Today’s entry in my Plank Grilling series is a nice little salmon dish with a refreshing and flavorful cucumber salsa.  It’s one of the easier dishes to prepare and can be done by almost anyone.  Prepare the salsa a few hours before you start cooking salmon so it has a chance to fuse all the flavors together.

For the salmon I used some nice “serving size” wood planks from Maine Grilling Woods.  I love the variety of different flavors I can get and they look good to when you plate them.

I soaked the wood planks for a couple of hours and then put them on the grill until they started to smolder.

Add the salmon and close the lid.  Give it about 20 minutes and check it out.  I love salmon and this is my favorite way to fix it.

Once the salmon is done, put it on a plate with a little of the cucumber salsa.  Serve immediately!

Cucumber Salsa

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, halved lengthwise again and thinly sliced crosswise
• 1/2 cup yellow cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 1/2 cup red cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 1/2 green bell pepper, seeded and cut into large dice
• 2 tablespoons chopped shallot or red onion
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro, plus sprigs for garnish
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• 1 teaspoons canola oil
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

In a bowl, combine the cucumber, tomatoes, bell pepper, shallot and chopped cilantro. Toss gently to mix. In a small bowl, whisk together the lime juice, canola oil, the honey, red pepper flakes and salt. Pour the lime juice mixture over the cucumber mixture and toss gently to mix and coat evenly. Set aside.

(Adapted from the Mayo Clinic recipe)

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

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.

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Continue reading ... BBQ Grail Salsa Beans

Ingredients

• 1 pound dried pinto beans
• 1 12 oz jar of salsa (brand and heat level of your choice)
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground pepper
• 1 tablespoon “Johnny’s Au Jus Sauce”
• 2 tablespoons bacon drippings
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1/2 pound smoked sausage, diced

Directions

Sort and rinse the beans thoroughly.  Place beans in a bowl.  Puree the salsa in a food processor or blender and add it to the beans.  Add water to the bowls so the beans are just covered.  Let the beans soak overnight.  For the first couple of hours watch the beans and add just enough water to the bowl to keep the beans covered with liquid.  The idea is to let the beans soak up as much of the salsa flavoring as possible.

The next morning put the beans in a dutch oven and add all the seasonings.  Saute the onions in the bacon drippings and add them to the bean mixture.  Toss in the sausage and cook the beans on low to medium heat until tender.

NOTE:  Depending on the exact heat and flavor you want you can use “hot” salsa or include your chile of choice, finely chopped.

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Barramundi have white, flaky flesh, though the larger freshwater ones commonly carry a lot of body fat. Saltwater barramundi, however, have a general reputation as good eating. –Courtesy of Wikipedia

I wanted something a little different than a normal tarter sauce for the fish so I made some Mango Salsa to top the fish.

Mango Salsa Recipe:

• 1 whole mango, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 red onion finely chopped (I think next time I’ll only use 1/4 onion)
• 1 small cucumber, peeled, seeded and chopped
• 1 jalapeno, seeded, finely chopped (want more heat, leave in the seeds and veins)
• 3 tbls Cilantro, finely chopped
• 3 tbls lime juice

After soaking a Sugar Maple Wood Plank for 45 minutes in water I dried it and oiled it up with olive oil. (Read about Maine Wood Planks here) And then laid the fish on top of the plank.

The barramundi was seasoned with Todd’s Cajun Dirt.  Cajun Dirt is a new addition to Todd’s other great products.

I should have used twice as much Dirt.  The flavor was fantastic but it got a little lost with the jalapeno in the salsa.

In order to keep the plank from burning I placed it on a foil wrapped cookie sheet.  The fish was cooked over medium hot coals for about 45 minutes.

Eventually I cut the barramundi filet into three pieces because we were getting a little impatient to eat.

Celeste has been baking some fantastic bread using the book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking.  This book has revolutionized baking bread for home use.  If you love baking bread, but have found it to be too much hard work give this technique a try.

No pictures of the final plate came out well enough to put on the blog.  The barramundi was fantastic, it has an interesting texture that’s very dense and fatty.  Give it a try yourself.