A Turkey Breast Resolution

I haven't posted in awhile, but with the New Year approaching I am felt inspired. With the smell of resolutions in the air, I made something healthy that I could use for lunch throughout the week. Save on calories. Save on money. . .

Smoked Turkey Breast!

1 - Bought a 2.5lb turkey breast at the local Fresh Market

The Fresh Market

2 - Brine

4 cups of Apple Cider

4 cups of Water

1/4 cup of Salt

3 tbs of Honey

Roughly chopped onion

4 Bay Leaves

1 tsp of Black Peppercorns

2 tsp of Louisiana Hot Sauce

Brought all ingredients to a boil. Let cool. Submerged turkey breast in brine and refrigerated overnight.

The Brine

3 - Rub

After removing the turkey breast from the brine, I dried it off with paper towel. Then I rubbed it with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a random rub that we had in the cabinet.

Rubbed and Ready

4- Smoke

Heated the Big Green Egg up to about 300 degrees. Added Cherry Wood that I soaked in water for a few hours. Placed the breast in a rack over a tin pan filled with a couple cups of apple cider.

Basted with the juice in the pan at the first hour and every thirty minutes afterward.

Cherry Wood

Turkey on the Grill

The turkey was finished when the internal temperature hit 165 degrees. After removing from the Egg, I let sit for 10 - 15 minutes.

Done and done

5- Gravy

For the gravy, I used the remaining the following ingredients:

1/2 stick Butter
2 tbs of Flour
1 cups of a combination of remaining cider and drippings from the drip pan and turkey stock
1 tbs of Bourbon
1/2 teas of Salt
1/2 teas of Black Pepper

First, I melted the butter in a sauce pan over medium heat. Once the butter was melted, I whisked in the flour and continued stirring for 3 minutes.

Then I added turkey stock to the remaining cider until I had 1 cup. I mixed that in the pan with the salt, pepper and bourbon. I continued stirring for about 5 minutes until it was sufficiently thickened.

I adjusted the gravy recipe for my needs from Ina Garten's recipe on the Food Network website.

Belle Meade Bourbon . . .
Make sure to pour a bit for sipping

Whisking the Flour

Final Gravy

6- Serve

Yummy!

Put a little shoulder into it . . .

This past Memorial Day weekend I had a friend from Kansas in town. We don't get a lot of visitors, but to have one for a long weekend and from a rival BBQ region. What else could I do? I had to show him what real BBQ tasted like.

In Memphis, we love pulled pork and since I have been smoking a lot of ribs lately. It was time to smoke some butt. That's right, pulled pork come from an area of the pig called the butt or Boston butt. It has nothing to do with the where the pig sits. It is actually the fatty part of the shoulder. The rest of shoulder is usually called the picnic. That can be smoked and pulled too, but it takes a bit longer and it is not as fatty.

I bought the meat at a new local meat shop called Thomas' Meat Market in Collierville. It is in a shopping center at Poplar and Byhalia. I highly recommend it. They have all nartural organic meats that come mostly from nearby Arkansas. He has both cornfed and grassfed beef. He also has what looked like beautiful seafood. However, on this particular day he only had big 11lb butt left. (That pig had back!) It would have taken me an entire day to cook. Luckily, he was willing to shave a couple pounds off to use for some sausage. I was still left with a 9lb piece of meat.

After I got home, I trimmed off the thick layer of fat on one side of the shoulder. I then slathered the whole thing mustard, before I rubbed it with the same rub I used for my competition ribs. You really could rub it down with any store bought or homemade rub. (I could have a whole write-up on making rub.)Then I wrapped it in foil and let it sit overnight for what is called a "dry marinade."

Then comes the fun part: smoking. It is fairly easy, but it takes a long time. So, I got up at about 5am. Cooking will take 1.5 - 2 hours a pound. I am assuming my shoulder was about 8lbs after trimming, so I had at least 12 hours of smoking ahead of me. You know the shoulder is done when the internal temperature reaches between 195 - 205.

Below is the step-by-step process of smoking the shoulder:

5am: Time to make the donuts

• First, I set the Green Egg up for indirect cooking. I have a insert called a "place setter" that will block the flame. A tray of water sits on the place setter and the grate goes on top.
• Before putting the meat on the grill, I add chunks of apple wood that have been soaking overnight. Fruit wood is lighter and won't overwhelm the flavor of the meat, like hickory, mesquite, or oak.
• Once the temperature of the Egg hits about 250, I put the meat on the grate, directly over the pan of water.
• I don't trust the temperature in the dome of the Egg. It is not the same as the temperature at the area of the grill where the meat sits. I use a remote thermometer that has two sensors. One I am using at the grate to measure the temp of the grill. The other for internal temperature. 
• My goal Egg temperature is about 235 degrees. Once, I get the smoker to hold at the temperature by adjusting the airflow. I don't touch it for four hours
• At four hours I open it and mop it with a homemade basting sauce, made of apple cider, cider vinegar, worcestershire, and bourbon.
• At six hours I add more wood, I rotate the meat, and I baste the meat. There was no need to add more charcoal. The fire was still going strong.
• Now, I start watching the internal temperature. At six hours, the temperature was at 150 degrees and climbing fast to 160.
• At 8 hours, I baste the meat again. Temperature is at 170
• At 10 hours, I baste again. The temperature is only at 173. The internal temperature stopped climbing, because the fat is rendering. This is where all the flavor comes from.
• Finally at about 11.5 hours, the temperature starts climbing again. 
• At 12 hours the temperature is at 190. I baste the meat again.





At 4 hours


• At 13 hours the meat is done.

I served the pulled pork with two choices of sauce: 1) my competition BBQ sauce, which is a ketchup base with molasses, honey, cider vinegar, and a number of spices (again I will save my sauce for another write-up) and 2) a Carolina style vinegar sauce that I took from Michael Ruhlman. It is basically cider vinegar, red pepper flakes, brown sugar, and fish sauce.

For sides, we had slaw that another guest brought that was made from fresh locally grown cabbage. It was a vinegar based slaw that was fantastic. We also had Lady Peas cooked with a bit of bacon and chicken stock, grilled zuchinni and squash, cornbread, and my wife's awesome chocolate spice cake for desert. 

The pulled pork was one of the best I have ever made and sides were unbelievable. Needless to say, my friends went back to Kansas feeling a bit jealous of Memphis BBQ.

Final Product!

The Devil Inside

It has been a long time since my last post. Apparently life (or work) must have gotten in the way. As Easter represents rebirth, this Easter themed write-up represents the rebirth of my blog.

Deviled Eggs

Deviled eggs may not seem like the most exciting thing to write about, so I had to spice things up a bit. I tried three different recipes and put them up against each other for my Mother-in-law's Easter brunch.

All the recipes have a few basic ingredients: hard-boiled eggs, mayonnaise, some sort of fat (like butter), mustard, salt & pepper, and something for garnish. The things I experimented with were herbs, the garnish, spices, and the type of fat.

The first recipe was basically taken from my current favorite cooking website FOOD52. I have written about them in the past. None of their recipes have failed me yet. It is more a basic chive based recipe.

Recipe #1 

6 eggs

¼ cup mayonnaise

1 tbsp unsalted butter (room temp)

½ tbsp dijon

Pinch of cayenne

Salt and pepper

 1 tbsp chopped chives

Garnish: chives

My mother was in town and she kept saying that I needed to use horseradish. I happened to have some horseradish root in my fridge from something I made a few days ago. I grated it and added it to the mix. Plus, I used tarragon instead of chives, paprika instead of cayenne, and threw in some Worcestershire for good measure.

Recipe #2
6 eggs

¼ cup mayonnaise

1 tbsp unsalted butter (room temp)

1 tbsp chopped tarragon

2 tsp horseradish

½ tbsp dijon

½ tsp paprika

½ tsp Worcestershire sauce

Salt and pepper

Garnish: tarragon 

For the last recipe, I decided to steal something I saw from a recent issue of Bon Appétit, bacon fat. Instead of using their recipe completely, I basically did a mix of the first two recipes and used bacon fat instead of butter. I know the whole bacon movement is getting a bit overdone, but you can't deny that bacon truly makes everything taste better. It also helped me feel a little more manly about making deviled eggs for Easter.

Recipe #3

6 eggs

¼ cup mayonnaise

1 tbsp bacon fat

1 tbsp chopped chives

2 tsp horseradish

½ tbsp dijon

½ tsp paprika

½ tsp Worcestershire sauce

Salt and pepper

Garnish: bacon

Hard boiling the eggs was fairly easy. Put the eggs in a pot and cover with at least an inch of water. Bring the pot to a boil. Remove from heat. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes. 

The hardest part of making the deviled eggs is the peeling. My wife had told me using week old eggs would make it easier. However, I somewhat dismissed that thought as an old wives tale. (Not that my wife is by any means old. She is young, beautiful and I love her lots.) I ended up using a mix of week old eggs and brand new eggs. Some of the old eggs were brown, so I could tell the difference. My wife couldn't have been more right (again). The new eggs were extremely difficult to peel, while the old eggs just came right off like I was peeling an orange. My wive's technique is basically rolling them gently on the cutting board after slightly cracking them. Find the side with the air bubble and peel from there. There is a membrane under the shell that on the older eggs just peels right off.

After peeling the eggs, I carefully cut them in half and removed the hardened yolk. I put the yolks in the food processor, added everything but the herbs and processed until smooth. I then mixed in the chopped herbs and the filling was done.

To fill the eggs, I spooned the filling into a sandwich-sized Ziplock bag and cut a small hole in one of the corners. I then squeezed the filling into each of the eggs and topped with the appropriate garnish.

Needless to say, the bacon eggs were the overwhelming winner of the contest. However, as far as the herbs go, I was a much bigger fan of the tarragon with the horseradish and my wife liked the chives better. To each their own, I guess.

Bon appétit!

Burger Time!

Do any of you remember the game "Burger Time?"

I think I used to play it on Intellivision when I was a kid in the 80's. Basically, you are a chef that has to build hamburgers. However, you are being chased by hot dogs and eggs that are trying to stop you. I highly recommend it. You can easily find a Flash version online.


My wife raves about my burgers. I think she just likes all burgers and I tend to make them for her the most. Anyway, I have been asked by a number of people for my burger recipe and I figured what better way to share it than on my blog. So, here you go.

My recipe is based roughly on a recipe from Cooks Illustrated that I found a few years ago. If you are not familiar with this magazine, then you really should pick one up. They tend to have it at higher end grocery stores, like Whole Foods and Fresh Market. In the magazine, they try a number of different recipes and see which works the best. This burger recipe is from an article where they are trying to reproduce steakhouse burgers at home. The secret, of course, was bacon. They tried using bits in the burger. However, in the end, using just the grease worked best.

The ingredients you need are:

White bread
Milk
Burger seasoning
1 Large egg
5-6 slices of bacon
2 lbs. Lean Ground beef (85-90%)
Cheese
Buns

Dressing and condiments as you choose. I like brown mustard, onion, lettuce, and bacon.

You may wonder why I use lean ground beef, when I already threw any health benefits out the window by adding bacon grease. The answer is that the leaner beef will help minimize flame-ups caused by the grease, while the burgers are on the grill.

1- Remove the crust from a slice of white bread. Then soak the bread in milk. Let sit for five minutes

2- Cook bacon. I use a ridged dish made for making bacon in the microwave. Save the actual bacon to put on the burger later. Pour the grease into a mixing bowl.

3- Add the beef, egg, soaked white bread, and seasoning to the bowl.

I have been using a seasoning my wife found at the William-Sonoma outlet called "Potlatch Seasoning: Salmon & Seafood Spice Rub". I used to use one made for beef, but I ran out. Turns out I like this one better. However, McCormick's Montreal Steak Seasoning can be found in any grocery store and tastes really good, as well.

4- Using your bare hands, mix it all together.

5- Make burgers to your desired size. Add a little dimple into the middle of the burger with your thumb. This will allow the burger to cook more evenly.

6- I set the Big Green Egg between 450 - 500 degrees. You can get the grill hotter, but I find it harder to control at higher temps. I don't want to char the outside without finishing the inside.

7- I like my burgers medium rare and my wife like her's medium. For medium rare, I cook the burger to an internal temperature of about 130. I add cheese and close the top to let it melt. For medium, I add the cheese at about 140.

To be honest, I have screwed this step up a number of times. However, what is great about these burgers is that they are so moist, you can overcook them a bit and they will still taste great.

That's it. Burger Time!!

Pastravaganza

For my wife, giving me cooking toys for Christmas is a mixed blessing. On the good side, she gets to eat what I cook. On the bad side, she gets to clean up what I cook. I actually do try to clean up most of my messes, but I always miss something:  Oil splatters all over the stove. Some sort of sauce caked on the ceiling of the microwave. A ring around the bowl of something I put in the fridge. For someone who spends most of her weekend cleaning the house, I can understand this being a bit frustrating.

However, she bought me both a pasta maker and food mill for Christmas anyway. Even better, she had to work the Monday after New Year’s and I had the day off. While the cat’s away, the mice will play . . .

I decided that I would make three pastas: fettuccini and ravioli with the pasta maker and gnocchi with the food mill. I used a mixture of recipes from three different sources:

1) A food blog called "food52": This blog was started by Amanda Hesser, a food writer and editor for the New York Times, and Merrill Stubbs, who is also a food writer and a highly trained cook. Food52 is more than just a blog. It’s a food community allowing people to share and comment on recipes.

2) Paul Bertolli's "Cooking by Hand": This cookbook was recommended by my cousin, Tyler Montgomery, who himself has become an expert in charcuterie. This book is dedicated to the art of understanding what goes into making good food. When using recipes, I like to understand the reason behind the recipe. This book explains not only the science behind the food, but how cooking can be an art.

3) Todd English's "Cooking in Everyday English": This cookbook was another great Christmas present from my wife. English puts simple spins on classic meals. The cookbook is full of fantastic recipes that are easy to make and have all turned out very nicely, so far.

In detail, the steps were as follows:

Fresh ricotta for ravioli filling
(Used recipe from food52 by Jennifer Perillo)

This is my first time making my own cheese. Being the Wisconsin cheese lover that I am, it may not be a good idea for me to learn how to make my own, especially with a recipe this easy.

The recipe only calls for these four ingredients:

4 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
¾ cup buttermilk

½ teaspoon salt

I put all of these ingredients into a large pot and brought to a gentle boil. Once the mixture started to curd, I removed it from the heat and let it sit for 30 minutes in a dark place. Then I spooned the curd from pot and strained it through cheesecloth and a strainer. I let it sit for 10 minutes. Then SHAZAM! This is one of the best things I ever made. Light and fluffy and delicious. It was hard not to eat the whole thing and leave any for the ravioli.

Pasta for the ravioli and fettuccini
(From Todd English)

I used Todd English's pasta recipe, because it is very simple for my first attempt at successfully making pasta. I did try to make pasta once about 10 years ago with a pasta maker my sister gave me. It was a miserable failure. I recall that the kitchen, myself, and a now ex-girlfriend ended up with sticky flour everywhere. This negative experience resulted in a fear of making pasta, selling the pasta machine, breaking-up with the girlfriend (there may have been more to it than that), and waiting 10 years to try again.

This time I was armed with YouTube and an easy recipe. First, I watched a number of videos on how to correctly use the pasta maker and mix the flour and eggs.

The recipe used just the following:
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
½ cup Semolina flour
1 tsp Kosher salt
3 large eggs
2 egg yolks

Both the cookbook and the videos show that you first mix the two flours and the salt together and make a mound on the counter. Then you are supposed to make a well in the mound and put the eggs and egg yolks in the well. You then whisk the eggs together in the well using a fork.

This wasn't as simple as the videos made it look. The eggs spilled over the sides and ended up all over the counter. I started having flashbacks of my experience 10 years ago. So I took a step back and used a flat dough cutter to mix everything together. After about 10 minutes of kneading, I had a smooth solid dough. I wrapped the ball of dough in plastic wrap and let it chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

After chilling, I used a rolling pin to flatten the dough into about ¾ inch sheets. I then used my brand new Marcato Atlas 150 Pasta Maker. It was very easy to use. I think it works like most pasta makers. The settings range from "0 – 9." You start at "0" and slowly feed the ¾ inch sheet through the pasta machine. Then increase the setting each time you feed the pasta through the machine. For the fettuccini, I stopped at the thinnest setting of "9." For the ravioli, I stopped at a thicker setting of "6."



For the fettuccini, I then fed it through an attachment to the machine that cut it into the fettuccini. I floured the pasta and then set it aside before cooking.

Ravioli

For the ravioli filling, I used a very basic recipe from Bertolli. It included the following:
3 tbs olive oil
8 ounces spinach leaves
1 garlic clove, minced
¾ cup fresh ricotta (from recipe above)
¼ cup parmigiano-reggiano, grated
1½ tsp salt

I first sautéed the spinach in one tbs olive oil until it wilted and released most of the liquid. I took it off the heat and let it cool. Once it was cool, I squeezed out the rest of the water with paper towels. Then I heated it back up in the pan with the remaining olive oil. I added the garlic and warmed it back up over low heat. Then I removed it from the heat and chopped it up into a paste. I mixed it with the rest of the ingredients. It was then ready for the ravioli.

I placed little rounded spoonfuls about a couple inches apart on half sheets of pasta. I used a brush to wet the edges of the pasta and then folded the pasta over and pressed the edges together. I then used a ravioli crimper to crimp and cut the edges. I dusted the ravioli with flour and then set them aside until I was ready for cooking.

Gnocchi with Butter and Parmigiano-Reggiano
(Paul Bertolli)

Who knew gnocchi was so easy? If you have never had gnocchi, they are basically little pillows made from flour, potato, and cream. They are similar to dumplings, but lighter and not stuffed with anything.

This recipe calls for the following:

Salt

1½ pounds of russet potatoes

1 whisked egg

¼ cup heavy cream

Freshly grated nutmeg

2 cups all-purpose flour

First, I boiled the potatoes in their skins for about 35 minutes. After cooling, I removed the skins. I now got to use my brand new OXO Food Mill. The food mill was very easy to use. It came with three different grates. I used the medium-sized grate. I added the potatoes to the mill and cranked it until I had fed all the potatoes through the mill into a mixing bowl. I then added the egg, cream and freshly grated nutmeg to the potatoes and completely mixed them together.

Next I used the flour to make the same type of mound that I made for the pasta. I then attempted to put the potato mixture in the well of the mound. I had a bit more success than I did with the pasta, but it was still fairly messy. After kneading into a smooth dough, I rolled the dough into about four ¾-inch ropes of pasta. I then cut the ropes into ½-inch pieces. I rolled each piece with the tines of a fork to give them the look of classic gnocchi. I also think this allows the gnocchi to cook more evenly.

Finally, I dusted the gnocchi heavily with flour. At first I didn't dust heavily enough and all the pieces stuck together. I had to re-roll them and cut again. This recipe made a lot of pasta. Since I had two other pastas already, I put half of these in the freezer to use at another time.

After simmering the remaining gnocchi in water for about five minutes (until they floated), I melted a stick of butter in a sauté pan. I added the gnocchi to the melted butter and mixed together. I removed them from the butter and mixed with grated parm before serving.

I served this as the first pasta course of the evening. These were unbelievable. The pillows were light and melted in our mouths. We could have devoured this in minutes but had to show a bit of self-control considering that we had two more pasta courses to come.

Tomato Sauce
(Todd English)

Since my wife absolutely loves tomato sauce, I decided to serve both the ravioli and the fettuccini with a quick tomato sauce that I found in Todd English's cookbook. I was also becoming a bit exhausted after cooking all day, so it was nice to only have one more sauce to cook and this recipe was simple.

The ingredients only included the following:

4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

¾ cup of olive oil

2  28-ounce cans of San Marzano tomatoes

½ teaspoon of Kosher salt

Fresh basil leaves (about 20)

I first simmered the garlic in olive oil, careful not to let the garlic brown. I then chopped the tomatoes and added them with juice from the cans to the sauté pan and added the salt. I brought this to a boil and then let the mixture simmer for 15 minutes. I added the basil and was ready to cook the pasta.

The sauce was fantastic. It had a really deep intense flavor. I think the San Marzano tomatoes were key. They seem to have so much more flavor then regular canned tomatoes. Considering that they are about $5 a can, they better be good. The sauce is thicker and taste is deeper, sweeter, and less acidic. (See the Wikipedia page for more info.)

If anything, I think I probably could have cut down on the olive oil. It didn't taste oily, but there was a lot of oil sitting on top of the sauce.

I served the fettuccini as the second pasta course. I simmered it in the same water as the gnocchi. I did not put it in a strainer, but used tongs to remove the pasta from the water. This allowed some of the starchy water to come with it. I served it with a couple dollops of the sauce and a heavy sprinkle of grated parm.

The fettuccini was light and really carried the flavor of the tomato sauce. Really fantastic.

Finally, we were ready for the last course and I had actually saved the best for last. I simmered the ravioli in the same pasta water until they started to float. I served them with both the tomato sauce and a bit of grated parm. Instead of the ravioli being a vehicle for the sauce, like the fettuccini, the ravioli was definitely the star of this course. The creamy, garlicky filling was untouchable. I only wish I hadn’t been so full, so I could have eaten more. We will have leftovers for weeks.

I am not going to lie, although the recipes were fairly simple, it was a long day. Plus, with all the pasta in my stomach, I could barely stand. I threw the remaining dishes in the sink and was ready for a long hibernation. Too bad I had to go to work the next day.

Next time, I may just try one pasta at a time. My wife will undoubtedly appreciate that too. She is probably going to be finding little bits of flour in random places around the kitchen throughout 2012.

Ciao!  I hope you enjoy some pasta in the coming year. Happy New Year Everyone!!