And to prove it The BBQ Grail is hosting a contest for the best recipe that uses MOINK Balls as the main ingredient. Here’s how it is going to work:
RULES:
MOINK Balls must be made according to acceptable International MOINK Ball Appreciation Society guidelines. (See below for details on exactly what a MOINK Ball is and how it’s made.
MOINK Balls must be made and then included as the main ingredient in another dish. This mean you’re going to have to cook the MOINK Balls prior to including them as an ingredient.
Although the MOINK Balls MUST be cooked outdoors on a traditional grill or smoker the final dish does not have to be cooked outdoors.
Entries maybe submitted anytime between July 19th and September 1st, 2010. Entries must be received by September 1st, 2010
Contest judging will be conducted by readers of The BBQ Grail. Each entry will be posted on The BBQ Grail, on September 2nd, and voting will be conducted by using the “comment” section on each post. The entry with the most positive comments from unique visitors will be declared the winner on September 22th, 2010. Campaigning is acceptable and encouraged. Continue reading 2010 MOINK Ball Challenge
I originally wrote this article for Smoke Signals Magazine, an online publication of The BBQ Brethren, it is reprinted here with their permission.
Turning something many Americans would easily refer to as awful into meals that San Francisco tourists and residents alike flock to eat is what Chef Chris Cosentino is all about. Chef Cosentino has taken the art of cooking offal to a place most American chefs have shied away from.
According to Chef Cosentino’s website offal is described as “those parts of a meat animal which are used as food but which are not skeletal muscle. The term literally means “off fall”, or the pieces which fall from a carcass when it is butchered. Originally the word applied principally to the entrails. It now covers insides including the HEART, LIVER, and LUNGS (collectively known as the pluck), all abdominal organs and extremities: TAILS, FEET, and HEAD including BRAINS and TONGUE. In the USA the expressions “organ meats” or “variety meats” are used instead.” (www.offalgood.com)
Chef Cosentino’s interest stems from a desire to feature peasant cuisine of Italy, “so much of it is based on offal. When I slaughtered my first animal, I was amazed at how much meat was thrown away. From that moment on, I made it my mission to educate myself about how to cook and use every part of the animal. By doing this I am able to preserve and resurrect old techniques before they are gone.”
“These parts are only thrown away in the USA; every other country in the world eats them. Using every part is simply the right thing to do. When an animal gives its life for food, it’s important to do it justice by serving all of it. Moreover, each cut is beautiful in texture and flavor in its own special way, so why not enjoy all of them,” Chef Cosentino continues on why he gets a certain satisfaction out of making tasty eats from parts of animals most people would throw out.
My friends from Pork Barrel BBQ posted a little interview they did with me at Memphis In May. Here I am talking about the Char-Broil Smoker Roaster Grill.
Check out some of the true gentlemen of BBQ at Pork Barrel BBQ
Mrs Grail doesn’t always appreciate “smoke” as much as I do. So last night when it came time to prepare the chicken she requested she requested it be grilled. I didn’t want to just do the normal grilled chicken with just a seasoning one it so I decided to brine it.
We don’t shop on Sunday so I was limited to what I had in the pantry for the brine. Thankfully, we always have plenty of Kosher salt and brown sugar. But what was I going to add to the brine to give it a little POP? This is what I came up with:
Growing up I was never exposed to very many different fresh vegetables. Vegetables were something you “had” to have on the plate and for the most part not a great deal of thought went into them. Most of the time they were the frozen type that got nuked in the microwave just before we all sat down at the table.
Winter squash is a vegetable that has always sort of baffled me. I’d pick them up at the store and wonder just how in the world you could eat something as hard as these appeared to be. Last year I gave Acorn Squash a try for the first time and really enjoyed the flavors it gave me off the grill. So when Mrs. Grail sent me to the store with the instruction of “just get a vegetable” I decided to give Butternut Squash a try. The squash grilled up great and tasted fantastic.
When your smoker is outside, and you’re inside, having a wireless remote thermometer can be a fantastic convenience. Over the years I’ve used a variety of different makes and models. And quite frankly none of them ever performed very well. A week doesn’t go by that someone doesn’t ask about what wireless remote thermomete they should by. My answer is always the same, save your money they’re all garbage.
It didn’t matter how expensive or how cheap they were they just didn’t work right. Either they performed poorly from the very start or they didn’t work for very long. If it wasn’t lousey reception between the sending unit and the receiving unit it was probes that failed after only a couple of uses.
I had pretty much given up any hope of finding a wireless remote read thermometer that would function correctly for any length of time. That is until I got a chance to try out the Grill-Right Wireless Talking BBQ Thermometer from Red Envelope. There’s a chance this wireless thermometer may actually perform as advertised.
One of my favorite blogs belongs to John Dawson in Boise, Idaho. His website PatioDaddio BBQ has some of the best and most innovative recipes in the BBQ blog world. Not only is John a great cook but his kindness and generosity is the best. He is always willing to share all his recipes, techniques and know-how. He recently posted a recipe for zucchini fries. The recipe is 100% John’s except for a change in the seasoning. Here is my take on John’s recipe. (John’s original version can be found here.)
