Tag: rosemary

By Posted on Posted in Grilled Goodness, Recipes, What's for dinner No Comments

Perhaps my favorite way to have pork is like this, grilled and rubbed with dijon mustard and a rosemary/garlic concoction.  It was the first way I had cooked pork in out of my Dutch tradition and has been one of my favorites.  Its simple and the combination of the flavor of pork, rosemary and dijon are always a win.

So in typical fashion in getting ready to put this on the blog I made the pork, tried to stage it nicely and took a bunch of pictures.  Then in my moment of brilliance I decided I needed to organize the pictures before writing this post.  There in lies the problem…I deleted them having thought they were copied off somewhere else.  So you will have to take my word for it the pictures were something to behold, they did the meat such justice.

So without further ado and before I lose the recipe with the pictures here it is.

Ingredients
1 pork loin (4lbs-ish)
2 tbsp dijon mustard (or more)
2 tbsp chopped red onion
2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 clove garlic minced or pressed
2 tbsp finely chopped rosemary leaves

Instructions
Several hours before grilling time, mix all ingredients except pork loin and dijon.  Then you have a choice to make either flatten the loin by cutting into it the long way while rotating it to come out with one large and consistently thick piece of pork, like a piece of rolled out dough or just use it whole, both ways are superb.  Rub entire piece of meat with dijon and then the rub the entire piece of meat with the rub made above.  If you did not flatten the meat you can simply wrap it in saran wrap and throw it back in the fridge tell you are ready to cook it.  If you did flatten it you will not need to roll it back up, like a long line of cinnamon rolls and then proceed to wrap it in saran wrap and toss it in the fridge tell cook time.

Once cook time comes around, prepare the grill for indirect cooking.  With charcoal like below or with gas preheat the grill with both burners and turn the one you will be cooking over off.  For gas grills place the loin on a grill rack over a drip pan.  For charcoal you will have a drip pan filled with water in the center of the grill with charcoal on either side.  Just toss the meat on the pre lubricated grate being sure if you flattened and rolled the meat it does not come unrolled.  Cook indirectly until the center of the loin reaches you desired done-ness.  I pulled mine at 148ºF and let it rest for 10 minutes before slicing into it.

Indirect cooking over charcoal

Cooking indirectly over charcoal is easy and quite rewarding.  Just prepare a normal amount of charcoal for your grill using a chimney or other method.  Fill a foil pan with boiling water and place it in the center of the grill and tuck the charcoal on opposing sides of the pan.  Be sure to add a half dozen briquettes every 45 minutes or so to keep a consistent fire.  You can also toss on a chunk or two of wood to give it a little smoke flavor.

You will notice that the openings on my grill grate are strategically positioned over my charcoal pockets, this allows for easy replenishment.

Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

By Posted on Posted in Grilled Goodness, Recipes No Comments

Chicken.  Blah.  Ok, maybe I should say we eat more chicken than we rightfully should, I mean we should have way more pork and beef in there somewhere, but chicken it more often times than not is.  So with that we try to spice it up and give some flavor to the unflavorable, so today (actually last night) I set out to make a balsamic glazed grilled chicken.

Balsamic Glazed Grilled Chicken

And I must admit it was rather tasty, albeit quite sweet, which for some reason I was not expecting.  Once I got past the sweet and onto the rest of the chicken it was as I said rather tasty, very tender and juicy; which is always better than dry chicken.

In hindsight I should have cooked my stuffing a little bit before shoving it in the bird.  The breasts and thighs of the bird were ready about 20 minutes before the stuffing reached a safe temperature, which much to my surprise did not dry out the meat or give it even the slightest burnt taste.

I grilled the bird on my Weber kettle over charcoal for about an hour and twenty minutes, the bird was just shy of 4 pounds.  I replenished the charcoal once at about 45 minutes with six fresh briquettes on each side and a handful of apple chips.  Once the breasts were about done I glazed the bird liberally and let it finish out its cooking, which because of the stuffing was longer than anticipated when I applied the glaze.  But it didn’t seem to burn.

Ingredients
1 chicken (or parts if you don’t wanna mess with a whole bird), about 4 pounds
1 medium onion
1 stalk celery
1 clove garlic
1/2 c ketchup
1/4 c balsamic vinegar + extra
6 tbsp dark brown sugar
1 tsp oregano
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp cumin
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper + extra
a few stalks of rosemary

Instructions
To make a rub combine 2 tbsp brown sugar with paprika, chili powder, cumin, lime juice, oil salt and pepper.  Mix well and rub all over chicken making sure to get plenty under the skin.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.

On cooking day remove chicken from refrigerator 30 minutes before cooking.  Chop up onions into large pieces, chop celery, rosemary and garlic and combine in a bowl with pepper to taste.  Sprinkle with balsamic vinegar and stuff in bird (if I were to listen to my advice I would likely bake the stuffing at this point prior to stuffing the bird for say 20 minutes in the over).

Prepare the grill for indirect cooking, clean and lube the grate and toss the bird on the grill. Once the chicken is on the grill prepare the glaze by combining ketchup, vinegar, 4 tbsp brown sugar and oregano.

Once chicken is nearly done brush chicken liberally with glaze mixture.  Cook until internal temperature of chicken breasts and thighs is 167°F and stuffing is 165°F.  Once pulled allow chicken to stand for 15 minutes before slicing.  Enjoy

Without the glaze I dare say the chicken would have been quite south western but with the glaze it was sweet and magical.  Now if I can just figure out what to do with the left overs.

 

Tagged with: , , , , ,

By Posted on Posted in Smoked Goodness 1 Comment

Sometimes its not about what you cook, its about how and where and with what challenges.  Well today, much like cooking breakfast on an open fire, the challenge was not in what I was cooking or how I was cooking, it was the element of nature that produced the biggest source of problem in my cook.  In the midst of a blizzard warning this morning I fired up the smoker to smoke up some rosemary and brown sugar rubbed Boston butts (3) for some pulled pork.

Smoking in a blizzard

In spite of the snow and the massive drifts and the sometimes strong winds, I prevailed the smoked stayed going and the pork is now ready for some pulling.  Its not new, its not special but it was a challenge.  And if I do say the results look, smell and taste fantastic.

My apologies for the picture quality, they came from my phone. 🙁

Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

By Posted on Posted in Recipes, Smoked Goodness No Comments

Ribs, Again!  This time with more style.  Last time I used two rubs out of a bottle and had good ribs come up but the rubs was not complimentary.  The ribs were good but they were not as good as they should have been.  This time, I managed a little more success.

Ribs with Garlic and Rosemary Mashed Potatoes

Last night I whipped up perhaps my favorite pulled pork rub, a brown sugar and rosemary rub, using some fresh rosemary, from the plant to the rub, it doesn’t get much fresher than that.  From there I lightly rubbed the ribs with Dijon mustard and then the rub and then it was into the fridge to rest overnight in bask in that magnificent rub.

Then in the morning it was onto the smoker with some apple wood and some hickory at 225°F for 3 hours, I did spritz the ribs a couple of times as the skin dried out with apple juice during this time.  Then it was into a double layer of foil for 2 hours, then back onto the grate in the smoke with no foil until they reached 172°F in the thickest part of the rib.  I brushed them lightly with BBQ sauce during this time as well.  Then it was off the smoker and back into some foil, a wrapped in a couple towels and then into a cooler for about 30 minutes of rest to allow the juices to redistribute and the flavor to mature.

Then it was time to eat them.  They were better than the last rack of ribs I smoked, either half of them.  They were sweet and had a nice bark on them were fall off the bone tender.  The rosemary complimented the sweet and the delicate flavor of the pork ribs, they were perhaps the best ribs I have ever had.

With one exception it looks like I have found my rib recipe for at least the immediate future.  My wife smelled the cumin in the rub when I was making it and she was able to taste a hint of it in the finished product, she wanted less cumin next time.  I thought all was well the way it was.

Either way they were great, an appropriate use of such a fine piece of meat and they went well with some garlic and rosemary mashed red skin potatoes.

Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

By Posted on Posted in Recipes No Comments

So to compliment my brown sugar and rosemary ribs I whipped up some garlic and rosemary mashed red skin potatoes tonight.  And compliment they did, they were good, good enough to be made again.  Aside from being good they were easy, really easy.

Rosemary and Garlic Mashed Potatoes with Ribs

These were easy and just took a little time to allow the potatoes to marinate, which provided some excellent flavor.

Ingredients
6 to 10 red skin potatoes
1/4 c olive oil
2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
2 tsp fresh rosemary finely chopped
1/4 tsp ground white pepper
margarine

Instructions
First I washed and quartered the potatoes, then placed them in a medium bowl.  If you wanted to you could peel them before you quartered them.  At this point in a small bowl I combined the rest of the ingredients and mixed well.  Then I poured the mixture over the taters and stirred them tell they were well coated.  Then I let them set for a couple hours, stirring them through the olive oil mixture every 30 minutes or so.  Then it was into the oven at 375°F for 45 minutes until they we were tender.  Then I pulled them out and mashed them and whipped with some margarine until they were how I wanted.

They were amazing with a subtle taste of garlic and rosemary on nicely roasted mash potatoes.

Tagged with: , , ,