Four Ingredient Challenge

It's that time of the month again, The Four Ingredient Challenge, wherein, I cook a meal using ingredients that I would never use together to make a meal. This month the ingredients are:

Tofu
Melon
Peas
Potatoes

I was not really sure where I was going to take all of this, but, I recently had gone out on a fabulous night to a restaurant named Millenium, in San Francisco, which featured smoked tofu that had a texture and flavor I have not been personally able to recreate, thinking it might be the tofu itself, I decided to buy a Vegan tofu product that was presmoked, one that is common to the type of folks that might eat at a luxurious Vegan restuarant.

Since we are talking ingredients, here are the main players, I found a terrific smelling cantaloupe, which I hope means ripe and sweet, some Organic Yukon Gold potatoes, organic onion and garlic, the aforementioned smoked tofu, frozen peas and a few supporting players, as usual, the Red Boat fish sauce will be along for the ride.

I made two spice blends, both based on a blend of Madras curry powder and a version of Japanese curry powder. In light of the melon and peas, I think a the Japanese curry powder will support the sweet flavors a little more. There is lime powder, dry mustard and chile powder in both, with the potato spice also receiving some dried thyme, which goes great with potatoes. I will also add some of the curry spice mix to the peas.

As to the peas, they were dresses with 1/8 cup of Arbequina olive oil, a splash of cider vinegar and a drizzle of palm syrup. Then one clove of garlic split, kosher salt and some water was added. These were then allowed to sit as the peas thawed. Then a little puree and strain action, and pea sauce is achieved.

Potatoes were sliced, coated with olive oil and spice blend, salted with kosher salt and given a drizzle of fish sauce. Sliced onion and a little bit of fresh garlic was added to bridge some of the flavors. This was all done in a hobo pack to get some cooking and caramelization on the kettle.

I think one of the things I liked about the Millenium dish was the texure of the tofu in small dice, it almost took on a feel of ham chunks. A sort of hobo ragout was my solution. A mixture of carrots, fresh cranberry beans, zuchinni, shiitake, onions, garlic and a drizzle of the olive oil, a splash or two of Red Boat fish sauce and some Phu Quoc black pepper along with the curry seasoning. Since there was to be something of a potato galette to serve over, there didn't seem to be a need for any starch in the 'ragout'.

On to the melon, I could just serve this as melon, or grill it and call it done, but, I really like the idea for these challenges to be integrating the elements in some manner that makes them truly interesting. And I could have gone the savory Asian melon route, but, too easy for me to do that. So, integrating a sweet fragrant melon into a smoked and curried dish it shall be. I decided on a brandied melon 'relish'; essentially heating up 1/2 cup of brandy, adding in some finely diced onion and then cooling it. I added the diced melon and gave it a vigorous stir to combine and then chilled while the hobo packs cook.

I really need to stop plating stuff and just dump it on the plate, I swear it would look better if I just did that. It looked a lot better before I messed around with the pea oil sauce. The brandied melons really worked great with the slightly herbal pea sauce and the smoked tofu ragout was just the right texture and flavor. Here is the better shot...note the lack of plate...

In this shot, you can see the olive oil and pea oil sauce a little more clearly, I really like the cold melon in contrast with the ragout. There are some crunchy beautifully caramlized potatoes in there as well. This is defintely going to be done again.

Larry Gaian of The BBQ Grail - Entry Here
The BBQ Grail website was created in 2007, initially to document the author’s quest to find the perfect backyard BBQ experience. Since that time The BBQ Grail has become one of the more popular BBQ blogs on the internet and is listed on Alltop.com as one of the top BBQ blogs.

Paul Haight of No Excuses BBQ – Entry Here
The No Excuses BBQ website was started in January of 2009 as a way to record the author’s goal of cooking outdoors at least once a week throughout the year and showing the results to the world. Somewhere along the way things got out of control…

Chris Grove of Nibble Me This - Entry Here
Nibble Me This is Chris Grove’s blog about his misadventures in live fire cooking. ”I have no culinary training….I’m just entertaining myself with fire and food”.

Marc Van Der Wouw of Grill Adventures - Entry Here
Grilladventures by broadcastmarc is started on march of 2010.I started the BBQ thing when I was 30,before that we eat a lot outside.have fun,but when the kids came in our life We start serious cooking.Most of it is realy healthy I think;-)The grill has a special place in my heart,We love to do things outside..Everything I make is an adventure,and sometimes we use the books.We try to grill as much as we can year round.

Jerry Russel of Cooking by the Seat of my Pants - Entry Here
Cooking by the seat of my Pants began life as a way to document our culinary misadventures. Since then it has become our way to encourage people to cook without boundaries or recipes. To just get in the kitchen and cook something from the heart.

Better Recipes “The Daily Dish” - Entry Here
Kristina has been writing “The Daily Dish” for www.BetterRecipes.com for the past two years. The blog covers a wide variety of recipes, but firing up the grill truly lights up her passion for food! She was named “America’s Next Pork Personality” by Guy Fieri for one of her grilled pork dishes, won the outdoor grilling division of the National Beef Cook-Off, and her winning grilled lamb-burger took her all the way to the land Down Under with Meat and Livestock Australia. The “4-Ingredient Challenge” is a fun and exciting way to get creative on the grill!

Curt McAdams of Livefire - Entry Here

Livefire cooking is about taking ordinary cooking and adding the flavor of fire to it, whether in high heat grilling, low heat smoking or indirect heat for baking. It’s about taking the primitive element of fire and harnessing it to make great food.

Pulled Pork Overnighter

Well, due to a lack of planning and foresight on my part (I know, can you believe it?) I am now just getting started putting a fire to the kettle and settling the temperature to cook some butts. How did this start you ask, well, it started with Martinis and Manhattans and a certain woman named Blanca and has ended up with me volunteering to do some pork butts for a Friday evening event. Of course, tomorrow would be the one Friday in a month that I am busy all day, so I need to cook them tonight. Here are three mediocre prok butts from the local supermarket.

This kills me primarily because I have two beautiful 10 pound bone-in prok butts in the freezer that I could have used, if I had remembered that I volunteered to cook before tonight at 5pm. I seasoned them up with a mix of my own pork rub and Simply Marvelous Cherry rub, I sure hope this works right. The rub sure looked right.

And then onto the kettle. I am going to run them at 250F for most of the late night and into the wee hours, after that, all bets are off. I should set up the Maverick, which I normally do not use, but, for an overnight, I better get the insurance going in case of pit temperature drop. Pulled them after 9 hours, running at 235F up to 250F, these cooked pretty fast as they were not large and seemed to render quite quickly.

When I pulled one of them, it actually tore into pieces, still, initial testing determined that the butt was cooked perfectly and there was still loads of moisture.

Flat Bread

Tonight, I wanted something simple, so I made some flat bread. A very simple process, using a biga, 65% hydration bread dough with a mix of AP flour and Bread flour to get a nice soft crumb. The dough was made last night and allowed to slow rise overnight. It was lightly kneaded this morning and panned.

The dough was topped with sliced grape tomatoes, chopped celery and garlic, some Todd's Dirt BBQ rub (very herbal), kosher salt and some fresh ground Phu Quoc black pepper. Then it was drizzled with Red Boat fish sauce and local olive oil, Arbequina Olives I believe. Into a 520F oven (yes, no kettle today) and baked for 14 minutes. Ta daaaa!

Randomly chunked up, this bread had a very nice crumb, with a very crisp exterior, thin crust that you could hear crackling as it cooled. The interior crumb was tender with just the right elasticity and pull. The toppings were just right for this type of bread, which was not quite foccacia and not quite ciabatta.

I plated with a dribble of black currant infused balsamic vinegar and some of the olive oil. This bread, with it's herbal and savory components was very nicely offset with the sweet, almost port-like character of the vinegar and the smootness of the olive oil. I could not be happier with the crumb.

Masumoto Farm Peach Pie

Poobah Rib Sandwich

The McRib, modern cultures ridiculous take on the idea of a rib sandwich. Why would anyone think a bunch of formed pork trimmings could stand in for real ribs in any guise. But, what to do with the craving for a rib sandwich? How would one go about making a rib sandwich. Well, presented with this question, Phil Rizzardi, founder and owner of The BBQ Brethren, one of the most popular BBQ and outdoor cooking forums on the 'net decided it was easiest to just slap a rack into a loaf of bread. While this is clearly a good idea, here is my riff, in honor of Phil.

I purchased a rack of baby back ribs, I prefer quality pork so these were selected at my local butcher shop, I was greatly encouraged as when he picked up the rack, it bent in half forming a upside down U. How much easier is it to make tender ribs when starting with tender ribs?

These were given a little prep work, essentially just removing the membrane and washing them off. Then a rub was applied, I went with Simply Marvelous Cherry Rub spread on twice, one an hour before the other, the second application happening just before going onto the kettle. I did grind on some additional Phu Quoc black pepper as well, it just adds a nice punch to everything.

From here, onto the kettle with chunks of peach wood, cooking at 220F initially and ramping up to 250F over about two hours or so. It was then removed and plopped onto some foil. Yep, I foiled my ribs, competition style, which is not something I normally do. But, since this was for Phil, and he loves his competition BBQ, foil it would be.

On the other hand, I am eating them, so I added some coconut palm syrup, some more rub and freshly ground pepper and some Red Boat Fish Sauce and Lucky Dog hot sauce to the foil. The ribs went meat down onto the foil, was wrapped and put back on the cooker for about 45 minutes. Here is came off the kettle after another 45 minutes un-foiled. These looked and smelled great. Initial samples verified that the meat was very tender, the surface was very balanced between sugar, salt, savory and smoke.

Beautiful pink color in that sliced meat, with excellent texture and a pull from the bone texture. I really think anyone would be happy with these ribs, just enough pull to come clean with a slight tug, melt in your mouth texture. Here is the section of the rib slab I selected for dinner, I truly think I could compete with these, but, boned and placed on bread, this was going to be a good dinner.

 

I added some hand sliced apple cabbage slaw to top off the sandwich and clean up the diet by claiming I had veggies with dinner. The slaw was left pretty crunchy and basically seasoned with Phu Quoc black pepper.

I give you the Grand Poobah Ban Me sandwich. (sorry, had to taunt the mods a little here)

This sandwich really did have a great flavor with a nice smooth smoke and very balanced flavor and texture.

Brisket Experiment

Well, it had to happen, I decided to try injecting a brisket. And since I was going there, I went with a 15 pound choice grade packer brisket that was trimmed of most of the fat and injected with a test injection. Now, most folks will use a beef broth or commercial injection formula that either is designed to make a brisket taste more beefy (not sure why this is necessary) or to literally change the nature of the brisket. This second option I totally understand. If I was going to compete, I would use something like Butcher's Injection for it's proven flavor and texture improvements. But, I am going for an augmentation of flavor here, so I made my own.

In doing this, I was really trying to augment the savory profiles of the beef without really changing the flavor of the meat. I went with some proven elements for my taste palette. Onions, carrots, garlic, shiitake mushrooms, Bragg's Amino Acids and Red Boat fish sauce. I am hoping to get a blend of the aromatics and umami elements with the addition of some sodium as well.

Bob's Test Injection
1 small onion
4 small carrots
2 cloves garlic
3 shiitake mushrooms, dried
1/4 cup Bragg's Aminos
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons Red Boat Fish Sauce
6 cups water

I brought the water to a boil, reduced to a simmer and added everything but 2 tablespoons of fish sauce. After 10 minutes and back to a simmer, I cut the heat and let it steep until cool. This was bottled and allowed to sit for 2 days. Upon opening, gave it the sniff and taste test. It smelled great, no fish smell, no funkiness, just a nice aromatic blend, I would liken to a vegetable version of demi-glace. It was a little intense and salty in terms of taste. But, no matter, I used two cups to inject the brisket until it started rejecting the liquid. Into the fridge for now. Upon removal from the fridge, there was a notable fish sauce aroma, that got stronger as the meat came to room temperature, not to worry, this always goes away over time.

Well, it took me an extra day to get the whole thing together and onto the kettle. I setup the kettle for a longer burn with a little adaptation to create sort of a heat sink under the brisket. Not sure how this setup will work, but, hey, let's mess with all the parameters at once. I did apply a dry rub to the meat, one portion an experimental rub called Cow Pow by the makers of Big Butz BBQ sauce, and the other a mix of leftovers from Simply Marvelous BBQ (their Cherry and Sweet and Spicy) mixed with some of my mother rub. Why would I do this, well, I needed to test the Cow Pow and did not have enough to do the whole brisket, but, it needed to be tested. The Simply Marvelous would have been fine alone, but, I wanted more heat from the Phu Quoc peppers that I am now using, so I added that to it.

I set up the kettle a little different to see what I could do with a few extra pieces to add some thermal mass and a little shielding of heat. he setup also allowed me to put a couple more pounds of charcoal to the overall load, meaning a few more hours of burn time. I believe I could get 6 to 8 hours with this rig.

Onto the kettle at 200F intially, and letting it run up to 300F over 4 hours, I will hold it there for a couple of hours more and let it then rest until ready to be sliced and tested. Now here is where things get even a little more odd, I had to shut down the cook about 4 hours in, to go take care of some family affairs, so the brisket was wrapped in foil and rested in a heated and then turned off oven.

Here it sat for three hours. Upon my return, it was returned to the now marginally running kettle for another 2-1/2 hours and then into the oven again to rest, as I had a dinner to attend to. I got home 4 hours later to a cold brisket. If you have ever had cold brisket, you know it can be hard and a little dry, this stuff rocked. It was tender, almost flaky with just a little pull and you could see it was still moist. 

The taste was right there. The CowPow rub was a great spicy complement to the beef, a true brisket rub. Here are the sliced pics, I wish you could smell and taste this brisket. The injection really upped the meaty profile without adding a lot of salt or strange meat texture, a perfect balance.

 

Sorry about the pics, this was shot at midnight, after a few cocktails and a full tasting menu with pairings, so there may be some focus issues. For those not familiar with BBQ, that may look burned, but, that bark is a lot of flavor.

Four Ingredient Challenge

It's that time of the month again, The Four Ingredient Challenge, wherein, I cook a meal using ingredients that I would never use together to make a meal. This month the ingredients are:

Hot Dogs (which I am interpreting as wieners)
Blueberries
Baked Beans
Dill Pickles

Now, I could go the hot dog with dill pickles route, some beans on the side and a blueberry smoothie, but, where is the fun in that? I do these cooks to see how I can fit a square peg into a round hole of culinary excess. I have a long history of this, as a child, I was given a toy where you test your child's innate intelligence by seeing if they can put the round peg in the round hole and the square peg in the square hole. Really? So intellect is doing what is obvious and simple? Nay! I say gimme a bigger hammer Mom!

So, what to do? Have a beer! A honey pale ale, which actually was for dinner. Anyway, well, I went with a classic, beans and franks, with a few twists. And for the sides, cornbread and mustard. For these challenges, I really try to come up with a complete plate that works at all levels. For the hot dogs, I went with my childhood favorite of Saag's frankfurters, growing up, we would get these at their butcher shop in Oakland, it was across the street from the Oakland Flower Market. They are still excellent sausages.

As you see my set up above, I smoked them on a rack over the bean pan with an apple wood fire for 1/2 hour. Then into the bean pot. These were finished cover on after 1-1/2 hours at 300F. The beans were a small can of Bush's Vegetarian Beans and a can of Navy Beans to cut the sweetness and excess sauce. I also added 1 tablespoon of grainy mustard, 1 tablespoon of my basic BBQ rub, 1 tablespoon of Red Boat fish sauce, 1/4 cup bourbon ketchup and 1/2 cup of honey pale ale.

The cornbread ended up being Honey Pale Ale Blueberry Cornbread, which was primarily Jiffy Cornbread mix with the milk reduced 1/2 and ale added. I also added 1/2 cup of dried blueberries and some chopped canned green peppers. I like the Hatch brand as they have a little heat.

I like to make cornbread in a cast iron pan, whether over the fire or in the oven. I preheat the pan and fat to make sure the thermal mass if already hot, it makes a nice crust as well. This actually works great for many quick breads and cobbler like breads as well. A little bacon grease would have been perfect for this, but, I used the far more convenient butter. Of course, my cast iron is very well seasoned and release is not an issue.

Hmmm, something looks like it is missing. Oh, finally, dill pickles, what to do with those, well, mustard is really good with beans, with frankfurters and with cornbread, so, dill goes with mustard and this is all I decided to do. Chopped up some dill pickle, add 1/2 teaspoon of dill liquid to 1 tablespoon of prepared rough grind mustard and mix it all up. The spicy and sour profile really cuts through the sweet and fatty components of this meal perfectly. The mustard sauce may have been even better on the beans than it was with the frankfurters.

This is really a meal that worked great. Not all of these Four Ingredient Challenges have worked perfectly, but, it is easy to see why this kind of meal has become a standard of the American table. I highly encourage you to take a look at all of the other participants in this little challenge, their links are below. There is a wild cross section of interesting minds at work.


Larry Gaian of The BBQ Grail - Entry Here
The BBQ Grail website was created in 2007, initially to document the author’s quest to find the perfect backyard BBQ experience. Since that time The BBQ Grail has become one of the more popular BBQ blogs on the internet and is listed on Alltop.com as one of the top BBQ blogs.

Paul Haight of No Excuses BBQ – Entry Here

The No Excuses BBQ website was started in January of 2009 as a way to record the author’s goal of cooking outdoors at least once a week throughout the year and showing the results to the world.  Somewhere along the way things got out of control…

Chris Grove of Nibble Me This - Entry Here
Nibble Me This is Chris Grove’s blog about his misadventures in live fire cooking. ”I have no culinary training….I’m just entertaining myself with fire and food”.

Hanneke Eerden of The Dutchess Cooks – Entry Here
The Dutchess Cooks was started in 2010. After years of cooking, grilling, baking and reading other people’s blogs, I thought “why not start my own blog??” And I did, in 2010, but already after a short period of time, a blog wasn’t enough, and I started my own website. It’s not my goal to publish or come up with fancy and difficult recipes: just good and delicious food with an international twist! Straight from my plate to yours!

Marc Van Der Wouw of Grill Adventures - Entry Here
Grilladventures by broadcastmarc is started on march of 2010.I started the BBQ thing when I was 30,before that we eat a lot outside.have fun,but when the kids came in our life We start serious cooking.Most of it is realy healthy I think;-)The grill has a special place in my heart,We love to do things outside..Everything I make is an adventure,and sometimes we use the books.We try to grill as much as we can year round.

Jerry Russel of Cooking by the Seat of my Pants - Entry Here
Cooking by the seat of my Pants began life as a way to document our culinary misadventures. Since then it has become our way to encourage people to cook without boundaries or recipes. To just get in the kitchen and cook something from the heart.


Jason Adams of Jason's BBQ Adventures - Entry Here
Started Jason's BBQ Adventures in 2007 and originally fell in love with real BBQ the first time I tried to smoke a pork shoulder and soon after started smoking ribs, brisket and chicken. After a while I started to experiment with grilling and smoking just about anything and ultimately fell in love with the entire cooking process.

Wilfred Reinke of Oshawa Ogre's Views News & BBQ's - Entry Here
Wilfred is somewhat of a newcomer to the BBQ scene having only done standard grilling for most of his 50 years, He found and became passionate about Low & Slow about 2 years ago. and that passion also morphed into a second hobby which is writing. Oshawa Ogre's Views News & BBQ's has been a project that has taken on a life of it's own and blessed him with many many new friends in the BBQ community on Twitter, facebook and through the blog.