There is a school of thought that soaking meat in a marinade doesn’t do all that much.  I pretty much subscribe to that thought process.  A lot of times when you buy a bottle of marinade it suggests a 30 minute marinade time.  That’s the case with the KC Masterpiece Buffalo marinade.  I went with a 2 hour soak time and don’t think it imparted a great deal of flavor in the meat.  Certainly not as much as you’d like in a “buffalo chicken” dish.  But, there was away around this little problem.  I not only did the marinate thing I used it as a glaze too.

I wasn’t in the mood for chicken wings so I decided a “chicken wing” inspired sandwich would be the way to go.  Check out the great dish I came up with.

When it comes to grilling chicken I am a big fan of thighs.  Okay, it doesn’t matter if it’s grilled, fried or roasted, my favorite piece of chicken is the thigh.  But I digress…

I took a couple of chicken thighs, removed the skin and trimmed as much fat off of them as I could.  The trimmed thighs were put in a bowl and covered with the KC Masterpiece Buffalo marinade.

The flavor of this “buffalo” sauce is very, very tasty.  Just the right amount of heat.  As you can see from the label KC Masterpiece thinks it’s HOT.  And right out of the bottle it does have a little kick.  This kick doesn’t transfer to the meat all that much after the cooking process.  But the marinade does have that stereotypical buffalo flavor.  And that’s good a thing.  There’s nothing worse than ordering anything “buffalo” and having it not taste of that wonderful red pepper/cayenne flavor.

 I grilled the chicken on the Weber kettle over medium high heat until it was done.  After removing the chicken from the grill I noticed the flavor just didn’t have the kick I would have expected.  It had a very nice grilled, buffalo chicken flavor but lacked the heat I wanted.  So I mixed a half cup of fresh marinade (don’t use the stuff you used on the chicken) and mixed it with a couple of tablespoons of honey.  I put the chicken back on the grilled and glazed it with the honey buffalo sauce.  Bingo…heat and sweet all in once.

When I think of buffalo chicken wings I also think of Bleu Cheese dressing.  A buffalo chicken sandwich wouldn’t be complete without something bleu cheese on it.  I decided a bleu cheese sauce would be proper.  So I quickly came up with something.  And truth be told I think the bleu cheese sauce came out amazing. 

Grail’s Quick & Easy Bleu Cheese Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 cup mayo
• 1 tablespoon Saco Cultured Buttermilk Blend
• Bleu Cheese crumbles
• Milk

Directions:

Mix mayo, buttermilk blend, bleu cheese and two tablespoons of milk until blended.  Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour.  Just before use thin with more milk until you have a sauce that’s easy to spread.

Get yourself some slaw and place it on your bread.  A layer of nice chopped up buffalo chicken thighs and top with some of the bleu cheese sauce.

This sandwich was fantastic!  I loved the flavor of the buffalo marinade along with the tang of the bleu cheese sauce.  It was so, so good.  You’ve just got to give this a try.

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Barbeque Insurance.  Now that’s just downright cleaver.  There’s no guarantees in BBQ life but it’s always good to have a little insurance.  And the two products from Easy Peasy Foods can give you a bit of insurance.  It’s not going to keep you from burning your food but it should give you a little peace of mind on the flavor side of things.

I’m going to admit right from the start that I’m not one of those haters of corn syrup.  In my book corn syrup is an important ingredient in a good commercial BBQ sauce.  Don’t know what it is, but I like it.  I try to limit the amount of corn syrup in other things I eat, but when it comes to BBQ sauce I just don’t mind it at all.  So when I received my free sample of BBQ sauce from Easy Peasy and noticed that it contains no corn syrup my expectations dropped.

Barbeque Insurance BBQ Sauce is a good sauce.  I liked it.  The flavor is a little different than normal.  Not to sweet and the flavors are somewhat neutral and complimented a couple different rubs I tried.  And it definitely matched up perfectly with their BBQ Insurance Chicken Marinade.

In addition to it’s slightly sweet taste it has just the right amount of finishing heat that I like.  My preference is a sauce that’s a little sweet on the front of the tongue with just a hint of heat on the back of the throat on the way down.  It’s almost perfect in that aspect.  And the fact they accomplished it with no corn syrup is pretty remarkable in my book.

You can see from the picture on the right that the sauce has a rich, thick consistency.  It adhered to the smoked chicken and gave it not only a good flavor but a very nice color.

Barbeque Insurance BBQ Sauce is a nice sauce.  It’s not perfect, but then again not very many sauces are.  It’s not available in stores outside of a few locations in Michigan so if you’re up to mail order you can order it here.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

In recognition of June 21, the official start of the 2011 grilling season, and America’s upcoming birthday (Start planning your July 4 theme barbecue party now!), we wanted to spotlight ginger’s natural talent as a meat tenderizer. By using ginger on protein you can produce better, more tender results.

The use of ginger as a meat tenderizer was first practiced in India thousands of years ago. Meat tenderizers are proteolytic enzymes or proteases; enzymes specialized in breaking the peptide bonds between amino acids found in complex proteins. Meat is held together by a complex protein called collagen, and aside from mechanical tenderization and cooking, enzymes are the only other available meat tenderizers. Meat tenderizers are extracted from a number of natural source, including citrus, tomato, papaya, pineapple, fig and ginger. These tenderizing ingredients are generally accompanied by a liquid mixture comprised of oil, vinegar and spices known as marinade (to soak) prior to cooking or grilling.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

Anyway, I’m still looking for some interesting ways to use my Bushelle Seasonings.  Because the seasonings are all natural with no preservatives you’ve got to use them up within a reasonable period of time.  This product is so awesome I don’t want to risk wasting any of it.  So, I had to come up with another way to use it.

I didn’t want to make another trip to the grocery store and since using up what’s in the refrigerator or pantry makes the food budget last a little longer I came up with a basic Lime/Bushelle Seasoning Marinade.  The flavor with the beef was fantastic.  The citrus enhanced the herbs and garlic in the Bushelle and after six hours in a vacuum sealed canister the meat was very tender.

I’ve been wanting to give the marinade in the vacuum sealer a try to some time and decided to it was finally time to go with it.

After mixing the marinade, I put it and the flank steak in the canister and using my FoodSaver I vacuum sealed it.  It was quite interesting watching all the marinade disappear from inside the canister.  I can only assume the pressure opened up the meat pores and absorbed the mixture.

Lime Bushelle Seasoning Marinade

• 1/3 cup Olive Oil
• Juice from 2 limes
• 1 Tablespoon Bushelle Garlic Seasoning
• 1 Tablespoon Brown Sugar

Mix all ingredients in a blender.  Place meat in a plastic bag or other container with the marinade.  Refrigerate at least two hours and no more than 8 hours.

Grill to your preferred temperature, rest and serve.

I also grilled up some small Russet potatoes with just a little Cajun spice and olive oil.  I love potatoes done on the grill.

Courtesy The LA Times

Here’s a nice article on marinades. A couple of them would translate very nicely to a grill. The flavor of a charcoal or wood fired grill would enhance these marinades, especially the “jerk” recipe. Give it a read.

Marinades Made Easy