07/30/10 - 20:35 Filed in:
Grilling | PoultryAround the 4th of July weekend I went from never having done duck on the grill (or anywhere else for that matter) to making it three times in under a week. I’ve already described the duck breast on the grill in the blog
JUST DUCKY- PT 1. This blog entry will describe making a duck on the rotisserie. There were a couple issues I had to deal with, one was known ahead of time and the other had to be dealt with on the fly, but overall things went well and a delicious duck was the result.
Read More...Tags: Rotisserie, Duck Breast
07/29/10 - 20:20 Filed in:
Grilling Tip | PhotographyI often keep time temperature logs of my smokes. These are great because two or three years later I can go back to them and see how long a certain recipe took. For short cooks on the gas grill I generally don’t do this. But the other day something occurred to me. I always document the first time I cook a particular recipe in photos. I use the pictures on this site, I sometimes post them on another web site, I can look at the time stamps to see how long the various steps took or the total time, and I can do a quick review to refresh my memory the next time I make it. Since I have the camera out at the grill to take pictures of the finished product as it comes off the grill, why not take a picture of the remote read thermometer reading and the elapsed time on the timer on my iPhone. This photo get included with the other photos for that cook and now I have something I can refer to when I revisit this recipe at some future time.
I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me sooner, but there is another similar thing I have been doing for a while. That is to take a close up picture of the meat label. This also becomes part of the photo album for that cook and down the road I can see the cut I used, the weight and the price. If they add the Use By date you can also tell how much ahead of time you can buy it.
BACK TO BBQ BLOG 2010
ARCHIVE OF BLOGS: 2010
INDEX OF BLOGS: ALL YEARS
Tags: Photo Tip
07/29/10 - 20:00 Filed in:
Grilling | Beef | Steaks | Prime GradeIn my last blog entry
PRIME TIME, I mentioned how a new butcher shop called The Meat House had opened up near me selling high quality meats and poultry. On my first visit I saw this amazing Cowboy Steak. I was fascinated with it and I couldn’t stop going back to stare at it in the case. It was tied for the biggest steak steak I’d seen. Morton’s Steakhouse had one this size which cost $64.00 ten years ago. Amazingly this steak I was looking at was 1/3 the price ten years later. I’d told myself that this first visit was to be a “kick the tires” visit. I actually made it out of the Meat House empty handed. I couldn’t stop thinking about that steak, and two days later I was back to buy one.
Read More...Tags: Cowboy Steaks
07/27/10 - 19:25 Filed in:
Meat | Prime Grade | Steaks | Beef RibsThis blog entry is about the most exciting thing to happen in my grilling life in a long time, the opening of a new butcher shop, called The Meat House, less than 10 minutes away. What is so exciting about a new butcher shop opening up? Aren’t they pretty much all the same? To take the last question first: Up until this one opened up they were pretty much all the same. What makes The Meat House so exciting is they sell really high quality meat including Prime Grade.
Read More...Tags: Cowboy Steaks
07/21/10 - 19:00 Filed in:
Grilling | PoultryDuck on the grill is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but two things kept me from it: fear of the unknown and availability. I found not just one source but two sources for duck and I finally got around to making not once, but three times. While the end results were outstanding it wasn’t a totally smooth ride.
Read More...Tags: Duck Breast
07/10/10 - 18:47 Filed in:
BBQ FestivalFor the second year in a row I was lucky enough to attend the 13th annual Chef’s in Shorts event in Boston. At $60.00 a ticket it wasn’t cheap, but my former boss paid for my ticket, so he didn’t have to twist my arm. The event is held to benefit the Greater Boston Food Bank and involves chefs from 30 plus well known Boston area restaurants . Each restaurant has an identically sized area with two large grills and the chefs cook little mini meals with side for the attendees. The shorts are optional. Your admission buys you all the food you can eat, vouchers for 4 drinks and music from a live band in a great venue. It is held at Boston’s World Trade Center in the Seaport District. The World Trade Center hosts conventions and this event is held on a second floor balcony that spans the width of the building. You can smell the food & smoke several blocks away.
Read More...Tags: Chefs in Shorts
07/01/10 - 17:57 Filed in:
Gear | Prep TipThis blog will be more words than pictures. I will attempt to illustrate the many uses I have found for modular sized sheet pans that you find in better cooking stores or restaurant supply houses. About 4 years ago I started using full sheet pans to help with my grilling chores. They proved very versatile and I ended up with two that I bought and two that were given to me. Within the last two years I added 1/2 and 1/4 sheet pans to my arsenal. The modular nature of these pans opens up all kinds of possibilities. Four 1/4 sheet pans fit in a full pan, two 1/4’s in a half sheet pan, two 1/2s in a whole. Better yet there are gridded inserts for these pans. The inserts for the 1/2 sheet pans are non-stick and are a perfect fit for the 1/2 sheet pans. These non-stick inserts came from Williams-Sonoma. The ones for the 1/4 pans are stainless steel and aren’t quite a perfect fit but close enough. These grids open up all sorts of additional possibilities, which I will attempt to show in the pictures.
Read More...Tags: Sheet Pans