If you like spicy and you like fried chicken, then Nashville Hot Chicken should be right up your alley. Despite its popularity in the Music City, there is much left to the imagination when it comes to creating it yourself. There doesn’t seem to be a hot chicken joint in town that’s willing to part with its recipes or signature techniques. Lucky for you guys, we’re not in the habit of keeping secrets. After some research and tweaking, we’ve come up with a recipe and technique adapted to the grill that, at the very least, is likely going to make you sweat.
Sous vide has taken a jump in popularity lately with the introduction of more and more affordable sous vide units on the market. This has brought the cost of home sous vide down and has introduced the technique to those who had never heard of it mere months ago. Chef Tom takes an amazing Creekstone Farms Master Chef Choice Cowboy Ribeye and sous vides it in the VacMaster SV1 at 49°C and cooks it for an hour and a half. After that he quickly sears it off for flavor on our Yoder Smokers YS640 Pellet Cooker setup for direct grilling.
Here at All Things BBQ, we’re constantly interacting with folks who are passionate about grilling, smoking and cooking in general, and folks who are hungry for knowledge and looking to improve their craft. If you’re reading this, there is a good chance that you are one of these folks. You’re awesome. One of the questions we get a lot is, “What is the best way to cook a whole bird?” Whether it’s chicken or turkey our answer is always the same. Spatchcock. If you’re tired of drying out the breasts while waiting for the thighs and legs to finish cooking, it’s time to employ the spatchcock technique.
Chef Tom walks us through the process of direct grilling a Creekstone Farms Master Chef Choice Cowboy Ribeye Steak on our Large Big Green Egg; similar to the Kamado Joe Big Joe or Kamado Joe Classic.
We use chile peppers year round. Anaheims, Poblanos and Jalapeños are staples in the test kitchen here at All Things BBQ. But this is a special time of year. Hatch chiles and Pueblos offer wonderful flavor and varying levels of heat, and they’re currently flowing out of the Southwest. Their harvest season doesn’t last all year, due to their specific geographic location, so it’s a good idea to process and preserve the chiles in some way so that you can enjoy them for months to come.
Football season has arrived. Whether you are a rabid fan or just a casual observer, everyone can agree that football season is tailgating season. Here are a few tips to make this tailgating season your best yet, and keep you safe in the process.
Though the sous-vide technique was first developed over 40 years ago, it has only recently made its mainstream debut. Chefs in quality restaurants have long used this technique, and now sous-vide machines are becoming much more available to the general public. The idea is simple, really. Food is vacuum sealed in a bag and submerged in circulating water in which the temperature is precisely controlled.
Very simply, the term roulade refers to rolling meat. This simple idea is a fantastic technique that can be translated to a variety of meats. In fact, we’ve visited this idea a few times in the past. The Southwestern Stuffed Pork Loin, Chicken Spedini, and Turkey Roulade are great examples. When it comes to beef roulades, flank steak is usually top dog. We, however, are kind of crazy about tri-tip right now, even if it will require a little extra effort in this application. This recipe will take a whole tri-tip roast, sliced horizontally and meat glued together to give us something similar to the shape of a flank steak.
Your gas grill is probably more versatile than you think. Most of us frequent grillers have pondered and tested the possibilities, but if you’re looking for a place to start, then try these delicious home-made cheesy breadsticks.
Backyard cooks, competition pit masters and BBQ enthusiasts often have an opinion on which method is better, and we frequently find that it’s fairly evenly divided. Both methods have their advantages, and both should be celebrated. Today we’ll cover the simple process of dry smoking ribs, so you can discover for yourself your opinion and perhaps your preference.
Traditional ceviche consists of raw seafood that is cured, or chemically cooked, in an acid. Of course, we like to put smoke on whatever we can get our hands on, so we’re giving our shrimp a smoke bath before it hits the citrus juices. In this recipe, when the shrimp comes off the smoker they will be fully cooked before being marinated in the acid, so the soaking time won’t be as long as if we were starting with raw shrimp. You could do the same with a cold smoke and longer marination. This method will also ease the minds of your friends who are wary of seafood that’s not cooked over a flame. You can think of ceviche as a seafood salsa, if you like. The ingredient possibilities are endless, so do some experimenting with different seafood, veggies and fruits.
Try one of the classic French sauces on a KC Strip. Béarnaise Sauce is a smooth and flavorful sauce that goes great with lots of dishes, but really shines with red meats.
This healthy recipe combines flavorful grilled spaghetti squash with chicken and gives you a nice pesto twist. Substitute spinach for basil and take the flavor to a new level.
Macaroni and cheese. Hot cheese dips and sauces. Creamy baked vegetable or seafood dishes. Pasta with white sauce. These are a few of the places béchamel sauces can take you. Béchamel is one of five mother sauces from which many other hot (or cooked) sauces are built. It’s ideal for improving pasta, vegetables and fish. We’ll lay out the basic recipe for making béchamel and where to go from there.
By
Tom Jackson
