I’m doing chipotle honey bbq wings and a bunch of sous vide burgers (50/50 chuck/shortrib), plus some roasted garlic, grilled eggplant and grilled tomatoes. Just now getting the HERMS system finalized (hopefully doing the last of the soldering this weekend) so no brews yet, but I’ve got a bunch of commercial english stuff in the fridge.
wait, wait, wait - gotta share a recipe for both of those ;D - I’ve never had a sous vide burger, but I love shortribs and I love chuck how can I go wrong.
From Serious Eats, my second most utilized food reference:
And for the burgers, if you don’t have a meat grinder, get one! They’re cheap ($15? $20?) and the only trick is you gotta put everything in the freezer before it touches the meat. Warm grinder = meat paste = bad burger. For the meat, just rough cut a pound of chuck and a pound of de-boned short ribs into 1" cubes and feed it into the grinder with a few squares of beef tallow (beef fat, you can get it for free at most butchers’). Take the beef and shape it into patties, and then you can do two things:
(expensive option) Buy one of these: Precision Temp controller, Incubator, Sous-vide [WS-1500EB] : Auber Instruments, Inc., Temperature control solutions for home and industry and one of these: Amazon.com and seal (but don’t crush seal!) two burgers per package. Drop them in a rice cooker hooked up to the PID at around 54.5 degrees C for at least an hour, two or three or all day is fine too, just don’t go lower than 54.5 ish otherwise e. coli will get an invitation to party. When they’re done, take them out of the package (carefully! they’re fragile right now) and put them onto either a very very very hot grill or a very very very hot cast iron pan. There Will Be Smoke. You don’t have to worry about letting them rest because they’ve already rested for a few hours in the cooker. Eat 'em!
(inexpensive option) Buy one of these: http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/B000G64I1A?tag=betteraddons-20 and fill it up with ~58 degree C water (you’ll need a thermometer of course). Buy some of these: http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/B002GJO6R6?tag=betteraddons-20 and put one patty in per bag. Fill up your sink with water and seal the bag almost all the way, then dip it slowly in the water with the patty centered in the bag. As the bag goes into the water, it’ll push the air out, forming a quasi-vacuum. At the very last moment, close the last bit of the bag. Drop them in the cooler and close the lid, keeping an eye on the temp every now and then. Put into hot skillet or grill as above, OR, use this:
My Super Secret Steak Searing Success Scheme (stolen from Alton Brown):
Take a chimney starter and load it with about a pound or so of lump (NOT briquettes!) hardwood charcoal. Let it get really, really hot. Take a grill grate and put one hamburger at a time on the grate, and then put the chimney on top. Let it sizzle for ~30 seconds and then flip. Perfect char! You can also do this with steaks: 90 seconds per side, then move the grate to the top of the chimney starter and put the steak on for a minute, covering with a metal bowl. Flip, cook another minute, and then for GOD’S SAKE LET IT REST, DO NOT CUT INTO IT IMMEDIATELY. 5-10 minutes should be enough. Voila, awesome steak.
a note on the rice cooker mentioned above: For big parties, I use my 50 litre electric boil kettle and a March 809 to keep the water recirculating. This weekend for my son’s baptism we’re going to have about 30 burgers going in that thing, and the beauty is you don’t have to screw with a long grilling time, just go to the basement and grab a few patties whenever anybody asks, and they’ve got a burger in less than 2 minutes.
awesome tip - but you mean put the grate on top of the chimney starter (without dumping the coals) correct? so you are really only actively cooking the burgers for 30+30 or 1 minute or steaks for 3 minutes? interesting, I am going to have to try this.
As for the grating - I have a commercial sausage maker (and thus grinder) but its in storage until we finish our new house. i will have to wait until then but thanks for the awesome recipe!
I think I’m going to smoke a boneless leg of lamb with some Moroccan spices. I’ll marinate it with chermoula, sprinkle it with ras el hanout before smoking, and serve it with harissa.
My chermoula:
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
1 Tbs fresh cilantro
1 Tbs lime juice
Olive oil
1/4 cup sweet paprika
2 Tbs whole coriander
1 Tbs whole cumin seeds
1 Tbs black peppercorns
2 tsp ajwain seeds
1 Tbs sea salt
1/2 tsp cayenne
Blend the wet ingredients in a food processor adding olive oil if needed, grind the dry ingredients in a spice mill, mix the two together and let it sit overnight before applying to the meat.
My ras el hanout:
3 long pepper pods
1 Tbs whole cumin seeds
1 Tbs whole coriander
2 tsp whole cardamom
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp brown mustard seeds
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 tsp whole cloves
1/2 tsp ajwain seeds
Grind and add to:
1.5 Tbs ground cinnamon
1 Tbs ground ginger
1 Tbs garlic powder
2 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
1 tsp turmeric
My harissa:
1 roasted red bell pepper, remove skin
3 ancho chilis
1 chipotle chili
2 cloves garlic
1 Tbs lemon juice
1 Tbs whole coriander
1 Tbs whole cumin seeds
1 tsp caraway seed
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Hot wings do sound mighty yummy. Going to the Yankees/Rangers game Sunday afternoon, but the 'Boys are on Sunday night so no big worries there. Might start smoker before heading to game and come home to some nicely smoked wings.
I will be cooking a batch of 50/50% Vienna/Maris Otter with Magnum/Cascades IPA Saturday morning though.
Not sure if I’ll be grilling, but I think some hot wings and homemade pizza will probably be in order. Maybe, just maybe I’ll throw a few slabs of ribs on the smoker.
Yup, leave the coals in the starter the whole time. For the burgers, since they’re already cooked you just need to char the outside, so it’s about 30 seconds per side underneath the starter. For the steaks, you do 90 seconds underneath for each side, then put the grate on top of the starter and the steaks on top of that for one minute, flip and cook another minute. Here’s the alton brown episode, where he explains it a lot better than I can (and he’s funnier, too): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGM5JchxuzI
Cooking over a charcoal chimney is a useful technique…not only do you get a blazing hot direct heat great for searing, but you make use of otherwise wasted heat! I typically use it for roasting peppers, while all the coals get uniformly lit, and then use the coals for cooking normally.
An interesting concept I’ll have to implement… I place the chimney under the smoker (offset smoker) to warm it up. Roasting peppers at the same time is a bonus!!
The nice thing about it, its not a big deal if the fire is puking up smoke from lighting the coals, or isn’t hot enough, or is too hot, even…with roasted peppers, you discard the outer layer anyway, so as long as it all gets charred, no worries!
;D