First!  My apologize to the Bangles…it was just too easy!

Second!  It’s not Monday anymore but what the heck it’s still a good headline!

If you’ve been following the last saga of my trip to the Fancy Food Show you know that I’ve become the owner of a fair amount of Buffalo Style Hot Sauce from Tabasco.  So, it seemed only appropriate that I cook something with the hot sauce.  There will be more, at a later date, about the hot sauce itself, but in the mean time I adapted a recipe from one of my favorite new cookbooks The Meatball Shop Cookbook by Daniel Holzman and Michael Chernow.  I’ve adapted their Mini Buffalo Chicken Balls for the grill and turned this into a salad instead of an appetizer.

Grilled Buffalo Chicken Meatball Salad

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4  cup Tabasco Buffalo Style Hot Sauce
• 2 pound ground chicken, preferably thigh meat
• 2 large egg
• 1 celery stalk, minced
• 1 1/2 cups bread crumbs
• 2 teaspoons salt

Directions:

The recipe calls for ground chicken and more specifically thigh meat.  Because chicken white meat is so lean and you’re going to be cooking this twice I recommend you try to find ground thigh meat.  If you can’t get your butcher or meat cutter to grind up a package of thighs for you then just do it yourself.  You can use a meat grinder or if it’s all you got try your food processor.

Preheat your grill to 350 degrees using indirect heat.  Using the oil coat a large baking dish about 9 X 13 in size.

Combine all the remain ingredients in a large bowl.  Roll the mixture into large meatballs, make sure you pack the meatballs firmly.  Place the meatballs in the oil baking dish.  Line the meatballs up into neat rows and pack them tightly into the baking dish.

“Bake” on your grill for about 15 minutes or until they start to get firm and hold their shape.

Quickly get your grill set up for direct high heat.  Remove the meatballs  with a spatula and grill them until they start to get grill marks and reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees.  Don’t over cook!

Let the meatballs rest for five minutes and combine with whatever salad ingredients you like.  Since it’s a “Buffalo” salad it has to be served with bleu cheese dressing.

You can easily cook this on your smoker or oven.  The grilling at the end is to give it a little of that “grilled” flavor I like. It’s not a necessary step but a good one.  Also, by making the meatballs much smaller you can toss them in additional hot sauce and serve them with bleu cheese dipping sauce for a great Big Game appetizer.

The “baking” of the meatballs on the grill, using indirect heat, is because the meatballs are not firm enough to set on grill grates without falling apart.  By cooking them a little first you can then grill them without any problem.

Enjoy!

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A salad without lettuce?  Who would have thought this would be something that tasted awesome.   I saw this on the Fine Cooking website and figured it would be a novel idea to try and blog about.  Little did I know that it would, in fact, be a flavorful and extremely tasty appetizer.  You’ve just got to try this recipe.

Grilled Bread Salad With Basil and Cherry Tomatoes

A trip to the grill gives the makings of a classic Italian bread salad—a good crusty loaf of bread, ripe summer tomatoes, and basil—a little smokiness and crisp texture. Because this salad can sit out at room temperature for an hour or two, it’s the perfect side for a picnic or barbecue. If you can’t find bocconcini, substitute a large fresh mozzarella cut into 1-inch pieces.

Ingredients:

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

Watermelon Rind that tasted good!  Who would have thought that?  Certainly not me.  I was originally going to make a fresh peach chutney to go with this dish but it’s a little early to find peaches in the store.  This led to a little searching through cookbooks and the internet.  I came across a lot different chutney recipes and since I’d just finished cutting up a watermelon and had a bowl full of rinds I figured I’d give it a try.  And I’m so glad I did.

This recipe is a little different from the previous plank grilling recipes in this series.  Normally, you pre-heat the planks until they just start to smolder.  With this one you heat the plank until it actually starts to burn.  You want a nice dark char on the plank.

Once you’ve got the char, turn the heat down and put the brie on the plank.  Close the lid and cook the brie for about 20 minutes or until it gets nice and soft.

Once the brie is soft, plate it and top with the chutney.  Serve with grilled crostini.

What I found was that I didn’t really care for the brie by itself and the watermelon rind chutney was just okay.  But it made for a fantastic flavor when combined.  I really, really liked this appetizer and it will likely become a regular for our family get together. (Giant thank you to Chef Robin White for the inspiration and technique for this blog post)

Watermelon Rind Chutney

Ingredients:

• 6 cups 1/2″ diced watermelon rind
• 1½ cups cider vinegar
• 1½ cups water
• 2 cups sugar
• ¼ cup fresh ginger, peeled and minced
• 2  tbsps minced jalapeno, with or without seeds.
• 1½ tbsps minced garlic
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp crushed black peppercorns

Directions:

Remove the watermelon flesh from rind.  Make sure you remove all the pink flesh from rind.  With a sharp knife remove the green peel and discard.  Cut the rind into 1/2 inch cubes.

In a 4-quart saucepan, combine rind, cider vinegar, water, sugar, ginger, cayenne peppers, garlic, salt and black pepper. Bring to a boil, and stir until sugar dissolves. Simmer 45–55 minutes or until rind is tender and translucent and liquid is syrupy.

Cool chutney and chill in airtight container for 1–3 days to allow flavors to mellow.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

In Hawaii it seems Spam is so popular it’s known as “The Hawaiian Steak.”  One of the results of this love of Spam is a delicacy known as Spam Musubi.

Readers of this blog will know that I enjoy Asian flavor, they will also know that I Spam.  So a dish that incorporates Asian flavors and Spam would right up my alley.  There’s just something about the saltiness of the Spam combined with a nice teriyaki glaze/dipping sauce that when combined with the rice and nori makes for a dish that just tickles my taste buds.

I mean, really, what could possibly be better than Spam Sushi?  Especially if you’ve smoked the Spam and then grilled it to a nice carmelized piece of processed meat perfection.  I recently had the chance to make up some Spam Musubi for my daughter who was visiting.

The Spam slices went on the Traeger the night before, just because of time constraints the next day when we were making the Musubi.  Since I was planning to grill them the next day, and I didn’t want them to dry out on the grill, I smoked the slices at a low temp so all the fat wouldn’t render out.

The next day I fired up the RED gas grill with ManGrates and seared some nice grill marks in the Spam slices.  The grill marks were just an added little touch that doesn’t matter much since everything is covered in rice and nori anyway.  I lightly glazed the Spam slices with Aloha – Barbecue Sauce.  This gave the Spam some sweetness to match the saltiness.  It was a great combination.

Once the Spam grilled we assembled the tasty treats using a Spam Musubi Sushi Rice Press .  I know it’s cheating in some circles but hey I’m not a sushi chef and wanted the end result to be as good as it could be.  And they were.

If you’re going to try making Spam Musubi use a good quality sushi grade rice to make your sushi rice.  Here’s a simple sushi rice recipe, from Alton Brown, to follow the first time.  Then assemble you musubi.  Although most spam musubi is done with a thick portion of rice and covered with thin slices of spam and nori I prefer musubi done like the picture above.  A thinner layer of rice, a Spam slice, and then another thin layer of rice.  And then the whole thing is covered in nori.  (Use a couple grains of your sticky sushi rice to secure your nori.)

E `ai ka-ua

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(Click here to read the previous blog post)

The first thing I changed was the Apple Coulis.  It was really just far to sweet.  It would have been great spooned over vanilla ice cream but as a salad it just didn’t work.  I took the remainder of the Apple Coulis and reduced it on the stove by about half.  This gave me a much thicker sauce that I figured would cover the apples and greens better.  Once I got the thickness I wanted I started adding apple cider vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon at a time, until I got the bite I wanted.  I ended adding another 2 teaspoons of vinegar.  This gave me a nice sweet and sour flavor.

So the Apple Coulis recipe now looks like this:

Apple Coulis

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 3/4 cup apple sauce
• 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon Apple cider vinegar

Directions:

In a small saucepan combine sugar, water and corn syrup. Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Stir in the apple sauce and cook until reduced by 1/2. Stir frequently to avoid burning. Turn off head and stir in vinegar. Let cool completely before serving.

The second change I made was to switch up the cheese.  Although the grilling cheese was good it didn’t have a flavor that provided enough contrast to the sweetness in the apples.  This time I used a really nice Irish White Cheddar.  The Irish Cheddar is very sharp and paired very nicely with the apples and the coulis.

Plating was pretty much the same.  A little Apple Coulis on the bottom of the salad bowl, greens, apples and nuts.  This was a much better salad.  Where the first salad was good, the second time around the salad was good enough that I would actually make it again.

When you are dealing with thousands of of BBQ enthusiasts for some reason salad doesn’t appear near the top of the list of “must haves.”  So I figured a salad would be different enough to give me a slight edge in the voting.  Toss in some Yanni Grilling Cheese and I figured I had the potential for a great salad.

I stopped by the Roseville Farmer’s Market and three varieties of apples.  Fuji, Granny Smith and McIntosh.  Each variety of apple grills up slightly differently and I wanted the different textures of grilled apples to compliment the grilling cheese and spring mix salad I was planning to use.

The Yanni Grilling cheese was an interesting thing to try out.  My thought was the grill marks on the cheese and the grill marks on the apples would make for a very nice looking salad.

I was hoping for something along the lines of a sweet salad with a little savory bite towards the end.  I made up an apple coulis that I thought would work.

Apple Coulis

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 3/4 cup apple sauce
• 2 teaspoons Apple cider vinegar

Directions:

In a small saucepan combine sugar, water and corn syrup.  Bring to a boil and reduce heat.  Let simmer until liquid reduces slightly, about 4 or 5 minutes.  Stir in the apple sauce and cook an additional 2 to 3 minutes.  Stir constantly to avoid burning.  Turn off head and stir in vinegar.  Let cool completely before serving.

To make up the salad start by coring and slicing the apples in bite size pieces.  Spray the apple slices with non-stick spray and sprinkle both sides with sugar.  By spraying the apple slices instead of your grill grates you’ll have less sticking to the grates.  Also, by spraying non-stick cooking spray directly on the grill grates you create flares which can lead to a bitter taste.  The spray on the apples combined with the sugar will give you great grill marks on your apples.

Once the apples have grill marks on the first side turn them over and grill the second side.  Becareful to not over cook the apple slices, you want them to be warm but not cook the center of the apple slices.  Over cooking will give you soft mushy apples that won’t go well with the salad greens.  The texture just won’t be good.

Once the apples are cooked remove them from the grill and allow them to cool completely.  I cooled some of the slices to room temperature and cooled some in the refrigerator until they were cold.  I preferred the cold slices better in the salad.

At the same time grill the cheese.  You’ve got to make sure the cheese is grilled quickly because if you don’t it will get too soft to turn over.  I tried a couple different times to get it to work out “as advertised” but wasn’t able to get it to work out correctly.  Cool the cheese and slice it.

Put a small amout of the Apple Coulis on the bottom of your plate or salad bowl.  Place a small mound of greens on top of the apple coulis.  Layer the apples and cheese on top of the greens.  I also picked up some great “Sweet & Savory” nuts at the Farmer’s Market from the El Dorado Nuts and Fudge Company and I chopped a small handful of these nuts and sprinkled them over the top of the salad.  Dizzle a little more Apple Coulis over the top and you’ve got your salad.

I cranked up one of the Weber Smokey Mountain smokers with some avocado wood.  Avocado wood is a somewhat hard wood that goes great with chicken and pork.  It’s a mild wood that should be treated like you would a fruit wood.

The wings were seasoned with Simply Marvelous Season All and smoked at 225 degrees for about 2 hours.  Because it was a busy day I let the wings cool and put them into the refrigerator for eating at a later date.

After sitting in the refrigerator for a couple of days I took the wings out of the refrigerator and let them come up to room temperature.

After the wings warmed up a little I gave them a little milk dunk and a dust of flour.

After letting the flour set into the Masterbuilt Butterball Indoor Turkey Fryer they went for about 10 minutes.  They came out nice and crisp.

The wings got a coating of Sweet Baby Ray’s new “Original Dipping Sauce”  The sauce has a mild horseradish flavor and complimented the season all and avocado wood.

On my Facebook page I post a “Topic For Discussion” each morning.  A couple of weeks ago the topic was Egg Nog.  The topic turned into a discussion with Laura of Laura’s Best Recipes on how hard it would be to come up with a couple of recipes that used Egg Nog as an ingredient.  Laura has a recipe she’s working on, mine is Egg Nog Chipotle Battered Fried Shrimp with Jalapeno Cranberry Dipping Sauce.

Jalapeno Cranberry Dipping Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 can Cranberry Sauce
• 1 Jalapeno, seeded, deveined and finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons cilantro, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons orange juice

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together and refrigerate for several hours before using so flavors have a chance to mix.

Egg Nog Chipotle Battered Shrimp

Ingredients:

• 12 to 14 ounces Egg Nog
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1+ teaspoon chipotle powder

Directions:

Beat the egg and add to the flour.  Stir in enough Egg Nog to give you a consistency slightly thinner than pancake batter.  When you have the desired consistency add in baking powder and enough chipotle powder to give you the heat you want. The batter is going to pretty sweet and it won’t take much chipotle powder to change the flavor.  What you want is the batter to be sweet on the front of the tongue and give you just a little heat on the back of the tongue on the way down.

The Egg Nog makes a thick batter so don’t be afraid to add some regular milk if needed to give you a thin consistency.

Batter your shrimp and fry them until done.  Serve with the Jalapeno Cranberry Dipping Sauce.

Sizzle On The Grill

Who would have thought…

I can slave over a brisket or pulled pork and my friends will be thankful for a taste.  But if you ask many of them what one item they’d me want to make for them the answer is Pig Candy.  Who would have thought that combining bacon with brown sugar and a little chipotle powder would be such a hit.

Start with a good amount of brown sugar and chipotle powder to taste. Mix it up good, you don't want a clump of chipotle powder to hit your tongue.

I prefer good thick bacon. The thinner stuff works good to, but it cooks really fast so watch it.

Lay your bacon out on the grate

Put a good coating of the brown sugar/chipotle mixture. Cook at your desire temperature until it starts to get a little crisp. I use 245 degrees with apple wood.

When it starts to crisp up I like to turn it over and give it another dose of the sugar mixture.

Let it cool and enjoy!