Smoked Turkey

Whole smoked tukey, cut into 6 parts.

3 parts - 1-2 T Williams Sonoma Herbs de Provence + garlic, oil, S & P

3 parts - commerical BBQ dry rub, garlic, oil. Mix in same bowl after above, added a little extra leftover herbs.

Smoked 60-70 minutes. 160+ in joints and most of breast, which reached temp while resting.

Chicago Sytle Pizza on Father's Day

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated - Issue 102, Jan/Feb 2010
Bulk sausage from Central Market
- One pizza made with mild
- One made with hot
Sauce from the Batali recipe (thyme/carrot)
Mid-scale mozzarella - brand = Precious (I think)
Asiago - 10% of total cheese - mid-scale brand.
Cheese on TOP of sausage, instead as middle layer.

Unbelievable. Best homemade ever, better than most restaurant versions in Chicago.

Grilled Pork Loin Stuffed with Homemade Sausage

This is a great recipe, with just one tricky step – tying the roast. Instead of making the sausage stuffing you could just use bulk sausage and add sautéed onion and fennel.

Grilled Pork Roast a la Porchetta A 4-5 pound pork loin, butterflied. The meat counter can do this for you. 3 tablespoons olive oil 1 fennel bulb, white part only, chopped medium. Finely chop soft green fronds to make ½ cup. 1 large onion, chopped medium --- Sauté onion and fennel in oil over medium heat until soft, about 8 minutes 2 pounds ground pork 2 tablespoons fennel seeds 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, chopped finely 6 garlic cloves, sliced 1 to 2 tablespoons ground black pepper 1 tablespoon kosher salt ½ cup fennel fronds --- Add all ingredients and sauté until pork loses pink color. Remove from heat and let cool. Turn gas grill burners to high and cover. For charcoal grill, light coals until white ash, then pour onto one side of grill. Spread sausage mixture and additional fennel fronds (if desired) over pork loin, leaving a one inch border around all sides. Roll up from longest end and close tightly. Tie the roast with kitchen string. For gas grill, turn center burner off, turn other burners to low. Place roast on coolest section of grill. Cover and cook up to an hour. You want to see 135 degrees on an instant read thermometer placed into the center. You might want to place a few quarters of red onion or yellow peppers on the grill while the meat cooks, along with a foil packet of potatoes with olive oil, S&P and a few whole garlic cloves (skin on). As the pork rests for about 10 minutes, throw some zucchini slices on the grill for two minutes (turn heat back up to high).

 

To butterfly and tie a roast: Learn the technique here

Just One Little Problem

Earlier this week I made just one little mistake on a recipe I've made before. Sure it was edible, the flavors robust, but it just wasn't cooked right. This experience reminds us that just one misstep can greatly affect the outcome of a recipe:

• One missing ingredient
• One poorly conceived substitution of an ingredient
• One missed or misunderstood cooking step
• In my case, it was one gas grill burner left on low, instead of turned off

So I ended up with a grilled, stuffed pork roast that was a kind of dry on the outside, a little more charred in one place than browned, and just barely cooked enough on the inside. Not a dish I'd want to be served at a restaurant, or to serve to anyone but my closest friends. They could tolerate the letdown. The family made do.

Grilled Pork Roast a la Porchetta If you've read this newsletter for a while you might remember "A Tale of Two Pork Roasts", in which a simple sausage stuffed pork loin from Mario Batali was more flavorful and moist than a somewhat sophisticated recipe that used Mortadella and Provolone. Even 4 star reviews on epicurious.com were misleading, showing how internet searches for recipes are often less reliable than a few very high quality cookbooks or magazines. This week we found a 4-5 pound pork loin in our freezer and wanted to use it before we get deeper into Hurricane season (gotta keep the freezer a little sparse this time of year). So I decided to make the Batali pork roast, but grill it instead of heating up the kitchen. Sounds simple enough. The stuffing is a mixture of ground pork, fresh fennel, onion, fennel seeds, garlic, fresh rosemary and lots of black pepper. Combining these ingredients actually results in a homemade sausage – and you get to control the flavors. This time I decided to grind up two pounds of whole pork shoulder in the food processor instead of using store-bought ground pork. I thought it might make a better sausage and it did. To transfer this recipe from the oven to the grill, I planned to get the grill good and hot (about15 minutes on high), then use indirect heat. On a gas grill, turn off the middle burner and set the other two to their lowest setting. On charcoal, pile all the coals on one side of the grill. Because the grill is so hot at first, you'll get a nice char, then after 10 minutes, turn the roast over and let it cook amidst the indirect heat for up to an hour. You want to see 135 degrees on an instant read thermometer placed into the center. You might want to place a few quarters for red onion or yellow peppers on the grill while the meat cooks, along with a foil packet of potatoes with olive oil, S&P and a few whole garlic cloves (skin on). As the pork rests for about 10 minutes, throw some zucchini slices on the grill for two minutes (turn heat back up to high). The full recipe will be in the next post.

Oh…..and Another Little Problem Margie and I had already decided that this week's newsletter would be called "Just One Little Problem". But there's more. After we ate this delicious but slightly dry pork we were watching a couple episodes of Gordon Ramsey's Hell's Kitchen. At some point toward the end of the second episode someone said "potato". I leapt to my feet and gasped aloud. Margie says the look on my face was priceless. I realized that I had left two foil packets of potato and garlic on the grill…..for the last two and a half hours. After opening the back door, I wondered what had kept the neighbors from calling the fire department. The smell was awful. The grill was pumping out smoke like a burning oil well. We turned everything off and decided to inspect the damage in the morning. So many good things can come from unexpected developments in our lives. We didn't destroy our grill. There are no lasting odors. I was worried that since the potatoes cooked with the top down they might have left some horrible-carbonized smell. And best of all, we learned how to make homemade potato charcoal. Take a look:

Why You Want a Chinois, Even If You Don’t Know What It Is

This is a Chinois.

I lived a long time without a Chinois, thinking "a strainer is a strainer". Well, that's just not true. There's a reason a Chinois is an important tool in professional kitchens. It's faster than a traditional strainer, more accurate with fewer drips, and the perforated steel surface is far, far easier to clean up than a mesh strainer. I now can't live without this tool.


Why is it faster and more accurate? I guess it's just a perfect shape and design for the job. On the one hand, it's like an old fashioned metal colander with smaller holes, just cone shaped. But with the addition of a handle and a lip on the opposite side, it's easy to wield. While I have used it for draining a batch of pasta or rinsing rice, it really comes into power when you need to strain something with solids like a sauce. OK, at the moment I can't think of anything to strain with solids that are NOT a sauce, just bear with me.


A few comments Chinois-related:

• You French speakers will recognize Chinois as the word for Chinese. This tool has been called a China Cap or Chinese Hat. In French kitchens it was thus appropriately called a Chinois.
  
• A medium sized Chinois has a pretty large capacity. Mine is only 7.5" diameter, and it holds….well, I can't tell the capacity, it's got all these little holes in it. Anyway, it holds a bunch, useful for anything I've needed so far. They come much larger and smaller sizes. This medium one is just fine by me.
  
• The first really big difference to a mesh strainer is that you can press hard onto the sides of the Chinois, but would be stressing and almost tearing apart most strainers.
• Beware – some Chinois use mesh too, you want one that's perforated solid stainless steel.
• Chinois are often used with a pestle, or pressing tool, to further speed up the straining/pressing process. A spatula works well, but I can see how the pestle might work better. I may buy or make one soon.
• Some Chinois are sold with a three legged stand, so it can balance over a bowl. Mine is large enough that I can balance it across two sides of my sink, and then let it drip into a bowl or pot in the sink. I'm fine without one more thing to have to store somewhere, so I'll skip the stand.

A couple of the things I've made lately where the Chinois came in handy are:

Cool Pea Soup

Pineapple Soup (dessert) with champagne sorbet

Homemade Chicken Stock