Sunday, January 8, 2006

Winter, almost 50 F, break out the charcoal!




Winter? almost 50F breakout the Charcoal!


 



Welcome, I know a lot of you wonder what do Chefs eat when at home. The
real answer is we don't. But we do sometimes.



Since we are having a mild winter here on the western slope of Colorado
I thought I would breakout the Charcoal grill. Not the char gas grill
but the real deal. I use Charcoal a lot even when I am using our giant
gas grill I keep a hibachi around and touch it off for the EFFECT. The
effect I am talking about is the universal signal sent out when the
smell of charcoal lighter is touched off. This smell wafts around the
neighborhood and tells everyone, "something special" going on over
there. Interestingly enough when I am teaching my class on environmental
conditioning to the Colorado Culinary Academy students they all have
trouble understanding what I am talking about until we light off the
charcoal outside. When I take them out that all say Grill. And that is
the subliminal message we want to plant. Then we talk about the H2
reaction and its role in both appetite and satisfaction of the meal. Then
we go on to lighting and sound, but you get the idea, it will be the
culinary science of the next decade.



So to make a long story longer. The temperature was correct for a little
grill meal. And yes we have pictures as I know from the e-mails you want
them.



First I had to dig around in the freezer. I found a smaller rack of lamb
from a damaged lamb I purchased from my normal lamb rancher. This lamb
broke a foreleg and Chance called over to see if I would please buy it
from him. He is a 4-H boy that has been supplying me lamb since he was
about 12 years old. He is 19 now so he is no longer a boy, but to me he
always will be the kid with the lambs. I get quite a few from him every
year.



The rack is an interesting cut:







And the hide side looks like this:








Little small for Colorado lamb but when they break a foreleg you take
them at the size they are and end the suffering.



Next we need to set it up for the marinade. Over to my wife's kitchen
greenhouse window and pull down the Rosemary plant, it is about to get a
haircut!








You can see the Ziploc bag in the background of the plant. I love
Ziplocs for marinating. You can smash the air out for better contact
time with the meat, you can flip them over by reaching in and flipping
the bag with no mess.








Have to pick a wine for marinating. Lately I am really likely the
Rosemount Shiraz. This wine is very nice and at about $8 per bottle by
the case extremely price friendly.



I add a little thyme, rosemary, wine and salt and pepper. Tad of onion
and very little garlic. I also add some blackberries down in the
marinade. I have it marinate for about 4 hours.



Now we must talk about the sides. Because even when we cook at home we
worry about the sides and the dish balance. It is a curse, but a good
curse. So for sides I found a nice organic (I don't require organic, but
organic growers make neat stuff this time of the year) butternut squash.
I decided to a roasted diced butter nut would be great along with some
oven browned potatoes.







Then added a honey brown sugar glaze to it. This was Mise only at this
point. As I like to relax on the weekend when I am not cooking I have
learned to use the microwave oven as a tool to speed up everything. So
this went into the microwave for 7 minutes on high and lidded. That will
steam it to al dente and be ready for a quick 30 minute final roasting.








For the starch I wanted to do oven roasted potatoes. This allowed me to
test a new potato offering I have been thinking about adding to the
catering business for a while.



First I sweated the onions and peppers:







Then add in the potatoes and roast to a finished product:







Along with a package of dry Good Seasonings Zesty Italian dressing. Now
what it does not show is a trick that allows the potato to keeps its
good looks. I lid this pan for the first 40 minutes and only finish it
for the last 30 minutes uncovered to brown the potatoes. This in essence
steams the potatoes with the onion pepper sweat and infuses the dressing
mix into the potato. And as the last thirty minutes is also the finish
time for the butternut they are in finishing together.





Meanwhile out back of the ranch we have to get the mis for the meat
cooking operations. Now this actually happened after the prep of the
butternut and potatoes but before the sweat and microwaving started.
Charcoal needs time to come up to temp.








These four items allow you to drive the neighbors nuts. I can not count
the times I fired this off and after about one hour you can see the
other ranchettes firing up the same! Like a lemming thing.








Once started you can get back to the prep.



After the ovens are full and the mis finished you can finally start on
the meat. About 20 minutes out you can start grilling. My son does not
eat lamb so I pulled out one of our boneless chops from the pigs we
butcher every year.








Lamb fat does darken heavily. Don't worry about it, just keep cooking to
hit 128 degrees. You can scrap the dark off and finish lightly just
before pulling. Now make sure it is the fat getting dark not the meat!








And when it hits temp pull and rest it for 10 minutes inside. This all
combines to create a little quick meal that plates out at home like
this.







Came out very nice. I was happy with everything but the Black Raspberry
Crème Brule I made for dessert. I was trying something different and it
went wrong. It tasted great but was not what I was looking for so it is
not pictured here. When I get it fixed up I will do a blog on it. But
for now it remains a recipe in progress.



That is all for now, hope you find a way to pull together a little time
on the Bar B Q it is really a great way to cook and eat! And don't
forget wine, like salt and pepper, belongs on the table for every meal!





Chef Bob Ballantyne

The Cowboy and The Rose Catering

Grand Junction, Colorado, USA

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