During the summer months we like inviting friends round for lazy Sunday lunches. You could call it a picnic on the terrace except that I can serve dishes I wouldn’t necessarily take to an extenal picnic, largely because of logistics. In keeping with the warm temperatures, I like to offer a selection of cold appetisers, main courses and desserts most of which can easily be prepared in advance, particularly the day before.
This spiced caramel tart recipe is simple to make, but the beautiful just-set texture of the filling elevates it to showstopper status. It looks innocent enough but really packs a flavour punch. Be sure to properly caramelise the sugar to achieve the required rich, deep and nutty flavour.
Ingredients (serves 10)
Sweet shortcrust pastry
300g (2 3/4 cups) all purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
200g (2 sticks, less 1 tbsp) ice-cold, unsalted butter
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.
This IS my brisket. A 16 hour labor of love.
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. 😉
I’m playing ketchup (lol) with posts today as we get ready to put the house back on the market. Ergo, “Wildcard Wednesday” is “Meals Monday” for this post. 🙂
A while back, I promised my readers a post with my pesto recipe. I’m here to deliver! This is a traditional Genovese basil-based Pesto sauce. My step father brought it over from Italy (he was born there) so it’s authentic. Also named after him here. His original Italian first name was Attilio.
Just a quick note before I get started: This recipe is going to make a large amount of pesto. A cup is usually plenty to do pasta for four people. Pesto keeps fairly well in the fridge (not indefinitely however), and it can be frozen with minimal loss of flavor. It defrosts fairly quick also.
Note this is also all U.S. measurements. Converting them to Metric equivalent can be done at this site or similar sites:
3 Tablespoons of Romano, Pecorino, or more Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
Preparation:
All you need is a Cuisinart or similar food processor. Add everything in and blend well. The basil should be broken down to small, crumb sized pieces.
Alternatively, if you’re a fan of pine nuts, you can blend everything except the pine nuts, then add them to the food processor and give it 3 quick presses of the button to chop them up without breaking them down to tiny pieces. This gives the pesto a little more texture and makes the pine nut flavor a little more noticeable.
On the flip side, if you hate pine nuts, you can leave them out or substitute another nut for them. Walnuts are a common option in other recipes I’ve seen.
Final Notes:
The most important thing I can add here is that pesto is a sauce that you add to food AFTER it’s cooked. If you cook it with the pasta, etc… you’ll lose much of the flavor. I can tell you first hand that it looses all visual appeal if you try to add it to vegetables while they’re grilling. WAIT UNTIL AFTER THE FOOD IS COOKED, then put it on top or mix it in.
Also, pasta with pesto added is how at least most Americans see this used. I can tell you that it goes well on top of grilled chicken and fresh steamed or grilled vegetables as well. I have no idea how traditional those uses are, BUT pesto is a fairly versatile sauce. Give yourself permission to experiment with it a little. I imagine it could go well over a milder flavored fish for example.
When my family makes the above recipe, we put the excess into seal-able containers that are about 1 cup in size, and store them in the freezer. When we’re ready to use more, we pull it out and set it on the counter. It will defrost in an hour and a half to two hours in my experience. DO NOT defrost using a microwave! It’ll do nasty things to the oil and cheese.
The recipe doubles nicely also if you want to store a large amount for future use.
LASTLY: As with ALL cooking, the quality of the ingredients makes a HUGE difference. Find the freshest basil you can find, make sure the olive oil IS Extra Virgin, not Walmart trash, there is a massive difference between authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and Kraft Parm, etc…
I need a lighter post, and I’ve neglected my fellow foodies lately. That being the case, I thought it was also time I showed I can do more than BBQ and do eat healthy (occasionally, lol)
What I did the other day was grill some boneless skinless chicken breast fillets on the charcoal grill
Two were seasoned with lemon pepper seasoning and two were seasoned with chipotle pepper seasoning, which allowed me to customize both our salads a bit. 🙂
From there, it was a simple matter of combining all the veggies, shredded cheese, sunflower seeds, etc… into a salad.
I double layer everything so that the salad is pre-mixed without actually tossing it in large bowl. The final result is a pretty big salad, but that was the main course for dinner
Serve with fresh french bread on the side and viola, a meal. 😀
In between all the chores, I did find time Monday to apply my tasty slow cooking techniques to some beef Tri-Tip from Costco. It’s just taken a couple days to get to blogging about it.
Half the time, I’ll use my dual grill method and slow smoke until the meat hits an internal temperature of 100 degrees, then put it on a hot charcoal grill to put a nice sear on the meat and get the IT to 135 degrees. This time, I didn’t feel like fussing with two grills. I slow smoked at 180 degrees for a little over an hour to get the meat to 100 degrees, then I just cranked up the heat on the pellet smoker. So, no grill marks, but it did turn out very tasty:
Perfect medium rare with great smoke flavor
And for those who are curious… Yes, just basic salt, pepper and garlic for a rub. That’s almost all I ever use. Good meat doesn’t need sugar and other fluff. 🙂
Briskets, as I mentioned in last Friday’s post, are a big slab of meat. Unless you’re serving a large group, you’re going to have leftovers. We had 12 people and still had leftovers actually.
So, after you cook enough of them, you get really good at figuring out what to do with the leftovers. Brisket hash, sandwiches, omelets, and various types of Tex-Mex dishes are common alternatives to plain leftovers. Tacos are exactly what we did earlier tonight.
Tacos are a really easy option. All I had to do with the meat was trim the fat and cut it into small squares, then I warmed it up in a pan with some Hatch Chile sauce to give it even more flavor and put a little moisture back into it:
We buy our shells pre-made and the cheese and lettuce pre-shreded, so aside from washing the lettuce, prep work was a breeze. End result; some really tasty Tacos:
On the small chance anybody noticed and is jealous of my LeCreuset cookware, the patent is apparently up on their designs. Crock Pot makes a clone that’s almost impossible to tell from the Le Creuset originals. The pot above is authentic, but most of our cookware is Crock Pot brand clones that work and clean up just as well. All for a third the cost. Although now that Le Creuset has competition, I expect their prices will start dropping a little also. Then again, Yeti still charges a fortune for their coolers…
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