Dry aging and grilling steak by Dr. Jeff Bonder
Note to Self – Try dry aging using the Alton Brown paper towel method in the wine cooler where there are no odors. Then reverse sear per Meat Head with the SnS.
Chef JJ’s poultry brine method — “Day one, Brine overnight. Next day, drain and pat dry. l place the bird on a rack over a drip pan then in the refer overnight. Day three smoke or cook however…JJ”
Families Favorite Brine by Chef JJ
1/2C Kosher Salt
2T Paprika
2T Gran. Garlic
2T Gran. Onion
2T Dry Thyme
2T Black Pepper
1C Vinegar (Any)
1 to 1-1/2 Gal Cold Water to cover bird
1/2C Brown Sugar, Optional
1T Red Pepper Flake Optional
Mix well and Soak the Bird overnight or up to 24 Hours.
Remove the Chix, rinse if desired and pat dry with paper towels.
Place in an open container in the refrigerator overnight or up to 24 hours for the Skin to dry.
This will give a crispier skin when Smoking or Roasting…
From Jeff’s pulled chicken recipe:
- 1/2 gallon of water,
- 1/2 cup of kosher salt,
- 1/2 cup of brown sugar,
- 3 tablespoons of your favorite hot sauce.
Rule of thumb for how long to brine – 1 hour per pound
For pork loin by FoamHeart at SMF. See post here.
Brine
2 cups apple juice
2/3 C brown sugar
1/4 C Canning salt
2 T Maple extract
2 C Ice
Rub
Ground Ancho pepper (perfect heat)
Kosher salt
That’s it, then light brown sugar to on top of a peach glaze to seal in all those good tastes and create a coating that helps hold in moisture.
From an article at SMF available here by 3Men With Nothing Better To Do.
“The following is a tried and tested chicken brine recipe;
1 gallon water
3/4 cup kosher salt
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon each of dried tarragon, thyme, black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
Start by boiling the water and then adding the salt and sugar, so that it will dissolve easier. Then add the spices to the hot liquid so that the flavors are extracted. Cool the brine solution.
Place the brine solution into a non-reactive container and immerse the chicken in the brine, weighting it down if necessary. (Use a heavy plate or a brick inside a ziploc bag as a weight). Place the container into the refrigerator and leave for 10 hours. You can also brine the chicken in an ice chest, by pouring the brine solution into the ice chest, immersing the chicken and weighting down. (Use ziploc bags filled with ice cubes, or “blue ice” to keep the brining solution cool during the brining process.
Upon completion of the brining time remove the chicken from the brine and wash twice for at least 30 seconds in fresh water. Dry the chicken with paper towels.
A few things that you need to be remember when brining:
- Make sure your brine does not contain too much salt. The salty flavor of a brine is typically offset by using some kind of sweetening agent such as sugar, honey, maple syrup etc.
- Do not leave the chicken in the brine for too long or you will end up with a very mushy and salty end product.
- Make sure you wash the chicken in fresh water for 30 seconds, at least twice after you remove it from the brine.
- Be careful about using acidic products in your brines as these will begin to ‘cook’ the meat and result in a mushy end product.
- Brining must take place at temperatures of 40 degrees or below. Only place your chicken into the brining solution once it is cold. You can cool the brining solution in the refrigerator or by using ziploc bags filled with ice cubes.
- Ensure that the brine solution completely covers the chicken during the brining process.
Brining by Dr. Jeff Bonder. Click here to see full article.
- For dry brining – “Or around 1/2 tsp of fine sea salt, or a tsp of kosher salt, per pound of meat. Adjusted to your own taste, of course.”
-
“So when brining:
- Wet-brining adds moisture and tenderness to meat when cooking hot and fast. Dry brining is nearly as effective, but the tie goes to wet for wings and small hunks of meat. The inconvenience of wet brining a 20 lb turkey for three days can tip the balance back to dry though…
- Wet-brining does not add moisture or improve tenderness compared to dry when cooking low and slow.
- Dry-brining produces a better smoked surface if you distribute the salt in isolated islands. Wet-brining often washes off smoke flavor prematurely, and yields a lighter colored crust. In between there is an optimal technique which balances smoke, flavor and bark.
- Injecting brine is a faster version of wet-brining, and offers similar results in a shorter time. Injection can make sense in competition cooking where time is a factor, but I prefer dry brining at home. Still, if you inject a concentrated salt solution (only enough to average out to a 0.5% salt level), but not salt the surface, you may achieve the best of all worlds. On my list of future experiments.“
From Dr. Jeff’s page here. How to make brine that is the right concentration.
“First, take one cup of warm water in measuring cup. Then, pour in salt. Any salt will do, and keep on adding salt until the brine level is at 1 1/2 cups. If you pour in Kosher salt, you will have to keep pouring and pouring- it seems like you’re pouring into a black hole. Even a mixture of salts, scavenged from nearly empty containers, is fine.
Blend this concentrated salt slurry into a gallon of water, and you will have a 6% (by weight) brine, which is suited for most meats.”
This recipe is offered on the FaceBook page of Chef Elliott Farmer.
“Here’s a recipe that I love…Shrimp Scampi Florentine”
Ingredients
1/3 c cream cheese
8 oz mozerella cheese, shredded
2 T butter
2 T prepared basil pesto
2 large plum tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 sm green chili pepper, seeded and chopped
1 t old bay seasoning, or to taste
1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 c fresh spinach
Directions
- Combine the butter and cream cheese in a large skillet over medium heat.
- Stir in pesto, green chili and tomatoes. Simmer until the tomatoes start to soften.
- Season with old bay seasoning to taste.
- Add cheese and stir constantly until melted.
- Stir the shrimp into the sauce, and cook just until they turn pink.
- Add the spinach, and stir until wilted, about 1 minute.
From Chef Elliott Farmer‘s FaceBook post.
THIS RECIPE HAS BEEN MOST POPULAR LATELY… so here it is for those who do not have the recipe…
**Cream of Crab soup**
Ingredients
1/4 c (1/2 stick) butter
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped (1 cup)
1/3 c flour
4 c milk or half-and-half
1 T OLD BAY® Seasoning
1/2 t McCormick® Parsley Flakes
1 lb. lump crab meat
3 T dry sherry or cooking sherry (optional)
Directions
Melt butter in 3-quart saucepan on medium heat. Add onion; cook and stir 5 minutes or until softened. Add flour, Old Bay and parsley; whisk until well blended. Whisking constantly, gradually add milk. Bring just to boil.
Stir in crabmeat. Reduce heat to low; simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in sherry, if desired. Heat 1 to 2 minutes. Sprinkle with additional Old Bay, if desired.
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Ambient Temp was unseasonably warm 65 degrees with a nice breeze..
Meat Prep – About 11 AM removed silver skin, salted as usual and slide back into plastic sleeves and into refrigerator. Both slabs are thick without much outside fat. When grill was ready I removed the slabs and rubbed in Memphis Dust shaken on moderately.
Grill Prep – Major addition to the set up was the portal for the temp probe’s cable made with conduit fittings. See Diary for details. Lite about 15 briquettes in chimney and when almost completely ashed over poured them into one end of the SnS. Added briquettes up to near the top edge with pecan chunks a little smaller than a tennis ball on the burning coals and along the top. Mounted temp probe with grate clip well to one side. Placed foil over lower grate up to SnS.
The Cook
- 3:30 PM; grate temp was 240 – Put the two slabs on and realized they covered the cool zone side almost completely. [Realized later that is why they took so long to cook as the heat could not get below them very well.]
- Did not add hot water to slot until 4:30 as forgot to do so. Temp up to then stay in the range set for the Thermoworks; i.e. 215 – 250.
- At 5:30 Thermoworks low alarmed sounded. Stoked the unburned coals on to burning ones and moved a pecan chunk onto the burn. Temp came back into the mid 220s and held.
- At 7:00 noted the color of the ribs does not look like they are cooking and temp had fallen to below 215. Re-stoked coals.
- At 8:20 the bend test shows the ribs are not done even though they have been on and at temp for about 5 hours. Wrapped them together in foil and put them into the oven at 250 until 9:15. Set them wrapped in the foil on a wire rack to cool.
This recipe is Mary’s version of Chef Elliott’s Cuisine & Catering Ingredients for Cajun Shrimp & Grits as posted on his FaceBook page.
1 lb. of large shrimp, peeled, deveined – Used fresh gulf shrimp
1 lb. Andouille Sausage, sliced on the diagonal 1/2 inch. The sausage was from Bergeron’s in West Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
1 tbsp. creole seasoning or seasoning salt. Used No MSG Cajun Seasoning bought in Scott Louisiana at The Best Stop Supermarket.
1 tbsp. garlic powder
1 tbsp. onion powder
2 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. smoked paprika
1/2 stick of butter
2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 bell pepper, diced
1 small red onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
I added red pepper flakes
For the Grits:
1 c. grits
1 c. water
1 c. milk
1 c. beef or chicken broth, low sodium + extra to thin grits as they cook. We used Turkey stock we made over the weekend.
1 stick of butter
1 c. sharp cheddar cheese, grated
1 tsp. creole seasoning
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
Added Green onions for topping
To Prepare the Grits:
- In a large pot bring all liquids to boil, add butter and seasonings.
- Slowly stir in grits while whisking nonstop for about two minutes. Reduce heat to low and cook grits, stirring occasionally for about 20 minutes.
- Adding extra broth as needed to keep the grits thin.
- Add cheese and whisk well, add more broth if needed.
To Prepare the Shrimp:
- To prepare the shrimp, peel and devein shrimp, season with all the spices and set aside. I prepared the spices early in the day and after preparing the shrimp, seasoned them and put them in the fridge until it was time to fix dinner.
- In a large saute pan add butter and olive oil over medium high heat, add all the vegetables, except garlic and saute for 5 minutes, add garlic and saute 1 minute more.
- Add andouille sausage and saute about 10-15 minutes, until browned. Add shrimp and cook about 3-4 minutes are until no longer pink.
- Serve on top of grits topped with a little more cheese and green onions.
Recipes below came from posts at BBQ Brethren and Smoking Meat Forums.
Smokin Okie’s Pulled Pork Baste & Serving Sauce – From BBQB
Use this on pulled pork starting about 1/2 way through cooking (after the smoke stops).
Mop this on the pork warm. I’ve also used this on the meat when it’s done — I just spoon some sauce over pulled pork right on the bun.
(makes about 5 cups)
4 cups apple juice
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
4 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoon dry mustard
4 tablespoon brown sugar
3 bay leaf
6 cloves of garlic
2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cayenne (I sometimes use Hungarian Paprika)
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves (the secret ingredient)
“Heat all of the ingredients in a nonreactive pan (the acid in the vinegar will react with some pans be careful) Bring it to a boil, reduce and simmer for 15 min.”
Pickin Juice – From BBQB
Ingredients
1 quart cider vinegar
1/8 cup salt
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon milled black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons red pepper flakes
1/2-3/4 cup light brown sugar, depending on taste
1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce
Mix a day ahead and let it set.
“Another poster said – What I have found with vinegar sauces is that if you use just a touch of it, it will really let the pork flavor come out and most people don’t realize that it has the finishing sauce on it.”
“And another – When you cook the butts, cook a few of them in foil pans to save the drippings. Then take the drippings, separate the fat from the top, and pour the remaining juice onto the pulled pork. Otherwise, you could use apple juice.”
All below are from SMF
Tangy Pulled Pork Finishing Sauce – A finishing sauce for ribs from Chef Jimmy J
This is more of an Eastern North Carolina style Finishing Sauce.
2 C Apple Cider Vinegar
2T Worcestershire Sauce or more to taste
1/4 C Brown Sugar
1 T Smoked Paprika
2 tsp Granulated Garlic
2 tsp Granulated Onion
2 tsp Fine Grind Black Pepper
1 tsp Celery Salt
1 tsp Cayenne Pepper or Red Pepper Flake. Add more if you like Heat.
1/2 tsp Grnd Allspice
Combine all and whisk well. This is a thin sauce, bring just to a simmer and remove from heat. Adjust sweetness by adding Brown Sugar or additional Vinegar as desired…Makes about 2 Cups.
For Lexington Style Dip add, 1/2 cup Ketchup and 1-3 tsp of Red Pepper Flakes…JJ
Another from Chef JJ – Not much sugar and a good amount of vinegar
St. Louis Bubba Q Juice
1 1/2C Ketchup
1C Cider Vinegar
1/2C Water
1/4C Tomato Paste
1/4C Diced Roasted Red Pepper from a Jar (1-2 each)
1/4C Texas Pete or other Hot Sauce
1/4C Brown Sugar
2T Yellow Mustard
1tsp Gran. Garlic
1tsp Gran, Onion
1tsp Blk Pepper
1tsp Salt
1T Worcestershire Sauce
Cayenne to Taste
Combine all and simmer 10 minutes to combine flavors. Adjust sweetness or heat to your taste. Let cool and Puree.
Makes about 3 Cups.
From Chef JJ for Pork Loin
Carolina Q Dust
1/2C Sugar in the Raw (Turbinado)
2T Sweet Paprika (Hungarian)
1T Kosher Salt
1T Chili Powder
1T Granulated Garlic
1T Granulated Onion
1T Mustard Powder
1T Grnd. Black Pepper
1T Grnd. White Pepper
1tsp Cayenne Pepper, or more as desired.
1tsp Grd. Cumin
1tsp Dry Thyme, rubbed
Makes about 1 Cup. This has some Heat from the the jar but mellows when Smoked. If too Hot, reduce the Black, White and Cayenne Pepper.
Apply your desired amount of Dust to the meat, wrap in plastic and rest in the refrigerator overnight.or longer. The day of the smoke, pull the meat out, add more Dust and go into your pre-heated Smoker…
Below is a sauce that goes well with the Rub…JJ
Lexington NC Style Dip
2 C Apple Cider Vinegar
2T Worcestershire Sauce or more to taste
1/2C Ketchup
1/4C Brown Sugar
1T Smoked Paprika
2 tsp Granulated Garlic
2 tsp Granulated Onion
2 tsp Fine Grind Black Pepper
1-3tsp Red Pepper Flakes
1 tsp Celery Salt
1 tsp Chipotle Powder.
1/2 tsp Grnd Allspice
Combine all and whisk well. For a thinner sauce bring just to a simmer and remove from heat or continue to simmer to desired thickness. Adjust sweetness by adding Brn Sugar or additional Vinegar as desired…JJ
January 24, 2016; Ambient temp was 65-70 with only a slight breeze.
Preface – This did not turn out well and serves as a good learning experience.
Thawed the 13-lb bird the day before. Removed from bag and trimmed an hour before the smoke. Removed backbone and butterflied. Rubbed with olive oil and seasoned with Simon & Garfunkel seasoning and salt. Setup Weber with foil on non SnS side to catch drippings and channel air. Misted bird with water.
- 3:50 – Grate temp with Thermoworks was at 325 so added bird. Dome was 400.
- 4:15 – Grate was 256 so opened up lower vent to 1/2
- 4:25 – Grate was at 265 and rising. Dome at 345.
- 4:45 – Grate was at 296 and rising. Dome at 350 so opened lower grate to 3/4.
- 5:30 – Grate was 270 and not rising. Added 1/2 chimney of lite coals and changed lower vent o 1/2 and upper to 1/3.
- 5:35 – Grate was at 330
- 5:40 – Moved temp probe to breast and was at 154. Dome temp was 350. Set upper vent at 1/2 and moved lower to 3/4.
- 5:45 – Dome at 375 and breast at 159 and rising. Drum stick with instant read was at 160
- 5:50 – Removed, wrapped in foil an rested for 15 minutes.
Great color but not quite done. Mary’s wing was ok but my thigh was rubbery and did not fall away from the bone. Even though it cooked twice as long as it should have and at well below the 325 target.
The next night reheated in the heavy cast iron enameled braising pot but my breast was dried out and tough. Mary’s dark meat was ok. I sliced a piece out of the second breast that had not been warmed and it was also tough.
Also fed the temp probe through the top vent and that meant when the dome was removed and tilted all the trapped heat escaped. Need to drill a hole in the kettle so the probe can be inserted. Adding tape water to the slot (not hot) also cooled it for a time and per Meathead and SNS should not have been added even if hot.
Lessons For Next Time
- To get the kettle to 325-350 see the SNS advice here. “Add half a chimney (~40 briquets) of unlit coals to the Slow ‘N Sear first, then add the half chimney of well-lit coals on top.”
- Do not use water in SnS slot.
- See this page – http://www.abcbarbecue.com/#!slow-n-sear-turkey/wctxl
- If the next turkey is pre-basted check the sodium cloride content to see if above or below 200 mg as discussed at the link. If below 200 mg, for a 14 lb. bird, dry brine with about 2.5T salt inside and out at least 24 hours ahead. Leave uncovered in refrigerator to let the skin dry.
- “expect about 2hrs if the turkey is spatchcocked and fully thawed” at a minimum of 325 up to 350.
- Wrap the leg and wing tips with foil up to 30 minutes before it is done.
- See link for advice on setting vents. Full open to start up to 275 then bottom at 1/4 and top at 1/3.
- Do not cover or rest when it comes off so the skin does not become damp and soft.
January 10, 2016
Day before removed silver skin from slab of ribs and salted liberally.
Ambient Temp was 46 degrees and no breeze. Used the Weber Kettle with the SnS and large pecan chunks over Kingsford Briquettes. Piled burning briquettes in one end of SNS and poured fresh ones against that pile but not enough to fill the SnS as the cook will not take that long. Had foil covering the open lower grate and then remembered I should have threaded in the temp probe. Decided this cook would be simpler and would watch the dome thermometer subtracting 50 degrees to estimate the grate temp.
While the kettle fire was catching:
- Rubbed the ribs liberally with Memphis Dust. First time to try Meathead’s favorite pork rub.
- The thighs had been cleaned of fat and excess skin and were removed from the Frig about an hour before going in the kettle. Mary salt & peppered them and liberally added poultry seasoning. They waited in the pot on the counter.
- 3:30 PM – Ribs on the grill with dome temp at 300
- 4:10 dome at 290
- Placed chicken thighs all around ribs
- 6:00 dome at 310 and took off the chicken
- 6:20 – 295
- 6:50 – 270
- 7:15 – Removed ribs, wrapped tight in foil and put into convection oven at 7:25
- 8:30 – removed from oven and let cool some then into “tupperware” and refrigerator.
Two days later – Ribs are very dark — almost black but no burned taste. Mary warmed them in the foil in the oven. Very tender without falling apart. Very good flavor of the Memphis Dust rub that was not at all sweet and did not overpower the taste of the meat. WIsh I had smoked two racks.
Have had the thighs three times warmed in the microwave at work for lunch. The skin is somewhat rubbery although has a great flavor. The rubbery is likely due, at least to some extent, to re-warming in the microwave. The meat has the nice reddish tint from the smoke and tasted great. There was an occasional hot taste that had to come from the fresh ground black pepper. They did not taste like festival turkey legs like the legs I smoked at the farm with the pork roast. But, they were good.
From http://www.gulf-shores-alabama.net/gulf-shores-shrimp.html
Cooking Gulf Coast Shrimp
Boiled Shrimp…Boiled Shrimp…Boiled Shrimp…Boiled Shrimp…
Don’t over cook them. Place a packet of shrimp/crab boil seasoning, a chunk of squeezed lemon and some salt (unless cooking royal reds-don’t salt the cooking water) in a big pot. Bring to a boil. Dump in the shrimp. As soon as the water returns to a boil, pour out the water and shrimp into a colander to stop the cooking.
If you are cooking shrimp of mixed sizes, use a slotted spoon to remove the smaller ones as soon as they begin to curl. Work quickly.
Serve with Cocktail Sauce that you make using:
Good quality ketchup
Some Heinz bottled Chili Sauce or a bit of dried chili powder
Some fresh squeezed lemon juice
Black pepper
Dash of Lee & Perrin’s Worcestershire Sauce (not a cheap store brand)
All the plain grated horseradish you can stand (not the creamed horseradish sauce with a mayonnaise or oil base)
All the Tabasco sauce you can stand
OR
Remoulade Sauce for Boiled Shrimp
This is an easy recipe from a fabulous cook from Memphis, TN named Ruth Morrow. It is best (I think) made a day or two in advance–it keeps really well. Get out the food processor. You can make less than this recipe, just adjust ingredients accordingly.
Quart of Kraft, Hellmans, or Duke Mayonnaise
1/3 cup drained, grated horseradish
1/2 oz. or more Anchovy Paste (In toothpaste type tube at grocery store, does NOT taste like catfood & is an important ingredient)
1/2 cup yellow mustard
Chop finely in food processor:
1 or 2 cloves of garlic
2 small or one very large onion
1 celery heart stalks
couple tablespoons of bottled capers
mix everything together, dip shrimp in this sauce and enjoy or pour over peeled shrimp on a bed of lettuce. Remember, it is better the next day.