The trick is to smoke the meat and not make the meat smoke
FAVORITE FOODS - Beef
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Date: December 31, 2016 Info:ClickHERE to jump to additional Info about this Favorites Section & Quick Links to other Favorites Sections.
BEST BEEF BRISKET:
PHOTO ENTRY NAME:BEST BBQ BEEF BRISKET SOURCE:Paul Kirk's Championship BBQ DATE FIRST COOKED: September 2, 2007
Although I had owned Paul Kirk’s Championship BBQ for a couple years, it took me a while to get around to making this recipe. It was the type of recipe I used to dread - my name for it was a "nested recipe". This was a recipe that had items within the recipe that required making a sub-recipe before you could make the item required for your recipe. This recipe had three-tiered nesting. It had an Italian spice blend you needed to make before you could make the barbecue sauce which you needed for the brisket. There was a also a spice blend required for use as an ingredient within the spice rub recipe. It took me about two years of owning this book before I felt I was up to tackling this recipe. It was worth the wait. This brisket came out moist, tender and juicy with a wonderfully spicy bark and the BBQ sauce was a thing of wonder - a marvelous blend of flavors. This would be the brisket recipe I would make if I was pulling out all of the stops to impress someone.
BEST BEEF COMFORT FOOD 1:
PHOTO ENTRY NAME:SMOKED MEATLOAF SOURCE:Virtual Weber Bullet Website DATE FIRST COOKED: January 26, 2006
I love meatloaf, but until you’ve had smoked meatloaf you haven’t had meatloaf. The addition of smoke brings meatloaf to a whole new level. This meatloaf came courtesy of the Virtual Weber Bullet web site . It was a bit of a complex meatloaf recipe with 3 meats and a lot of other ingredients, but the final product was well worth the extra effort. The sauce for this meatloaf was simple yet very tangy. This recipe takes a bit of time to throw together, but I always make 2 or 3 loaves which divides the time spent across the 3 loaves. You will want to have extra: You and your guests will eat more and the leftovers are wonderful too.
BEST BEEF COMFORT FOOD 2:
PHOTO ENTRY NAME:BEEF ENCHILADA CASSEROLE SOURCE:America's Test Kitchens - Hometown Favorites DATE FIRST COOKED: March 23, 2014
I made this recipe on a bit of a whim. It looked like a Mexican version of lasagna. It was intended for indoor cooking but I made it outdoors for several reasons. First: I wanted to add some wood smoke to the sauce. Secondly: I could toast up the tortillas on my grill griddles faster than using a 12" (30 cm) frying pan indoors. You first grill up some tortillas which replaced the pasta portion of a traditional lasagna recipe and it also was ground up and used in the sauce. The sauce and ground beef was made in the BGE Dutch oven. The Dutch oven, with its high sides, was easier to use than the cast iron skillet on the stove. The ingredients were layered in a casserole dish: Tortillas, tomato sauce, more tortillas, and the meat sauce. This mixture was partially cooked on the Egg and then removed and topped with a cheese blend and some minced jalapeños. It was amazing and the smoke added by making it outdoors was an excellent addition.
BEST BEEF COMFORT FOOD 3:
PHOTO ENTRY NAME:CORNED BEEF & CABBAGE SOURCE:Various Sources DATE FIRST COOKED: March 12, 2016
My first attempt at a New England boiled corned beef & cabbage dinner turned out the best version any of us have ever had. I take zero credit for this other than making some good decisions and not screwing anything up. The first good decision was to go with an organic USDA Prime grade beef brisket. The butcher brined this brisket using a 40 year old family recipe. The corned beef did not have the bright red color that comes from salt peter, but was amazingly flavorful. I used Guinness stout and whole unground spices in the liquid. The last thing that put this brisket over the top was a tip from the butcher. It was to coat the top of the brisket with whole grain mustard and brown sugar and place it under the broiler for 5 minutes. One bite and you could tell this was was a cut above anything we’d had in the past. The meat was tasty on the outside and moist, tender and tasty on the inside. The veggies were cooked perfectly and had great flavor from the boiling liquid. This brisket cost a lot more than a supermarket brisket, but was worth every penny.
Since 2012 the Lone Star Beef Ribs recipe below this entry had been the best beef rib recipe I have tasted. Look out there is a new sheriff in town. This was the first time I had ever had beef short ribs that weren’t braised in a slow cooker and I like this cut better than beef back ribs. They were smaller and cut into individual ribs, making them easier to handle on the grill. Though they were a smaller rib, they were meatier than the back ribs you usually see. Typically back ribs tend to be cut on the lean side so the meat can be part of the pricier beef standing rib roast. This recipe was easy to make and was set up like a Boston butt (pork shoulder) cook for pulled pork. The ribs received a spice rub and were cooked uncovered for 2 hours. Then they went into foil pouches with a liquid marinade. After an hour or so in the foil pouches and reaching an internal temp of 200 degrees, they are rested briefly and served. Everything about this recipe was excellent: From the tasty bark with the tasty rub on the outside, to the pecan wood flavor, and the the moist juicy interior and great beefy taste these ribs were amazing. I can see myself having beef ribs even more now that I have discovered the virtues of beef short ribs. With this recipe I have my “Go to” recipe.
BEST BEEF RIBS 2:
PHOTO ENTRY NAME:LONE STAR BEEF RIBS SOURCE:Ribs, Ribs, Ribs DATE FIRST COOKED: July 23, 2012
Beef ribs are amazing IF, and this is a big IF, IF you can find meaty beef ribs. Beef ribs are often cut very lean and close to the bone, so the meat can be used on a boneless standing rib roast. The rib roast sells for more money and so it is regrettable but understandable. This recipe used a simply recipe based on Texas-style beef rib recipes. It used a simply but tasty 4 spice rub and a beer based mop sauce. The ribs were slow cooked on the smoker and took just under 3 hours. The ribs were very moist, very tangy tasting and tender but with the slight bit of chew that perfectly cooked ribs should have.
Prior to buying my BGE the Cowboy Steak was the best steak i and ever made. The Rib-Eye with Shallots & Garlic Butter listed below was the first steak I cooked on my new Big Green Egg. It briefly held the crown for best steak. Then I made a Cowboy Steak on the Egg. The meat was a 2” (5 cm) thick, 2 1/4” pound (1 Kg) Prime Grade bone-in rib-eye. The recipe used a great cumin-based simple spice rub that complemented the steak without overwhelming the great beefy flavor of the meat. The steak was seared using direct heat and then finished off using indirect heat. The steak was so thick that I could use a temperature probe to help get the end temp just the way I like it. When it hit my plate, it was a perfect 135 degree (57 C) medium rare. There was a tangy and sweet Apricot Mustard served as a condiment with the steak. Not only does this count as my top steak, it is also one of the top meals I’ve ever made. For a thinner steak you can't go wrong with the Rib-Eye with Shallots and Garlic Butter.
BEST BEEF STEAK 2:
PHOTO ENTRY NAME:RIB-EYE TOMAHAWKS WITH HORSERADISH SAUCE SOURCE:More BBQ and Grilling on the Big Green Egg and Other Kamado-Style Cookers DATE FIRST COOKED: April 2, 2016
I was looking for a simple but great recipe for steak that I could do simply and quickly if I was able to fit in a cook. This recipe fit the bill nicely. I bought some Prime-grade 1 1/2” thick bone-in rib-eyes which got seasoned simply with olive oil, salt and pepper. Another attraction of the recipe was it used a kamado based technique called the T-Rex method (named after the BGE forum handle of it’s inventor). The Egg gets hot fast, but takes a while to cool back down. I often just fire up a second Egg for the indirect portion, but I wanted to try this method. You start by quickly searing the steaks at 700 degrees direct to mark them.Then you rest them for 15 minutes while switching the Egg to indirect and cooling it down to 400 degrees. The steaks are returned to the Egg to finish off indirectly and then rested for another15 minutes before serving. The steaks were simply amazing!! Everyone was making “yummy” noises as they ate. The salt and pepper allowed the great beef flavor of the steaks to stand front and center. The Horseradish Sauce paired with it nicely. This was about the most juicy, evenly cooked steak I have ever had. I am guessing the T-Rex method had a lot to do with this. I was hoping for a hit and instead got a home run with this recipe.
I wanted to make a special steak for my first steak on my Big Green Egg. I selected a Prime-grade boneless rib-eye and made this simple recipe from the BGE Cookbook. The sauce was heated on the stove and consisted of of butter, minced garlic & shallots with parsley salt and pepper. The sauce was removed from the stove and allowed to steep for 30 minutes. The steaks were grilled for 3 minutes per side at high 600 degree (315 C). They were brushed with some of the butter sauce while on the grill and the rest was added while the steaks were resting. This was simply the best steak I had ever made or eaten. At least until I made a Cowboy Steak on the Egg. Then in 2016 the Rib Eye Tomahawks with Horseradish Sauce nudged this entry into third place. But for a thinner steak this is the one of the best steaks I have made. If you like a real thick steak, go for the Cowboy Steak.
BEST PRIME RIB ROAST:
PHOTO ENTRY NAME:SMOKED PRIME RIB - BGE VERSION SOURCE:Virtual Weber Bullet website DATE FIRST COOKED: December 25, 2012
I am cheating a bit here by dividing the Beef Roast category into two items. I have a whole picture page on just prime rib recipes I’ve done. So for the ultimate beef roast a prime rib is it and this is the best recipe I’ve made. I made this recipe for about 5 years straight before trying out some other recipes. So far this is my "go-to" recipe. The first couple times I made this I used dry, not fresh, herbs for the rub. The 3rd time I made this I used all fresh herbs and it was a revelation. It was SO MUCH more flavorful than the version using dried herbs, that I switched over to using fresh herbs whenever possible after this point. The roast is rubbed with a paste made from the herbs and some crushed garlic and then it goes onto the cooker until it reaches an internal temperature of 125 degrees (52 C). The last step is to put the roast in a 500 degree (260 C) oven for a quick final sear. The roast rests for 30 minutes and it carved. The hickory smoke and the fresh herb paste add two additional layers of flavor to an already tasty roast. Doing the roast on the BGE for the first time was interesting. I was able to cook it a bit faster at a higher temp and it was the moistest version of this roast I had made to date. One of the most amazing and great things about this recipe, is how relatively simple it is to make.
BEST BEEF ROAST:
/i>PHOTO ENTRY NAME:SMOKED GARLIC BEEF TENDERLOIN SOURCE:The Kamado Grill Cookbook DATE FIRST COOKED: December 31, 2016
The second choice for a great beef roast is the beef tenderloin. In this case it was center cut USDA Prime grade tenderloin. this cut is also called Chateaubriand and is the best of the best. Unlike the prime rib which has a decent amount of flavorful fat, the tenderloin is almost totally devoid of fat. The tenderloin is about as tender a piece of meat you will ever find, but you must take steps to bring some additional flavor to this lean cut. This recipe uses a garlic herb paste using crushed garlic, some dried herbs, and Kosher salt. The herb past is applied to the roast, which is then smoked low and slow to a rare or medium rare doneness. Cooking it low and slow on the Egg turned out the best beef I have ever had. It was moist and "cut with a fork tender" and the herb rub gives it a wonderful flavor. The Hickory smoke helped draw out some of the beefy flavor as did the horse radish I used with ti. This is an expensive cut, but roasts don’t get any better than this.
BEST BEEF TRI-TIP ROAST:
PHOTO ENTRY NAME:TRI-TIP WITH BBQ SAUCE SOURCE:Weber's Real Grilling DATE FIRST COOKED: May 2, 2009
From the moment I got serious about my grilling I had wanted to grill a tri-tip roast. While they are extremely popular in California, here in New England they are nearly impossible to come by. Finally I found some sources for tri-tip and got my chance to make some. Typically they get a direct sear to mark the exterior and then they get finished off indirectly. The exterior of the tri-tip has the great flavor of a seared steak, while the interior has the texture and taste of good beef roast. This recipe was my favorite in that it added a very tasty barbecue sauce to the equation.
Motivation:
People are always asking me what my favorite recipes are. This section had it's origins in a seven part BLOG entry I wrote in 2011 called A Few of My Favorite Things. I have made many great dishes since then and also started making other types of foods such as Stir Fries. This section needed to be updated and expanded to stay current or be dropped. I chose the later and you have the results of my reworking the section in the Fall of 2014
Beef Info:
The BEEFsection of the site has the most entries and so I allowed myself to pick multiple entries in some of the categories where there were multiple excellent choices.