the only two brands I like
The big slices of whole mozzarella are part of why I like them too. 🙂
Anyway, from there, just throw on your own toppings of choice, pop in the oven for 20 minutes, and viola! Quick dinner!
With any pizza I do at home, I pat it with a paper towel after it comes out of the oven to absorb some of the grease, as the above pic shows.
Relatively quick, and cheap. Very easy.
As with any meal, quality ingredients make the difference. I picked quality meatballs and one of the few good brands of frozen pizza. The rolls were from a bakery also.
Don’t try this at home with $1 frozen pizzas and wonder bread. 😀
As always, ZERO affiliate links or reimbursements of any kind here. I simply recommend what I enjoy.
Today’s food post turned out to be one where I had to improvise. I got a couple of ceramic “roasters” for making “beer can chicken”.
Beer Can Chicken???
I suppose I’ll have to divert for a moment and explain beer can chicken. It’s a (mostly) Southern thing. 🙂 Beer Butt chicken among the classy folk, lol. At it’s simplest, beer can chicken is standing the chicken upright with an open beer can stuffed in the body cavity. The beer steams the inside of the chicken, keeping it moist, tender, and adding flavor.
Since it’s hard to get the chicken to stand up on end, there are wire racks that you can use to hold the can, and thus keep it upright, OR you can get a ceramic one like I did:
The ceramic is the best option IMO, because you can use anything to “steam” the inside of the chicken. Refined aluminum (ie from the can) has been linked to Alzheimer’s and other health problems, then there’s the whole paint on the can too, so yeah… ceramic for me. Too many other bonuses on top of being able to use something other than skunky beer.
Back to the Meal!
So, I brined the chicken about six hours, then rinsed it off, dried and seasoned it:
The seasoning was a combination of Sucklebuster’s SPG and Clucker Dust:
1836 is Sucklebuster’s signature beef rub; and the year Texas became a state.
SPG is just salt, pepper and garlic. Easy to do yourself but handy to have in a single bottle and Sucklebusters really is a top notch spice company. Clucker Dust has a few more seasonings; primarily a little brown sugar and chipotle pepper. Not enough to make it sweet or hot. It’s just enough to make the flavor profile more complex.
OK, so after I got some rub on the chicken, I filled up the “roaster” (some BBQ folks in the South call them thrones), with water, apple juice, garlic, rosemary, basil and oregano. Then I put the chicken on the throne, lol.
At this point is where I hit my problem and had to improvise. The original plan was to smoke the chicken slow and low on the Rec-Tec 680. HOWEVER… the throne was too tall to fit in the smoker.
Improvise, adapt and overcome… Into the oven it went instead:
I cooked it at 275 F (or 135c ) so as to keep the meat tender. I was being cautious there since this was the first time doing chicken this way. If I had it to do over again, I’d cook it at 325 or 350 so that the skin got a little crispier. All in all, it turned out really well though:
You can see the juice running off the chicken onto the cutting board.
Add some steamed and seasoned green beans and some cheddar biscuits:
Half a yard bird to go. 😀
No, neither of us finished a full half a yard bird either, LOL. Leftovers are all part of the madness here at casa de silk. Here’s a look at how tender that chicken was also:
That meat just pulled right off the leg.
Flavor was there also. The diluted apple juice and seasonings added some mild flavor while still allowing the flavor of the chicken itself to come through. Higher heat might have steamed more flavor into the bird though. 🤔
Anyhoo, we’ve ordered the standard (not tall) size roasters from Amazon, which will shorten the height by 3 inches (7.62cm).
That should give us clearance to use the smoker next time. Probably get a slightly smaller chicken too. This one was fairly big. Overall a successful experiment. I’m looking forward to doing it again and adding some smoke flavor.
An Added Note on These Ceramic Roasters or Thrones:
The nice thing about these is that you can use anything to ‘steam’ the chicken with. Beer and Coca-Cola are the most popular options in the South, but you can use anything from Champagne to dark ale to fruit juice… even sauces. You MIGHT want to dilute stronger liquids with water though, or your lemon chicken could be REALLY lemony. Then add any seasonings you want into that liquid, and viola! Moist, tender chicken flavored any way you chose to do it. And you can use it in the oven, or with a smoker or grill.
They clean up pretty easy also.
There are also ‘throne’ models for turkeys, but that’s going to stand pretty tall…
I threatened it, and here it is, just in time for a late in the day Meals Monday.
As the title says, first, I started with the whole chicken breasts that I grilled a couple days ago:
Preserved in a ‘Food Saver’ vacuum bag, so still perfectly fresh. 😉
Then we add fresh pasta, and cheeses for the sauce:
The cheese in the ziploc bag is Parmigiano-Reggiano. The recipe for the Alfredo sauce is in my post on my vaguely Italian, redneck nachos, LOL. By the way, if you’ve never had fresh pasta like the Buitoni above… Well, once you do, you’ll never go back to the dry stuff again. Soooooooooo much better.
After cutting up the chicken, cooking the pasta and the sauce, then mixing it all together, we have a couple of delicious plates of pasta:
The other half wanted mushrooms also, so there you are. 😊
I made these the day before yesterday. Slow posting, but I’m trying to make up for it now. 🙂
We bought some chicken breasts from the grocery store, and when we finally got a clear weather day, I brined them for eight hours, then I smoked them on the Rec-Tec.
There were actually five total, but one I cooked about 80% of the way to done, cut it up and then sautéed it in a store bought chipotle sauce. That finished the cooking and still left it tender.
After that, it was just a matter of assembling the nachos. I’m not going to do a recipe here. Nachos are easy; it’s just tortilla chips topped with meat, cheese and whatever else excites you. 🙂 If you can get them though, I would recommend Santitas brand tortilla chips:
They’re more affordable than the big name brands, and have great flavor. Less artificial ingredients too.
And the end result here:
M nachos had four Mexican cheese blend, tomatillo salsa (my fave!), sour cream and green onions along with the smoked and seasoned chicken. If only i had guacamole…
As an added note, since I’m tossing out recommendations… The chipotle sauce I used for the chicken was Wicked Tasty Taco brand. It came as a paste I had to add water too. This was one of those rare instances where I had good luck with a pre-made food item from the grocery store. Be warned though, if you like bland food, this does have a moderate amount of heat. It’s authentic chipotle flavor.
As always, no endorsements here either. I’m recommending brands here strictly because I used and like them. 🙂
One of the bad things about getting married on a holiday is that there’s nothing open to celebrate. Well, I’m as good a cook as most restaurants anyway, and my food handling practices are certainly far better than most. Ergo, the first anniversary dinner was grilled steaks, potatoes, corn and a salad:
I put some fresh grated parm on the corn to make (Italian?) street corn, lol. There were two salads also. Somebody just started eating theirs before I got this picture. 👀🐱👤
Yes one steak smothered with portabella mushrooms sauteed in butter and garlic also. 👍 Mine was the plain one. Having Texas ancestry, I know good meat doesn’t need fancy toppings, and these were Prime grade Ribeyes. 😁
The color *might* look a little odd to some folks because I slow cooked them on the smoker and got a nice red smoke coloring all through them. Since we’re not allowed to have open fire grills at the apartments, I got the char marks via use of a HOT pan on the stove top. Here’s the steak cut open:
Tender and moist all the way through with great flavor.
Afterwards, we had a 1 year anniversary cake made to offset the wedding cake being screwed up. Why not? How often is our anniversary going to fall on the Fourth of July after all? 🤡😁🎂
Pink Champaign cake with buttercream icing and raspberry filling… How our wedding cake was SUPPOSED TO be. Cake courtesy of Nashville Sweets. I didn’t have the time or ability to whip up a cake with all the therapy stuff going on. Even if I did, I can’t decorate on that level by any means. 😊
For you vegetarians, here’s a closer look at the salad.
Beyond that, it was a quiet day. We did get to watch people shooting off fireworks in our honor from the comfort of our back porch though, LOL.
Silk Chatters 