On The BBQ Brethren Forum each week we have a Throwdown.  Each member who wants to participates uses the “theme” for that week to cook something.  Their entry is then posted and the membership votes.  It seems each week the Throwdowns are getting more and more outrageous.  This weeks theme is bacon and some of the entries are just plain crazy.  Great stuff, but crazy.  I decided the best course of action was to take it “down” a notice with a simple Bacon, Avocado, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich.  Nothing spectacular, just simple comfort food.

I stopped at The Fatted Calf yesterday on my way through Napa to pick up a little bacon.  The Fatted Calf produces some of the most amazing cured meat products in Northern California.  Their slab bacon is simply…amazing.

I sliced off a little bacon to just cover the bread.

I used the Char-Broil RED to cook the bacon.

When it was all done I added some mashed up avocado, some heirloom tomatoes and lettuce.  A little slather of mayo made this a nice little sandwich for my entry in the Bacon Throwdown.  I’m not sure if my sensible little B.A.L.T. will be good enough to win, but it sure didn’t taste good.  (No I didn’t eat the whole thing…in one sitting.)

© 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

© 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

My good buddy, Chef Barry “CB” Martin cooked up a batch of MOINK Balls for an event in Ballard, Washington.  Thanks for the MOINK Ball love Barry!

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Each month three or four of my favorite internet BBQ friends will use the same four or five ingredients to cook a meal.  The only real rule is that the “protein” must be cooked outdoors.  It should be interesting to see what each of these experienced outdoor chefs have up their sleeves each month.  At the end of this post you will find a brief description of their blogs and links to the great creations they’ve come up with.

This month’s challenge was to come up with a meal that contained the following ingredients:

• Fish
• Couscous
• Figs
• Eggplant

When the first ingredients were announced I knew I wanted to do a whole fish.  The main reason was that I have very little experience with grilling whole fish and I knew this would be a good time to give it a try.

One of my favorite markets to shop at when I want the nicest produce and fish is our local Nugget Market.  I know that I can always find something different to cook there.  When I walked into the meat department my eyes were drawn quickly to the bright colors of the (farmed) Golden Trout.

California Golden Trout: Once called the Volcano Creek Golden Trout, this species was designated as the State Fish by the California Legislature in 1947. Their range encompasses approximately 120 miles of stream habitat found mostly within the Golden Trout Wilderness high in the Sierras. The California golden trout is a State Species of Special Concern (Source: Fish Species of Special Concern in California, CA DFG, Second Edition, June 1995.) and a Forest Service classified Sensitive Species. The golden is the most likely California-native species to be federally listed as endangered, due to habitat degradation, primarily by livestock, and planting of non-native trout species. (Courtesy California Trout, Inc.  www.caltrout.org)

Coming up with how to  use Couscous wasn’t all that hard.  I bought a bag of Israeli Couscous and just followed the directions on the package for pilaf type version of Couscous.  I’m not sure if there is any difference between couscous and Israeli Couscous other than the size.  So since I was going to photograph the final plate I chose the much bigger Israeli Couscous.

Very few people in my family like eggplant.  We don’t like the flavor and we don’t like the texture.  So coming up with a way to improve flavor and texture was the biggest goal.  I read a lot about eggplant on the internet and it seems my family is not alone in disliking eggplant.  The first technique I learned was that you could eliminate the bitter taste eggplant sometimes has AND firm it up by slicing and salting it 15 minutes or so before cooking.  (Explanation of how to do this is in the recipe below)

Next up, what to do with figs.  I’ve never eaten a fig, that I know of, other than in a Fig Newton so I had no idea of what do with it.  After considerable reading and searching my cookbooks I decided a Fig Butter would be the best way to go.

Here’s the steps to Maple Planked Grilled Golden Trout:
- Soak your wood plank.  (I use wood planks from Rocky Trail)  Most directions for wood planks state you should soak your planks for 30 minutes.  I have found much better luck soaking them for an extended period of time, no less than 2 hours.

- Pre-heat your wood, charcoal or gas grill to hot.  Although I have all three I think it’s much easier to properly plank cook food on a gas grill than wood or charcoal.  Controlling the heat is key to success and it’s just easier on a gas grill.

- Wash, dry and season your fish with your favorite fish seasoning.  I used just kosher salt.  I wanted to be able to taste all the additional flavors from the lemon and figs.

Mrs. Grail also made some great bread.

- Place wood plank in the middle of your grill.  Once the wood starts to smoke you are ready to put your fish on.

- Place a layer of lemon slices on the wood plank.  To really add flavor to your fish you can also layer some herbs on top of the lemon slices.  Place the fish on top of the lemon slices.  Layer another row of lemon slices on top of the fish.

- Reduce heat to medium and close the lid to your grill.  Don’t open the lid again (if your looking, you ain’t cooking) for about 15 minutes.  Check temperature of your fish.  The recommended internal temperature for properly cooked trout is 145 degrees.  However, I prefer to take my fish off the grill about 10 degrees cooler than that.  Just like every other meat if you cook it to the “recommended” internal temp it’s likely over cooked.

- Let the fish rest for at least five minutes while you plate the couscous.  Lay the whole fish on top of the couscous, spoon the fig butter over the fish and serve immediately.

Recipes:

Fig Compound Butter

• 3 tablespoons fig preserves
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1 pinch cinnamon
• 1/2 inch piece fresh ginger, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt (kosher or sea)
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

Melt butter in a small skillet.  Add cinnamon, ginger root, salt and zest.  Saute over low heat, just until the ginger is tender.  Add the fig preserves and heat through.  The fig preserves will tak a little coaxing to melt.  Use a whip or hand mixer to completed incorporate all the ingredients.

Grilled Honey Garlic Eggplant

Ingredients:

• 2 baby eggplants
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, mashed
• 1/4 teaspoon Sriracha sauce
• 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

Pre-heat your grill to high.

With a potato peel remove strips of skin off the eggplant. Slice the eggplant, long ways, into 1/2 inch slices. Arrange the eggplant slices on sheets of paper towels.

Season the the eggplant slices with a generous about of salt on both sides. This will cause the eggplant to release most of the liquid they contain, removing the bitterness of the eggplant while causing it to be less watery during grilling. Let the salted eggplant set for about 15 minutes, then pat dry with additional paper towels.

In a bowl mix honey, olive oil, garlic Sriracha, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Dip both sides of each eggplant slice into mixture. Oil grilled. Place eggplant slices on the grill, cover. Grill for about 3 minutes, rotate 90 degrees and grill for an additional 3 minutes. Brush remaining sauce on the slices, flip and repeat process. Adjust heat through the grilling to insure eggplant is not burning.

Serve immediately.

Two more great fish, fig, eggplant and couscous meals:

The No Excuses Website’s entry.   The No Excuses BBQ website was started in January of 2009 as a way to record the author’s goal of barbecuing at least once a week throughout the year and showing the results to the world.  Somewhere along the way things got out of control, and two years later the streak is intact and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.  In the process, No Excuses BBQ has become fairly popular and is listed as one of the top BBQ blogs on Alltop.com.  You can read about Paul’s fish meal

The Into The Flames entry:  Rob launched Into The Flames in the summer of 2010 as a way to share his passion for cooking, eating, and exploring food.

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The last date for submissions for the 2010 MOINK Ball Challenge has been extend until September 8th.  This extended time will allow for those who wish to participate to utilize the Labor Day Weekend for cooking.

You can find the rules and other requirements for this exciting challenge here.

© 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

Enough said…

© 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

Ingredients:

• 1  15 oz can low sodium vegetable broth
• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• 2 Green Onions
• 4 Matchstick size pieces of fresh Ginger
• 1 Clove Garlic, smashed and peeled
• 1 tablespoon Fish Sauce
• 1 tablespoon Lemon or Lime juice

Directions:

Cut white off the green onions making 2 1 1/2 inch pieces.  Cut the onion whites in half long ways.

Heat oil and saute onions, ginger and garlic until the onions just start to soften.  Add broth and fish sauce and bring to a boil.  Boil for 2 minutes.  Turn off heat and add lemon/lime juice.  Spoon over cooked Udon noodles.

© 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

© 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

I like to trim my spare ribs down to what is called a St. Louis Style Rib.  By cutting pork spare ribs down to St. Louis style you get a more uniform rack of ribs.  St. Louis style ribs make cooking and serving them much easier.  More St. Louis style ribs fit on the smoker and they are easier to tell when done.

St. Louis style ribs are prepared by removing the cartilage from the “top” of each rib rack.  If you go to a BBQ restaurant and order “rib tips” this is where they’ve come from.  Some meat processors sell these “rib tips” by the case.  It can be an economical way to serve ribs to large groups.

When you trim lots of racks of ribs you end up with quite a few freezer bags full of trimmings.  One of the most common questions asked on BBQ forums is “what do you do with your rib trimmings?  There’s a lot of different techniques/recipes for rib trimmings.  Here’s one of the ways we utilize rib trimmings at are house. (Click each picture to enlarge.)

Place all your rib trimmings in the crockpot.

Add a can of green enchilada sauce and cook until tender

Shred the pork. Make sure you discard all fat and cartilage

After straining the liquid and removing the fat reduce on the stove.

Reduce the liquid from the crockpot down to a thick "syrup" consistency.

Add the reduced liquid back to the shredded pork and mix well.

Take your uncooked tortillas and poke holes all over them.

Place your tortilla over a small bowl and bake at 400 degrees until brown

Now you've got a bowl. Fill it with the pork and all the fixings.

**I use Tortilla Land uncooked tortillas.  These tortillas can be purchased at Costco and provide a great fresh tortilla that compliments your food.

***The rib tips were in the crock pot on low for about 8 hours.  Make sure you get all the fat drained out of the meat.  One great way of removing the fat is to cook the meat the day before and put the liquid in the refrigerator, after it cools.  The fat will congeal on top and you can easily remove it.

© 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

A week or so ago I publicized a smoker giveaway over at Nibble Me This.  If you didn’t win Chris’ contest you have a second chance to win a 30 inch electric smoker from Masterbuilt.

Here’s how to enter:

Stop by the Masterbuilt Recipe site and pick out your favorite recipe.

Once you’ve picked out your recipe come back to this post and leave a comment on which is your favorite recipe and why you’d like to win the smoker. (Comments are held in moderation for appropriateness before release)

You may enter one per day until September 15th.  The winner will announced on September 16th.

Here’s a little information from Masterbuilt on this great little unit:

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