Smoked Cook.

One of the stereotypical images of the classic back yard barbeque is a cook obscured by clouds of smoke swirling about as he opens the hood or lifts the lid and utters the phrase:  “better check the meat.”

For many folks the phrase ’smoke flavor’ as it relates to grilled foods is limited to the taste of burned meat as experienced in similar scenarios in countless backyards all over. And about the only thing that gets smoked is the cook!

While grilling food over hot coals or gas flames is often associated with the taste of burned foods – that doesn’t have to be the case. When you cook meat at the high temperatures of grilling – a range between 400F – 700F degrees depending upon the technique -  there is bound to be some smoke.  At the very least you can minimize the amount of smoke produced when grilling meat over hot fires by reducing the amount of ‘useless’ fat on the meat. This useless fat adds no flavor to the meat when prepared by grilling and really only melts, drips and creates the conditions for fat flare ups and excessive smelly smoke.

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Visitors sample some Buccaneer Blends BBQ sauce.

The Char-Broil INfrared Tour headed to Kansas City, one of the nation’s BBQ capitals, this past week to attend the Skills USA event. The team shared Char-Broil’s juicy little secret with thousands of good folks who know a little bit about BBQ!

This week we will be in Milwaukee, WI visiting the music fans attending Summerfest. Put on your dancing shoes and come see us!

CLICK HERE for the 2009 Grilling Tour schedule and locations.

These days, everyone I know is looking to save a few dollars here and there  and that usually impacts the grocery shopping list.  I’ve taken to purchasing whole chickens and trimming them into parts for grilling & frying.  Or I really enjoy roasting whole chickens in The Big Easy infrared turkey fryer or on the rotisserie of my grill.

When it comes to tasty preparations I do enjoy smoked chicken and one technique of preparing a whole chicken for grilling or smoking is to ’spatchcock’ it.  That’s a term which essentially means it’s been butterflied by first removing the backbone and then opened up as shown in the picture below.

A 'spatchedcocked' chicken or turkey will cook faster.

Here are 2 posts that provide more information and recipes using this method to prepare poultry:

Grilled Whole Chicken Under Bricks

Smoked BBQ Chicken on a Gas Grill

Spatchcocking is a proven method of opening up the chicken, turkey or other poultry to season and cook. Cooking chicken with the bones intact does improve cooking times and flavor – and I believe it also helps to maintain moisture.  Spatchcocking works, but I have a problem with it.

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A few weeks back I wrote a post about preparing kabobs in which I suggested that meat sold at grocery stores for kabobs was often the wrong cut and thus required a lot of excessive preparation to make it work for that style of preparation.  I suggested that you use better cuts when preparing meat in this manner.  Well – no sooner said than done by yours truly. I happened to be browsing the meat counter at one of my favorite locally owned grocery stores and discovered a great price on packaged pairs of pork tenderloins.  And these weren’t pre-brined with that nasty tasting solution they use at the processing plant that (to my taste at least) reduces the flavor to a bland and somewhat institutional taste lacking in any true pork flavor characteristics.  I snapped these up and prepared them for dinner that evening.

Pork tenderloin on the "red for raw" meat NSF cutting board. Full pieces of tenderloin are thick at one end and tapered at the other - I think they look like skinned catfish.

Whenever I dress out a whole pork tenderloin it always reminds me of the way a catfish looks when it is skinned and be-headed before breading and frying it whole. (OK I am really weird, I know) Thick and round at one end and for a good 1/2 of the length of the meat, and tapering to a very thin almost flat slip at the other end – where the tendon would have connected.

TIP: Grilling pork tenderloin can be problematic for home cooks. I have witnessed many a cook try to prepare the entire piece on the grill – only to have the thin end over-cooked and inedible.  When I prepare this cut of meat on the grill I will generally dress it  to prepare the roast section, or thickest part, separately from the tapering section.  Often I will hold back the smaller ends and freeze for later as they make excellent saute meat.  Today I wanted to prepare the entire tenderloin as a demonstration of technique and, ahem, I was pretty hungry.

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Beef & Pepper Kebobs on the left, mixed veggies on the right, wrapped corn on the cob on the warming rack!

Hello CB,

Here are some pics of the meal I grilled for the family (well maybe for me but I didn’t get any complaints from the family) on Father’s Day. What a great day spent with the family and good eating prepared on the grill.

The kebobs are were just peppers, onions and steak cut into bite-size pieces. And the grilling tray contains the same. I think that I will try chicken next time. The corn was husked, buttered and lightly salted before wrapping in foil. Love the Char-Broil grill, this is the first grill that I’ve had that does cook very evenly.

- David

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Thanks for sharing your grilling menu with us David.  You are now entered into the monthly drawing  to win an autographed copy of Everybody Grills!

Do you have a pix of ‘What’s on YOUR grill this week?’ – send it my way! cb@sizzleonthegrill.com

Happy Grilling!

Sample page from your product manual

Tip – each time you turn off the propane, do so at the burner and not at the tank.

Once the burners are turned off it’s OK to turn off the fuel at the propane tank.

Why?

With the new regulators if you turn off the flow at the tank to shut your grill down, and leave on the burner controls, the next time you turn on the tank valve, even if you’ve turned off the burner controls, you might trigger the anti-flow mechanism.

The propane flow will be restricted and you may experience low heat output.

This is true for all propane fueled outdoor cookers and stoves for all manufacturers.

Here’s a post about this topic: Turning On/Off the Propane – Simple steps keep the gas flowing!

CB's EZ Baby Back Pork Ribs

Spend enough time talking barbeque with folks and sooner or later the subject of preparing ribs will come up. More often as not it’s in the form of a question along the lines of:

“How do I get my ribs to taste like (insert the name of a restaurant, bbq joint or neighbor/cousin/brother-in-law)?”

Based upon the number of folks involved in the conversation there will be, at the very least, an equal number of answers and methods proclaimed as the one-and-only-sure-fire-method.

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What are you preparing for DAD this weekend? I’m talk’n bout Prime Rib. Actually, that term ‘prime’ is kinda incorrect. It’s really a standing rib roast and if I could find USDA Prime I would buy it, but usually that grade is reserved for the white table cloth restaurants. Who cares if all I could get was USDA Choice? I say “What the heck – it ain’t cheap so let’s call it Prime Rib!

I prepared my Prime Rib three ways and I hope one (or more) of these intrigue you:

Beef Rib Roast 'Prime Rib' Prepared Classic Rotisserie Style

Get the recipe for CB’s EZ Prime Rib on the Rotisserie CLICK HERE

Beef Rib Roast "Prime Rib" Prepared Low & Slow BBQ/Smoke Style

Get the recipe for CB’s EZ Prime Rib on the Smoker CLICK HERE

Beef Rib Roast "Prime Rib" Prepared in The Big Easy

Get the recipe for CB’s EZ Prime Rib in The Big Easy CLICK HERE

Happy Grilling!

Blame it on the marketing guys who came up with the name  in the first place, but when I see the following item on sale I always smile – for two reasons. The first is they will be a great tasting meal. And the second is there is no rib bone in sight of these hunks of pork meat! I’m talking about “Country Style Pork Ribs.”

Last week I saw a newspaper ad for Country Style Pork Ribs on sale and I made a note to stop by and pick up a pack (or two!) for a meal.  While these aren’t really ribs I guess because they are cut cross-grain and into long steaks of sorts, they can look like ribs.  To tell you the truth – I’ve never even asked what the cut actually is and I suspect it varies from store-to-store or even by region.  No matter – because they are DEE-LISH-US when seasoned and prepared on the grill or slow cooked in a smoker.

I started out by assembling the ingredients for my pork brine.

I used several spices in the brine to infuse complimentary flavors: bay leaves, cumin, ginger and garlic. The gray sea salt & apple cider vinegar both help the brining process of 'osmosis' to infuse moisture & tenderize the meat.

A brine can be simple – just salt and water – or you can add other ingredients to help season the meat. I guess a that point you are making a marinade. The intent of this brine was three-fold.  First to ensure there was lot’s of moisture in the meat because I’d be grilling at high temperature to give the meat some browning for flavor and then finishing low & slow. Second to tenderize and the combination of sea salt and vinegar would do that.  Thirdly I wanted to experiment with some added seasoning to see just what difference it made, so I used a couple bay leaves, a Tbsp each of ground garlic, ginger and cumin.

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This note from Chef Scott came at a good time. Just yesterday I received a box of Omaha Steaks beef tenderloins as a gift from a friend and I plan on grilling them tomorrow evening.  Not sure what I did to deserve them – but I ain’t asking questions!  The tenderloin is, well, tender. But it is also  exceptionally lean and requires a deft hand at the grill to ensure this pricey cut of beef is well prepared and not dried out.  Chef Scott is the man for the job!

Happy Grilling!

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CB,

Thought I’d drop you a line and speak to your heart and soul on a little piece of meat known as the Filet Mignon. That’s beef tenderloin center cut into steaks.  Tender Tender Tender!

When it comes to grilling I truly love the flavor of fire kissed protein. The nice crispness of the skin or seared and charred exterior mirrored with flavorful juiciness throughout. I just so happened to have a few aged center cut 6 oz beef tenderloin that were begging for some attention. I took them out of the cryo-vac packaging, and let them rest for about 30 minutes before rubbing into them some fresh ground black pepper, coarse sea salt, crushed red pepper flakes and some Chipotle Tabasco sauce.

Beef tenderloin cut as steaks or, 'filet mignon,' on the grill.

Meanwhile, I fired up my trusty 4 year-old Commercial Series Char-Broil grill and, while it was coming up to temp, I cut up broccoli, squash, zucchini and onions and tossed them in canola oil and some mesquite season salt. I placed them on the grill in my grill pan and set about adjusting the heat for the steaks. After getting the grill as hot as I could (I generally cover the grates on this conventional gas grill with heavy-duty aluminum foil that is 3 layers thick – this holds the heat at the grates and ensures hot, searing temperatures for steaks. Man I want one of those infrared grills!) – I added the steaks and dressed them with a little Worcestershire sauce. I cooked the steaks for about 3-4 minutes and then turned them 45° to cross mark them before flipping. I also gave the veggies a toss and when they were just about finished, I drizzled on a little Extra Virgin Olive oil on them. I prefer Extra Virgin for the bold flavor it adds to grilled foods when they are finished and I try to find a good quality cold pressed olive oil, it’s pricey but I use it sparingly, to add to foods after I’ve grilled them.

Cut up veggies tossed in canola oil and seasonings grilling in a specialty pan.

After 8 minutes or so I flipped the steaks over and dressed that side with Worcestershire sauce as well and closed the lid to let the magic begin. I took the vegetables off the heat after 10 minutes and set them aside and turned off the burner underneath. After a few more minutes I took off the steaks and let them rest on a plate for about 2 minutes before serving.

The steaks were so tender you could cut them with a fork and the vegetables were an excellent compliment to the steak. I had two leftover steaks so for dinner the next night I cooked off some Mexican rice and prepared Beef Fajitas with the addition of freshly grilled peppers and onions and a touch of spice. Simply delicious! - Chef Scott

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Here are some steak recipes you may want to try out this weekend:

Rosemary Stuffed Tenderloin Filet with Pino Noir Reduction

Beef Tenderloin Steaks with Blue Cheese Topping

CB’s EZ Grilled NY Strip Steak

Japanese Beef Steak Salad with Sesame Dressing

Coffee Bean and Pepper Corn Steak Rub