This month’s “On Our Grills, 4 Ingredient Challenge” posed some real challenges.  Some people have gotten the impression these monthly culinary exercises is a contest amongst our little group of BBQ Bloggers.  But the challenge is more about challenging ourselves and not each other.  And this month was an amazing challenge.  The four ingredients we had to work with were: freshwater fish fillet, broccoli, apple and sourdough bread.

As usual I had to try something out of the box.  Way, way out of the box.  The normal process for the challenge, each month, is to search my library of cookbooks and the internet looking for ideas.  From that point I start to develop some ideas.  I didn’t want to just grill some fish fillets so it was essential to find something else to include the fish in.  First I found recipes for broccoli and apple quiche.  Then I found some recipes for a fish and broccoli “pie.”  The second recipe was basically a quiche and the basic quiche recipes were similar.  So why not combine the two.

No recipe this time.  Just a few photos and descriptions for the Fish & Broccoli/Apple Quiche.

(L) The freshest freshwater fresh fillet I could find was farm raised catfish.  One of the things I learned through this process was if you soaked the fish in milk for a few hours it would make the fish “less fishy.”  It seemed to work.

(R) After the milk soak I grilled the fish with a little seasoning until it was done.  I then let the fish cool and flaked it.  I used 2/3 cup of flaked fish.

The broccoli was steamed and rough chopped.  The apples sliced.  I used a couple eggs, milk and some goat cheese to make up the quiche in a beautiful homemade pastry crust.  (Thanks to the family baker…Mrs. Grail for helping me out on this part.)

Now how to bake the quiche outdoors.  I was, at first, a little baffled as to how to get this done, but after some thought I came up with what turned out to be a pretty darn good.  I used my Char-Broil Big Easy and my trusty dutch oven.  After pre-heating the dutch oven I placed the pie inside the dutch oven, raised off the bottom with another pie pan.  After closing the lid the pie baked to a golden brown.

They quiche cooked in about 25 minutes.  Normally I would have expected it to cook in about 15 minutes.  Because it’s difficult to tell what the temperature of this “oven” is I don’t know how close to 350 degrees it was.  I’m not sure viable this technique is for baking other items, but I’m going to give it a try on a fruit pie just so I can say I did it.

I figured the best way to use the sourdough bread was just as bread and butter.  Some sliced apples on the plate for a little color.

No recipe this time.  If you really want the measurements drop me an email and I’ll send them to you.

Additional participants in this month’s Ingredient Challenge include:

Paul Haight of No Excuses BBQ – ENTRY HERE

The No Excuses BBQ website was started in January of 2009 as a way to record the author’s goal of cooking outdoors at least once a week throughout the year and showing the results to the world. Somewhere along the way things got out of control…

Marc Van Der Wouw of Grill Adventures-ENTRY HERE

Grilladventures by broadcastmarc is started on march of 2010.I started the BBQ thing when I was 30,before that we eat a lot outside.have fun,but when the kids came in our life We start serious cooking.Most of it is realy healthy I think;-)The grill has a special place in my heart,We love to do things outside..Everything I make is an adventure,and sometimes we use the books.We try to grill as much as we can year round.

Bob Fukushima of Bob’s Brew & Que – ENTRY HERE

Bob started Bob’s Brew and ‘Que in August of 2009 with the intent of sharing his views on food and drink. Originally focused on BBQ and Homebrew, it was inevitable that the influences of his upbringing in the San Francisco Bay Area and it’s wealth of ingredients as well as his heritage as an American of Japanese ancestry would help focus his blog, as it has his approach to food and drink.

Hanneke Eerden of The Dutchess Cooks – ENTRY HERE

After years of cooking, grilling, baking and reading other people’s blogs, I thought “why not start my own blog??” And I did, in 2010, but already after a short period of time, a blog wasn’t enough, and I started my own website. It’s not my goal to publish or come up with fancy and difficult recipes:  just good and delicious food with an international twist! Straight from my plate to yours!

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

If you take a corned beef and smoke it you end up with pastrami.  Now I’m a huge pastrami fan and have done a couple different pastrami posts on the blog before.  This time around I wanted to do something that was a little closer to traditional.  Not all the way, but closer…

One of the only rules with our “challenges” is the protein has to be cooked outdoors using some type of live fire.  Because I wanted to braise the corned beef I figured a dutch oven would be the best way to go.  However, due to it raining at what seemed like biblical proportions I needed to use the “Big Easy/Dutch Oven” combination again.  It worked like a charm.

My 14 inch dutch oven fits perfectly in the top of my Char Broil Big Easy Infrared Smoker, Roaster, and Grill. (Left)  The corned beef in the dutch oven, seasoned with Todd’s  Crabby Dirt, as the braising liquid was added.  I used beef stock, nothing special, just pre-packaged beef stock. (Right)

I braised the corned beef about three hours until it was fork tender.  Because of time constraints I needed to do this cook over two days, so I removed the brisket from the braising liquid, let it cool and then wrapped and put in the refrigerator.

Cooling the corned beef brisket turned out to be the way to go.  Because the beef was so tender it would have been difficult to cut and then grill had I tried to do it while it was fresh from the braising liquid.  Instead I was able to cut it and slice off the fat layer that was still on it.  Worked great…

I grilled up the thick slices of corned beef, both to reheat and to give it just a touch of smoke flavor.  The potatoes were quartered and seasoned and grilled right along with the corned beef.

I plated the corned beef and potatoes and topped it all with a nice cabbage and apple slaw.  The slaw was easy to do.  Just take a quarter head of green cabbage.  Cut it into large chunks and cook in boiling water for four minutes.  Remove the blanched cabbage from the boiling water and immediately shock with ice cold water, to stop the cooking.  Drain and dry the cabbage.  Add a half a julienned Granny Smith Apple, the juice from one lemon and some crushed red pepper.  SERVE IMMEDIATELY.  If you let this slaw sit for to long the red pepper will combine with the lemon juice and apple and give you a slightly bitter taste.  If you serve it immediately you won’t have this problem.

Additional participants in this month’s Ingredient Challenge include:

Paul Haight of No Excuses BBQ – ENTRY HERE

The No Excuses BBQ website was started in January of 2009 as a way to record the author’s goal of cooking outdoors at least once a week throughout the year and showing the results to the world. Somewhere along the way things got out of control…

Bob Fukushima of Bob’s Brew & Que - ENTRY HERE

Bob started Bob’s Brew and ‘Que in August of 2009 with the intent of sharing his views on food and drink. Originally focused on BBQ and Homebrew, it was inevitable that the influences of his upbringing in the San Francisco Bay Area and it’s wealth of ingredients as well as his heritage as an American of Japanese ancestry would help focus his blog, as it has his approach to food and drink.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

(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.