I love gadgets. ..
I love kitchen gadgets more than any other gadgets types. For years I’ve wanted a hamburger press. Don’t ask me why, I just want one. But for the life of me I can’t bring myself to spending $25 to $30 for a decent one. Maybe because I’m getting older and wiser I just can’t cost justify it.
But I want those perfectly formed hamburger patties when I grill burgers. Some people just make hand formed patties but most of the time they just seem to fall apart on the grill. So I use what I call the “plate burger press.”
Most salad plates have a ridged circle on the bottom that is roughly the same size as a quality hamburger bun.
Continue reading A Pressing Need For A Burger
Over the past year or so one of my favorite condiments has become Sweet Thai Chili Sauce. The combination of sweetness and mild heat compliments a variety of meats. Not only is it a great glaze for chicken and ribs but is fantastic as a dipping sauce for pulled pork spring rolls and other simple BBQ food items.
As I wondered through the Fancy Food Store I was immediately stopped in my tracks at the Ginger People booth. They had a fountain of sweet chili sauce flowing. They had taken one of those ever popular wedding reception appliances and filled it full of sweet chili sauce instead of chocolate. Anyone with that much love of their product deserved my attention.
A cube of chicken on a toothpick dipped into the fountain immediately told my tongue that this was not just any normal sweet chili sauce. The Ginger People are serious about their ginger and it shows in the Sweet Ginger Chili Sauce. It’s loaded with ginger. You can see the floating in this stuff. And you know what it tastes fantastic. I’ve never been a huge fan of ginger. Not because I don’t like ginger, but because other than putting ground ginger in teriyaki sauce or eating a few thin slices when I eat sushi I had not used it all that much.
(See the end of this post for some details on the history of ginger.)
Continue reading Sweet Ginger Chili Sauce Glazed Grilled Salmon
Last month I had the chance to attend the “Fancy Foods Show” in San Francisco where I got to meet Gordon Bruner and the gang from Papaw Tom’s Foods. They made the trip out from Knoxville, Tennessee to display their wares.
Yesterday a package of goodies arrived from them for me to test and review. One of the items in the box was a “Get Your Butt In Shape” seasoning and sauce kit. The box includes everything you need to crank out a first rate smoked pork butt.
This kit was one of the best products I saw at the show. It contains a jar of rub, a bottle of
sauce and an injector for injecting your butt before you put it on the smoker. For those who don’t know how to cook a smoked pork butt this kit will give you a great basis for a start into the work pulled pork.
I’ll be testing and reviewing a variety of rubs and sauces from Papaw Tom’s over the next month or so. But in the mean time I thought it might be a great idea to have a little contest. Would you like a chance to win the “Get Your Butt In Shape” kit?
Here’s how it’s going to work. Leave a comment here, leave a comment on Facebook and you’ll get an entry in the drawing. You can also get an entry by becoming a Twitter follower and for each Re-Tweet of one of my Tweets about this blog post. On February 15th I’ll draw a name and they’ll get the kit.
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On July 4th, 2009 I had the opportunity to meet Bob and Kerrie Tucker at the “Way Out West BBQ Championship” in Stockton, California. They were cooking with The Smokin’ Yankees Competition BBQ Team and were debuting their new MAK Grill 2 Star General pellet fired grill/smoker. It didn’t take but a couple seconds of seeing this grill in action to know that I wanted to test it out for a review. The grill was a prototype and wasn’t quite ready for release so I had to wait almost seven months before I got my hands on it.
On their website Bob and Kerrie tell their story. “We love to grill and have a passion for barbequing. We’d been using a propane gas grill for years and didn’t like way it dried out our food,and charcoal grilling was inconsistent. The meat was often still raw in the middle and that didn’t go down so well with our guests! We dreamt of cooking with wood like hickory – but couldn’t find a grill that was convenient to use. We also wanted to have better control of the cooking environment to get perfect results every time.”
Continue reading Product Review: MAK Grill
There are new things in the food world that tweak me as much as someone throwing meat and BBQ sauce in a crockpot or the oven and calling it BBQ. Robert King a Southern California BBQ Caterer and blogger post this today on his blog. It pretty much sums up the thoughts of most serious BBQ enthusiasts. — BBQ Grail
Robert King’s BBQ Manifesto!
