So, How’d The Turkey Turn Out?

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So, How'd The Turkey Turn Out?

My apologies for not posting this earlier. I’m sure that you’ve been waiting impatiently to hear how our Thanksgiving Turkey turned out on the rotisserie.

I did make some adjustments from the trial run, using a fresh turkey, taking care to properly dry brine and stuff the bird, using hickory wood for smoke, and icing the breast prior to cooking to help keep it rarer. After the charcoal was nearly gone under the rotisserie, I moved the turkey to the gas grill to finish cooking so that I could use a probe thermometer to monitor doneness more easily.

In short, it turned out really well. Here are just a couple of observations.

1) I’m not sure that I’d spend the money on a fresh bird again. This one turned out better than the trial run bird, but I’m not sure that it can be attributed to a fresh bird. I expected it to be “out of this world” better than any turkey I’d ever tasted, and it just wasn’t. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing notable in texture or taste that is distinctive to it not having been frozen. If a frozen bird is good enough for Alton Brown, I’ll save myself $60 next year.

2) My wife thought this was the best turkey she’d ever tasted. My father-in-law thought that the dark meat was a little dry. I thought that the doneness and texture was perfect, but it was missing a savoriness for me. This may be because I’m used to turkeys that come “pre-basted.” We’ll see if next time the combination of pre-basting for flavor and my own dry brining for additional flavor and texture will strike the right balance. The worst thing you can say about a Butterball or other pre-basted bird is that you’re essentially paying for brine. As cheap as supermaket birds are, I won’t object to that.

Part of the issue may be that I’m comparing the rotisserie turkey to rotisserie chicken, which always seems to turn out mouth-watering delicious. I want the turkey to be like that. Guess we’ll just have to keep working at it.

Or maybe I should cook chickens for Thanksgiving next year.

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Boston Butt on the Rotisserie

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Pork RoastMy wife brought home a six pound pork roast on Saturday, and we hadn’t planned Sunday Dinner yet, so I decided to roast it on the rotisserie. I adapted the recipe from the Weber iPad App for Rotisserie Pork Roast with Bourbon Mop. As it turns out, I ended up using some leftover apple juice and vinegar for the mopping, but I did use something akin to the rub from the recipe, and it made a beautiful crust.

  • 2 t Black Pepper
  • 2 t Mustard
  • 2 T Turbinado Sugar
  • 1 t Onion Powder
  • 1 t Garlic Powder
  • 1 t Paprika
  • 1 T Kosher Salt

I trussed the roast and then spread the rub on generously, covered with plastic and put it in the fridge overnight. Here’s a shot of the roast, trussed and rubbed.

boston-butt-rubbed

Sunday around Noon, I lit an entire chimney of Kingsford and divided it into two piles on either side of the charcoal grate with an aluminum drip pan in between them. The water from soaking apple chips went in to the pan, along with some apple juice and a bottle of Schlitz. After the grill preheated, I added the chips to the coals, placed the rotisserie spit with the roast in place and started the motor.

After the first hour, I started basting the roast with my apple juice and vinegar solution, giving it a good dousing every twenty minutes or so.

After about two and a half hours, the internal temperature of the meat was around 140 F, and my charcoal was nearly gone, so I moved the roast over to a pan in the middle of the gas grill, with side burners on medium and the center burner off. I kept the temperature of the grill around 370, and once the meat was up to 180 (measured by a dual probe thermometer) I took it off to rest under a foil tent until it was time to serve.

My wife had prepared some red potatoes and some Brussels sprouts for roasting, so once the meat was off I turned up the grill a bit and roasted them with a little olive oil, salt and cracked pepper. A nice fresh salad with Wulff family vinaigrette was the finishing touch to a wonderful meal.

roasted-brussels-sprouts garden-salad-wulff-dressing

It was nice to have my sons joining us for the weekend, and for the meal. I’m hoping that one day if they decide to try their hand at outdoor cooking, I’ll be able to pass along some recipes and techniques. If nothing else, the memories of their dad standing out by a Weber Kettle ought to be fairly vivid.

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Chorizo and Pork Burgers

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Chorizo Pork Burgers

Here’s another recipe from Chef Purviance that I’ve grilled twice in the past few months, most recently for Sunday Dinner. I don’t make the Jalepeno slaw, but the Chorizo/Pork burgers are a delightful departure from typical burger fare. I also make some of the patties without Chorizo for my daughter and others who don’t like as much spice.

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Grilled Peaches with Mascarpone

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Grilled Peaches with Mascarpone

This has been one of our favorite desserts all Summer. I simply sprayed the peaches with a little canola, grilled them for a couple minutes flesh side down, rotated them to get nice grill marks, and then flipped them over and added the Mascarpone and a dusting of cinnamon/sugar. We made these many, many times starting when the early peaches came in.

P.S. – A little drizzle of honey on top doesn’t hurt either.

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Smoked Beef Brisket

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Smoked Beef Brisket

There are several cuts of meat that are almost synonymous with “barbecue” depending on region. In Texas, they’re known for brisket. Considered by some to be “The Mount Everest of Barbecue,” this was the last of the large cuts that I was determined to cook this Summer. As it turned out, we sat down to Sunday Dinner just as Autumn rolled in for 2013.

I prepared the 7.5 pound flat-cut brisket on Saturday evening, salting it, slathering yellow mustard and Worcestershire Sauce on it and then applying a homemade rub of 2 t paprika, 1 t black pepper, 1 T turbinado sugar, 1 t cumin, 1 t garlic powder, 1 t onion powder, 1 t nutmeg and 1t Herbs de Provence. Come Sunday morning I removed it from the refrigerator and set up the Weber Kettle, putting a foil drip pan full of water on one side of the charcoal rack and spreading a chimney full of unlit charcoal on the other side. I then lit about a third of a chimney of additional coals, and poured them on top of the unlit ones, adding some Hickory and Cherry chunks for smoke.

Once the grill was up to temperature, I put the brisket on over the drip pan, fat side up. Using a dual probe thermometer I received for my birthday, I did my best to keep the temperature in the grill to around 250 F, adjusting the vents as needed during four hours of cooking. Every hour or so, I sprayed the brisket with equal parts brewed coffee, dark beer, apple juice and cider vinegar. I also rotated and turned the meat to ensure even cooking. After four hours the meat was measuring 160 degrees, so I pulled it off, wrapped it in foil and put it in the gas grill on indirect heat (again, at 250) to finish. After another hour-and-a-half, the meat had risen to 195 degrees and was ready to come off. We let it rest inside the foil for another hour prior to serving.

It turned out moist and flavorful, though at this point I made a rookie mistake, cutting it with the grain to serve it. My wife noticed this later as she removed the fat cap to store the rest of the brisket. The part that she carved against the grain was much more tender to chew. She poured the juices that we had reserved from the foil packet over the leftovers. The beef was still delicious today for lunch.

We served the beef with grilled asparagus, and a wonderful green bean & red potato salad with Dijon dressing that she made.

Other than proper carving, next time I would use more smoke, more pepper and more salt. Also, I think I might be tempted to cook it just a bit longer in the foil to get it “melt in your mouth” tender. This was good for a first attempt though, and I wouldn’t be intimidated to cook this cut again.

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Alder Smoked Salmon With Bourbon Sauce

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Alder Smoked Salmon With Bourbon Sauce | Photo Friday

I’m not sure whence came the recipe for this one, although I suspect that it was one of Jamie Purviance’s books for Weber.

In any case, Alder Wood for salmon is one of my favorite smoke pairings.

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Pork Loin Char Siu

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Pork Loin Char Siu

My Mother-In-Law had brought me a nice pork loin awhile back for cooking on the rotisserie, and this past week we decided to get it out of the deep freeze and cook it for Sunday dinner. I began researching recipes and ran across several for Char Siu, which is a Chinese pork barbecue. The literal translation is “fork roast” meaning roasted on a skewer. This sounded like just what I was after.

After a little refined searching, I found Trader Vic’s recipe for the dish. Although obviously Americanized (the marinade includes ketchup), it seemed easy enough to prepare with ingredients that were readily available to me, and recipes from Vic’s have always pleased my palate in the past.

The loin was about 5 3/4 pounds, so the first problem that presented itself was that I didn’t have anything large enough to marinate it in. I had seen in one of my reference books (Weber’s Way To Grill) that you can tie two pieces of loin together with butcher’s twine to make a properly sized roast for the rotisserie, so I cut the pork in half, removed much of the fat cap, and placed it in a gallon ziplock bag with equal parts ketchup, sugar, Soy Sauce and Hoisin (about half a cup of each). It marinated in the refrigerator overnight.

About an hour before cooking, I removed it from the fridge, trussed it together with the fat toward the outside and put it on the skewer, taking care to get the tines into both pieces of the roast. I cooked it over indirect high heat on the Weber Kettle with some Hickory chips on the charcoal.

Char Siu on Rotisserie

After about 50 minutes, it was getting close to 140 degrees (my target temperature was 140-150). At this point I removed it from the rotisserie, cut off the twine, and placed it fat side down in a 9×13 pan on the gas grill over indirect medium-high heat (about 450). I kept a close eye on the probe thermometer, and when the internal temperature of the meat topped 140, I removed it and brought it in to rest at room temperature. I toasted some sesame seeds and sprinkled them over the top of the roasts as a finishing touch.

We served this with mustard and sweet/sour sauce as condiments, with awesome garlic mashed potatoes and sweet corn that my wife had prepared as side dishes. She said later that it was the best pork she’d ever tasted in her life.

The flavor was quite a bit more subdued than I had anticipated. It was just sweet enough and just savory enough, with none of the strong flavors in the marinade overpowering the dish. The meat was perfectly done, juicy and tender. This is definitely a recipe that I’ll make time and again.

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Shrimp Ceviche and Quesadillas

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Shrimp Ceviche and Quesadillas

I’ll be honest. The only part of this dish that was done on the grill was the quesadillas, but I had to share the photo anyway.

I fixed this last Friday evening and it truly was delicious. Here are the ingredients.

Ceviche

  • About a Pound of Small Cooked Shrimp
  • 1/2 Cup of Fresh Squeezed Lime Juice
  • 1/2 Cup of Fresh Squeezed Lemon Juice
  • 1/2 Red Onion, Finely Diced
  • 1 Cup of Chopped Fresh Seeded Tomatoes
  • 1 Serrano Chili, Seeded and Finely Diced
  • 2 Teaspoons of Salt
  • Dash of Ground Oregano
  • Chopped Cilantro
  • Diced Avocado

Just mix all of that together in a big glass bowl and let it cool in the refrigerator for an hour or so. Although ceviche is traditionally made with raw seafood, the taste and texture of the shrimp was just right, and the dish was perfectly balanced — bright, fresh-tasting, savory.

The quesadillas were dead easy too. I simply sandwiched some shredded Mexi-cheese between two flour tortillas and grilled the for a few minutes over low heat.

This is definitely a meal that we’ll keep in mind, particularly for warm weather when we want something light and tasty.

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My Father Tending Grill in the Late 1950s

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Roy Noe Tending Grill

My sister sent me several pictures after reading the earlier post about my father’s barbecue. Here’s a scanned detail from one of them, showing him actually working at the grill.

She remembered “many burger cookouts as well as sometimes fish” and noted that my mom was good about pulling a cookout together when company came.

Based on some of the other details in the full photo, I would suspect that this was taken in 1957 or 1958.

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Bratwurst and Italian Sausage

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brats-and-italian-sausages-on-the-grill

For Sunday Dinner this week it was an old standby, grilled sausages. The cooking method was simple. I grilled the sausages over direct medium heat for about eight minutes, and then put them over indirect with an appropriate bed of vegetables (grilled onions and peppers for the Italians, and sauerkraut for the brats) to finish cooking. I also put some Apple wood chips in the smoker pan.

We served this with a nice artichoke and pasta salad that my wife made, and some wilted spinach and black beans, a recipe that I found over on Another Pint Please.

The sausages were from a local market that is renowned for the quality of their products, Southside Meats in Momence, Illinois. The difference between these and typical supermarket fare makes the thirty-minute drive worthwhile. I didn’t sample the bratwurst, but the flavor and texture of the Italian Sausage was incredible.

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