How to Cook Barbecue Beef Ribs (at home)

Well, there they go again.

Just one day after Food and Fort Worth does a widely reviewed post on barbecue, and I notice that some website called, what was it, oh yea, . . . the New York Times . . . copy the idea and do an article on Texas-style barbecue beef ribs. Post robbers.

Actually, their's is a very detailed explanation on how to cook ribs at home. Excellent piece.

I have said it before and I will say it again. The New York Times website is an easily accessed, easy to read, and usable newspaper website for food lovers. If they are a 10 the Star Telegram website is a 1. I hate to admit that but I think it is true.

Here's the ribs link: http://www.nytimes.com

Photo from New York Times

How to Make Tomato Bruschetta Properly.

(And why I hate recipes . . .)

I love bruschetta. I was looking over a recipe yesterday, not to make bruschetta, but to see how they made it, and it hit me that most tomato based recipes for Italian food make one big mistake. They usually suggest using Roma tomatoes.

Here's my suggestion: Never use Roma tomatoes for anything. They have been so re-engineered that, at this point, they look good and taste terrible ( kind of like Episcopalians) ( okay that's a joke, don't send me nasty email).

Which then brought to mind the reason most (not all) recipes are unreliable. Because they make suggestions like the to one use Roma tomatoes; they equate cooking with alchemy, that is, if you mix certain ingredients and cook them a certain way, you can make gold out of lead. The opposite is true, get good ingredients, treat them right, and they are going to taste good. They'll love you back.

Anyway, if you want good bruschetta ,you need four ingredients definitely, and one optionally, all of which need to be fresh.

The following is not the recipe, but more importantly, the ingredients for the recipe:

1. Buy fresh tomatoes, preferably cherry because they are sweet. In the winter, buy quality, canned, diced tomatoes. Do not buy super market tomatoes from the produce department in the winter unless you are using them as display only.

2. Bread. Italian loaf preferably. It's chewy on the inside, the correct width, not tangy like sourdough, which I don't like for bruschetta, and toasts nicely. Most recipes suggest focaccio which, in my opinion, overwhelms the other flavors. The bread is the canvas not the painting.

3. Olive oil. Fresh. Virgin. If it has been sitting on your counter for six months it is not fresh.

4. Course-grain salt and fresh ground pepper.

5. Red onions. Optional, but I think they go nicely with the sweet tomatoes.

Here is their recipe, a good one, except I like the Italian loaf bread toasted both sides, lightly. And the bread cut about 1 - 1.5 inches thick. It should lightly crunch, but not like a crouton.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views

The Perennial Search for a Juicy Turkey.

Evan Sung for The New York Times


The New York Times published two excellent articles on turkey preparation. One from my favorite food commentator, Mark Bittman.

In summary, one article suggests cooking turkey breast separately because the dark meat requires longer cooking (which dries out the breast meat). The other is on a salt brine immersion before cooking to guarantee a juicy turkey breast.

The third is a "prepare before the day" apple/pecan tart.

Here are the links:

Separating white and dark meats before cooking
http://www.nytimes.com/2008

Turkey pre-soaked in brine
http://www.nytimes.com/2008

Apple Pecan Tart
http://www.nytimes.com/2008

How to Cook a Hamburger on the Home Grill.

I first posted this in Memorial Day Weekend. It's Labor Day Weekend, so I'm posting it again. Enjoy the holiday and have a home grilled hamburger and cold beer on me.


It is the time of the year when many cooks make hamburgers on the outside grill. It's easy to do, not so easy to do right. Too often they are overcooked and dry. I know, I do it all the time.

Here are a few suggestions that have helped me:

• Use chuck roast with some fat, about 15-20%. Too lean and you have a steak burger with little "hamburger flavor", too much fat and you flame out the grill and create a huge mess.
• Have two sections with two intensities of heat. One with high heat to get a sear on both sides, and the other for a indirect heat for the burger to cook through.
• Don't make them too big. 6 ounces is about right. If you make them the same size all the time and set the heat the same way, you'll get to know when they are done, without poking them.
• If you use the scientific method (I don't) and use a thermometer, you want about 160 degrees on the inside.
  
• Don't overflip. The average size burger needs just a couple of flips. Make sure the first flip is after it has seared, otherwise it will not separate from the grill.
• Salt and pepper a little when you make them, and a little after you flip them. Add cheese on last flip and close lid.
• Weber grills work as designed when the lids are closed, otherwise you are just sear cooking.
• Add a little water to your ground beef before you make patties. Trust me.
  
• Don't compress the patties too much when you make them, and definitely don't compress when you grill them.

A New York Times article today suggests grinding your own chuck roast in a food processor. I like that idea, since you know what you are getting. If you do grind your own make sure the beef is very cold first and don't over process. Cut into 1" chunks and then do a quick pulse chop. I don't like to trick up my burgers too much with garlic, onions, etc. They do need a liberal dousing of salt and pepper, though. I do like cheese melted on top and cold red onion slices. But here's the most important point: taste comes mostly from the choice of beef and in the burger being cooked properly, and secondarily from the grill and the seasonings.

Another Burger Post: How to Make a Good One.

It's Grilling season. The following magazine article describes how to make a great hamburger, and by that I mean not how it is seasoned, but more fundamentally, how to get the right beef.

First featured in Vogue Magazine, I read it via Yahoo, on Serious Eats, by Adam Kuban.

The following is quoted, but edited, from Adam Kuban:

Nearly Universal Truths

1. Chill "Before grinding chunks of beef, before forming a hamburger, and before cooking a hamburger, make sure that the beef is ice cold. Otherwise, the fat may melt and separate from the lean."
2. Grind: Steingarten concludes you must either grind your own meat or have a trusted butcher grind it for you, for reasons of taste and safety (or, perish the thought, be sentenced to a life of consuming well-done burgers). "Never buy supermarket ground beef unless the butcher there grinds it specially for you." He explains in painstaking detail all of the ways supermarket ground beef can be contaminated. His solution, if you have any questions about the chopped meat you've just bought: "Drop the meat into a pot of boiling water for a minute, fish it out, and pat it dry. Yes, it'll turn gray, but only on the outside, and this will get ground into the rest of the meat and vanish."
3. Fluff: "When forming a hamburger, don't compress the meat. The fluffier, the better. A raw burger should be airy and full of tiny holes that can hold the juices released during cooking, when the fat melts and water is squeezed out from between the proteins."
4. Add Water: Adding the liquid is literally the secret sauce that will make any burger sing. Here is Steingarten's eureka hamburger moment. Forty-eight hours before the Vogue article was due, he discovers that adding a tablespoon and a half of liquid to the ground meat immeasurably improved the burger. He tried cream and water, and they both produced a superior, succulent, juicy, crumbly (which, Steingarten discovered, is a good thing) burger.
5. Season Well: "Don't salt hamburger meat either before or after it is ground. Just before you cook the burger, liberally sprinkle salt on both sides of each patty, and press it lightly. After they're cooked, sprinkle with freshly ground pepper."
6. Flip: Searching for the proper and most delicious burger-cooking technique, Steingarten ends up asking for advice from Kyle Connaughton, the head chef of development at Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck in England. Connaughton follows Harold McGee's finding that if you flip a burger or a steak every fifteen to 30 seconds, the outside surface will get nicely browned while the inside stays relatively cool.
7. No Pressure: "While cooking your hamburger never press down on the patty with your spatula or with anything else." An esteemed New York City chef, Lee Hanson, of Balthazar, Pastis, and Schiller's Liquor Bar, further advises Steingarten that broiling from above is much less likely to dry out the burger.
8. Buns: In searching for the perfect bun, Steingarten notes that "An article in Cook's Illustrated said the best hamburger buns are Pepperidge Farm's Farmhouse Sandwich Rolls (not the company's classic hamburger buns). He tries them and finds them to his liking, though he says "they do need to be compressed a bit before using." He does not tell us if he has found a hamburger bun compressor, though I am sure if I had 15 minutes to go through his kitchen, I would find a reasonable facsimile. Steingarten on Hamburger Greatness
What do we demand of the perfect hamburger? That the meat patty be profoundly beefy in flavor, mouthwateringly browned on the outside, and succulent (a combination of juicy and tender) on the inside. The bread or bun should not interfere with any of these virtues. It should be soft, mild, and unassertive; its job is to absorb every last drop of savory juice trickling from the meat while keeping the burger more or less in one piece and your hands dry. Mouthwatering, beefy, juicy, and tender--not too much to ask from life, but entirely elusive, at least to me. It's not as though I haven't tried. God knows, I've tried.

The Daily Grind
Steingarten discovers that most of New York City's great hamburgers are made with a blend of chuck (specifically the chuck flap) and brisket. Some chefs ask that short rib or hanger steak be thrown in. Steingarten tries to develop his own signature blend. A Waring blender is destroyed in the process. He fails, so in his words, he decides to "forge somebody else's signature." Jeffrey's forged signature blend is two parts chuck, two parts boneless short rib, and one part brisket. He notes that "fat is extremely important to excellence in the hamburger arts because most of the beefy flavor in beef is in the fat."

My Favorite Shrimp Dish

Another recipe from RJS.
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This is a simple and guaranteed, crowd-pleasing shrimp recipe. Instead of bread, try it with fresh corn tortillas. I have found Mi Cocina’s tortillas to be very good and they can be purchased by the dozen.

1 lb. shrimp
2 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. minced shallots
1/4 cup Tequila
3/4 cup heavy cream
Juice of 1 lime
1 1/2 tbsp. cilantro
1 tbsp. grated lime peel

Clean and de-vein shrimp.
Melt butter in large skillet, cook shrimp, stirring rapidly and cook about 2 minutes.
Add shallots, saute 15 seconds.
Add tequila slowly (may flare up).
Add cream, cook over high heat about 1 minute.
Using slotted spoon, remove shrimp to hot platter.
Add lime juice to pan and bring to a boil for 30 seconds.
Add cilantro.
Spoon sauce over shrimp.
Sprinkle with lime peel.

If you know a place to get good homemade and fresh corn tortillas, please let me know.

The "Perfect Meatball" Recipe

Guest Post by cook, RJS.
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I rarely enjoy something as much as I enjoy a big plate of spaghetti and meatballs. There are many versions of the meatball; some make them with pork and beef, some like them Swedish or really spicy. I have experimented with baking the meatballs vs. cooking them in the sauce, using egg or not, using only Parmesan cheese or a blend of cheeses, Italian breadcrumbs or plain, using pork and beef, using different fat contents in the beef and on and on and on.

Last night I think I hit meatball nirvana. After much experimentation over many years and hundreds of meatballs, here is my recipe:

2 lbs beef: 85/15 fat content ( too much fat makes a greasy meatball, not enough doesn’t keep them moist enough.)
½ onion diced
2 cloves garlic diced
1 tbsp olive oil
6 slices of bread made into crumbs
8 oz parmesan cheese shredded
4 oz mozzarella, shredded
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp cream

Sauté the onion and garlic in a pan until translucent, mix with beef and the rest of ingredients. Use your hands! Don’t over work the meat or it gets mushy. Brown the meatballs over med/high heat. Once brown on the outside, transfer to sauce and finish cooking in the sauce. You can bake them, but they will tend to be a bit dryer than cooking them in the sauce.

Questions? Comments?

An Easy to Make Home-made Pizza?

I know I can drone on annoyingly about newspapers other than our own that I enjoy, but the recipe in the NYTimes "Dine In" section of today's NYTimes looks doable, because it addresses the problem I have with home-made pizza, i.e., the dough is like a biscuit. With this recipe you get crispy pizza by cooking it on a frying pan. Why didn't I think of that? I suggest cast iron. Small, crispy, and easy to clean up. What more can you ask for? The complete recipe is at the following site: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/dining/07mini.html?ref=todayspaper

The Tastiest Chicken Breast Recipe Ever

Personally, I find most baked chicken without a lot of flavor.
But not last Sunday night. For her weekly Sunday night dinner, my daughter made chicken with pasta and artichoke hearts. The long marination and touch of lemon made it as good as it gets.

Chicken and Artichoke Pasta Recipe.

Marinate Chicken for 3-24 hours.
6 chicken breasts
2 cloves garlic minced
juice of 2 lemons
1 tbsp coarse salt
1tbsp coarse pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
Put all ingredients in ziplock bag in refrigerator until ready to grill.

Pasta sauce
1 lb bacon
12 oz marinated artichokes
1 clove minced garlic
5 tbsp butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
juice of 1 lemon
1 cup white wine

salt and pepper to taste

Render fat from bacon until bacon is crispy. Drain
bacon  and put fat to the side. De glaze pan with
lemon juice and wine. Add butter and garlic. Simmer
for about 5 minutes. Add artichokes and heavy
cream/salt and pepper-return to simmer. Cook pasta
until done, drain and put in a large bowl. Add 2 tbsp
bacon fat and toss pasta. Pour artichoke sauce over
top, add bacon and top with grilled chicken and
Parmesan cheese.

Have a great summer salad? Tell me.

I don't know about you, but in the summer I like lots of chilled fruits and vegetables, tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe, grapes, iceberg lettuce, and cold meats like chicken breast or fish like canned albacore tuna. My wife frequently makes a big bowl of summer salad that stays fresh in the refrigerator for days. It goes something like this. A mixture of crispy iceberg lettuce, romaine and butter leaf lettuce, cherry tomatoes, pulled chicken breast, sliced or chopped almonds, sliced seedless grapes, blue cheese or sharp cheddar, sliced carrots, sliced English cucumbers and chopped celery, sea salt and course ground pepper. Dressing is "to taste", but I like blue cheese.
Farmer's Market: I know we have a farmer's market, sort of, but Dallas has a Farmers Market of considerable size and selection. When tomatoes are in season I like to buy the farm grown tomatoes that are "ugly", that is not perfectly round and shaped, but perfect for salsas, slicing and tomato sauce. They are very inexpensive and worth the drive to Dallas.