Fearless Kitchen

Recipe: Red Bean Soup with Avocados

Recipe Source: Sheasby, Anne. 400 Soups. Anness Publishing, London, 2008 p 211

I made this with the intention of using more legumes from the Legume/Barbeque cabinet, but I was thwarted. It looks as if red beans were the only kind of legume that I don't have squirreled away in there, or if I do I can't find them. I did however have the requisite two 14 ounce cans of red beans, which were taking up space in another overcrowded and badly arranged cabinet, so I used them. Beans are a great source of fiber and complex carbohydrates, and they pack a decent amount of protein as well. I'm not going all vegan on you, but I don't have a problem skipping meat once in a while if I'm getting a decent amount of the right nutrients from other sources. (Of course, those "other sources" have to taste good too. We do have Standards, you know.)

Anyway, as usual, I did make a few changes to the original recipe. I increased the amount of garlic, the amount of cayenne, and the amount of oregano. I forgot about the Tabasco sauce, but for once my husband didn't seem to think it was necessary. I also skipped the guacamole. You may wonder why I skipped the guacamole. Well, I had mis-counted my inventory, and I didn't have the red onion I needed. I decided that just having some chopped avocados on top was perfectly adequate. The soup was delicious, and it was surprisingly filling. Served with bread, it was more than enough food for both of us for dinner.

Red Bean Soup with Avocados (serves 6; approx. $1.62/serving)

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 onions, chopped

8 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon paprika

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 tablespoon dried oregano

1 28-ounce can tomatoes (I used Muir Glen Fire Roasted tomatoes; they gave this a really delicious flavor.)

2 14-oz cans red beans, drained and thoroughly rinsed

3 ¾ cups water

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

2 avocados

Equipment:

• Large saucepan
• Immersion blender
• Bowl of acidulated water

1. Heat the oil in the saucepan. Add the onions and garlic and cook 5 minutes, until softened.
2. Add the spices. Cook another minute.
3. Add the tomato paste, the beans, the tomatoes, and the water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer 20 minutes.
4. Use the immersion blender and carefully puree the soup. It's okay if it's still a little chunky in spots.
5. Add the salt and pepper.
6. Chop the avocados. Drop each piece into the bowl of acidulated water as you cut it; this will prevent discoloration.
7. Scatter the avocado bits on top of the soup and serve.

Recipe: King's Arms Tavern Pecan Pie

Recipe Source: Gonzales, John R.  The Colonial Williamsburg Tavern Cookbook.  Clarkson Potter Publishers, New York, 2001 pp. 188

First of all, let me apologize for the photo in this post.  It is not pretty.  The floors in our kitchen - in our house - are not level.  This is to be expected in a farmhouse that is over 200 years old (not that there are any farms left in Braintree, but I digress.)  Unfortunately this means that our oven is not perfectly level.  It has caused a few problems in the past, notably in the quiche that expanded over one side of the crust and out onto the baking sheet with most of its filling.  This time, when I opened the oven door to check on the pie, the pie slid out and landed face-down on the oven door.  Most of the pie survived, but it did not survive in an attractive manner.

Right.  So onto the pie itself.  My husband adores pecan pie - which is funny to me, because he's not even remotely of Southern extraction and even pronounces "pecan" wrong.  (He tries, but keeps slipping.)  Personally, I'm not a huge pecan pie fan most of the time.  It is far too sweet for my tender tastebuds.  I do remember it making appearances on the table, particularly at Thanksgiving, and to be honest it was never overly sweet then.  I know I've become less tolerant of sweet flavors over the years, but only this year did I figure out the reason.

My dad's mother, who passed away in April, was the family pie maker.  Her pies were always the best, everyone always agreed, and while I was never much of a fan of pies that didn't have chocolate I could always tolerate the fruit and pecan pies.  When I went away and had to eat other people's pies, that was not the case.  Anyway, I was talking about this with my aunt (or was it my dad?) recently, and I mentioned how little I liked non-chocolate pies because they were always too sweet.  My source said, "Your grandma was the same way.  She always halved the sugar in any pie recipe.  She couldn't stand food that was too sweet."

I'm finding more and more similarities between myself and my father's mother, which is really odd because I never spent the kind of one-on-one time with her that I spent with my mother's mother.  At any rate, this is not Grandma's pecan pie recipe.  It comes from the King's Arms Tavern in Colonial Williamsburg, and if you haven't been to Williamsburg you should absolutely go there before you die.  (Hit Jamestown too, while you're in the area.  It's not nearly as fancy, but we had a fantastic time there.)  What attracted me about this recipe was that it was a lot less sweet than other recipes I've seen for pecan pie.  Don't get me wrong - it's still sweet.  But the amount of sweeteners, especially the corn syrup, seems much reduced.  I didn't make a lot of changes, although I did add more pecans.  I also used the family Super Secret Pie Crust recipe, which I suspect came from Southern Living magazine but can't cite properly and so can't share here.  Use whatever pie crust recipe seems appropriate to you, or even store-bought. 

King's Arms Tavern Pecan Pie (Serves 10; approx. $0.77/serving)

1 single-crust pie crust

4 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup light corn syrup

4 tablespoons butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/2 cups pecan halves

Equipment:

• Pie plate
• Rolling pin
• Bowl

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
2. Roll out your pie crust with whatever method works for you.  Personally, I like the plastic bag method.  Center your dough ball (or disc) in a gallon-size zip top plastic bag.  (For me, this is the same bag that held the dough in the refrigeration stage.)  Roll it out to fill the bag, leaving the top unzipped.  Cut away the sides and it will fit perfectly in your 9" pie plate.  I can't take credit for this one, I saw it on Good Eats, but it has saved me a LOT of cursing over the years.
3. Lay out the crust in your pie plate, neaten the sides and dock with a fork or other tool. 
4. Combine the eggs, sugar, salt, corn syrup, butter and vanilla in the bowl and mix very well. 
5. Stir in the pecan halves.
6. Fill the crust. 
7. Transfer to the oven, reduce temperature to 350, and bake 40 - 50 minutes.  The filling should be firm in the center. 
8. Cool and serve. 

Recipe: Vermont Oatmeal Maple Honey Bread

Recipe Source: The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion.  Countryman Press, Woodstock, 2003 p. 203

I've been craving one thing for months, and that's toast.  Actually, I've been craving two things: toast and grilled cheese.  I don't know why.  Toast has its place, but it's not something to get all excited about.  At least, it wasn't something to get all excited about.  And grilled cheese is all well and good in its place, but it's not something to seek out and hunt down like some sort of lunatic stalking the celebrity du jour.  Anyway, these two things are related because they share a common ingredient: bread. 

We make a lot of bread in the Fearless household, but it is generally made into relatively free-form loaves and is not usually very good for either sandwiches or toast.  I could use store-bought bread, but I'm trying to cut down on store-bought products lately.  I'm sure that there are some sandwich breads sold at my market that do contain ingredients I can pronounce, but they're expensive.  If I were pressed for time I would probably use them, but I'm not, so I'd rather make my own right now. 

I made this bread as my first toast-and-grilled-cheese bread.  I liked it.  I liked it a lot, actually.  I never got to make the grilled cheese with it, because the Spouse didn't think the flavor would "go," but I made a lot of toast and I can assure you that the flavor went quite nicely with honey, almond butter, cashew butter and even Nutella.  So there. 

Vermont Oatmeal Maple Honey Bread (makes 2 loaves, approx. 10 slices/loaf; approx. cost per slice $0.21)

2 1/4 cups boiling water

1/4 cup lukewarm water

3 1/2 ounces rolled oats

2 3/4 ounces maple sugar

1 1/2 tablespoon honey

4 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon active dry yeast

7 3/4 ounces whole wheat flour

17 ounces all purpose flour

Equipment:

• Stand mixer with the dough hook attachment
• Small bowl
• Two loaf pans

1. Combine 1/2 tablespoon honey, 1/4 cup lukewarm water and the yeast in the small bowl.  Let stand until the mixture is very frothy.  You won't have to ask when that is, trust me, but it should take 5 - 10 minutes.
2. Combine the boiling water, the oats, the maple sugar, the 1 tablespoon honey, the butter, the salt and the cinnamon in the mixer bowl.  Let it cool to lukewarm or thereabouts. 
3. Add the proofed yeast and the flours to the bowl.  Stir to form a rough dough.
4. Knead (in the mixer) on low speed 5 - 7 minutes.  Cover and let rise 1 hour.
5. Grease your loaf pans using whatever cooking lubricant you see fit.  Divide the dough in half and put one half in each pan.  Cover and let rise another hour, until they've crowned about an inch over the rim of the pan. 
6. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 
7. Bake 35 - 40 minutes.  They're done when they're golden brown.  If you have an instant-read thermometer, they should reach 190 degrees. 

Recipe: Creole Fish Stew

Recipe Source: Jollands, Beverly.  500 Hot & Spicy Recipes.  Anness Publishing, London, 2008 p. 87

I think fish is probably my favorite protein source.  It always has been.  When I was a kid, fish was a rare treat for me.  My mother and sister hated fish (Mom still does, sister is a little more adventurous but still not what you'd call a fan.)  Mom never bought it when she did the food shopping, so my fish consumption was limited to what my father caught (trout) and restaurants.  (What my father caught was best.  We would bring the fish over to my grandmother's, where she would do... something simple but delicious and we would eat it, pitying the clearly deformed taste buds that kept Mom and Sister from enjoying the treat.)  Nowadays I can get very high-quality frozen fish at Whole Foods and sometimes even Costco, and my husband loves fish almost as much as I do.  On Fridays, when I do the food shopping, I can also get fresh fish. 

This was a Friday dish.  I made a few changes, as I do.  My husband will not eat a whole fish - boneless fillets only, so while the recipe called for two whole red snapper I substituted haddock fillets, squid and some mussels.  I skipped the step where the fish sits in vinegar, since I couldn't find malt vinegar and I didn't think that would be a good way to treat these particular types of fish.  I increased the tomatoes and chiles to use up some of the bounty from our garden, and I increased the garlic because I wanted to increase the garlic.  The result was a delicious treat, satisfying and filling and reasonably light. 

Creole Fish Stew (serves 4 generously; approx. $6.52/serving)

1 lb haddock fillets, cut into 1" pieces

1 lb squid (tubes and tentacles), cut into pieces

2 lb mussels, scrubbed and debearded

Flour for dredging

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

8 garlic cloves, crushed

1 onion, finely chopped

10 fresh plum tomatoes, chopped

2 tablespoons thyme

2 1/2 cups water

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 cayenne chiles, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 pinch kosher salt

Equipment:

• Large pot with a lid
• Plate

1. Dredge the haddock pieces in the flour and set aside. 
2. Heat the oil and butter in the pan.
3. Fry the fish until it is golden brown.  This should only take about 5 minutes; it shouldn't be cooked through.  Set it aside on the plate. 
4. Add the garlic and onion to the pan and saute until softened, about 5 minutes.
5. Add the tomatoes and thyme.  Stir well and simmer another 5 minutes.
6. Add the water, cinnamon and chiles. 
7. Add the fish, squid and peppers to the pan.  Top with the mussels, cover, and simmer until the mussels are all opened. 
8. Season to taste with kosher salt and serve. 

Recipe: Apple Pie

I feel like I am going to turn into a pastry.  I made a bunch of savory pies over the last few weeks, and I've also made some sweet pies and tarts.  However, once apple season starts, as any American baker can tell you, the demand for apple pie starts up and does not slacken until well past Thanksgiving.  I've made this five times - no joke - since September 1.  If my husband's plaintive sighing and eyelash-batting are any indication, I'm nowhere near done yet.  The funny thing is, I don't actually like apple pie.

Okay, before someone reports me to Homeland Security for un-American sentiment, let me point out that I don't like any pie that doesn't have chocolate in it.  I never have.  I don't hate apple pie.  It's not like, say, cabbage pie.  Or carrot pie.  Or sweet potato pie.  I just don't see what all the fuss is about.  Other people do, though.  It makes people really, really happy for some reason.  So happy that I had to make this five times before I could take a picture of it for the website. 

The first time I made this I made it using Roxbury Russet apples, an heirloom variety from right here in Eastern Massachusetts.  It works fine with other baking apples or Macintosh.  I used an old family recipe for the crusts; you can use your favorite double-crust recipe or even buy them pre-made (I've finally seen pre-made double-crusts in the store.  I'd heard rumors for years.)  The key here, at least for me, is the maple sugar instead of granulated.  If what you have is granulated by all means use it, but the maple gives it a certain something extra, a slightly more rustic and regional flavor.  It also cuts out some more processed sugars, which I'm told is a good thing.

Reviews on this have been pretty stellar.  Like I mentioned, I'm no judge, but allow me to  point out that I've never been able to get a picture of a whole pie for you. 

Apple Pie (serves 10; approx. $0.43/serving)

1 double-crust pie crust recipe

5 - 6 apples (be creative here - find a fun varietal if you can.  Granny Smith still work fine if you can't!)

1/3 cup maple sugar, plus more for dusting

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (optional - I left it out of the last round I made)

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 cup apple cider

Milk or egg wash, for brushing

Equipment:

• 9" pie plate
• Pastry brush
• Rolling pin
• Large mixing bowl

1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
2. Roll out your pie dough.  I find it easiest to roll it out in a zip-top plastic bag - this gets it to the perfect size for a 9" pie plate. 
3. Peel and slice your apples.  Put them in the mixing bowl.
4. Sprinkle the spices, cornstarch and maple sugar over the apples.  Mix well.
5. Pour the cider over the apple mixture.  Mix well again.
6. Line the bottom of the pie plate with one of the crusts.  Fill with the apple mixture and top with the second crust. 
7. Ventilate the top crust however you see fit.  Crimp to seal the edges.
8. Brush the top of your pie with the milk or egg wash, then sprinkle with a little more maple sugar. 
9. Bake 30 - 40 minutes, or until the crust is clearly done. 
10. Serve hot, warm or cold, plain or with ice cream.  New England tradition encourages cheddar cheese with apple pie, so there's an option for you too. 

Recipe: Polenta with Vegetables and Tomato Sauce

Recipe Source: Gonzales, John R.  The Colonial Williamsburg Tavern Cookbook.  Clarkson Potter Publishers, New York, 2001 pp. 70-1.

I had some trepidations about this dish.  First, it was my first time making polenta.  I've usually seen polenta in more Northern Italian contexts, and my family comes from Naples.  It's just not something that we ever, ever ate.  Second, it contained a tomato sauce.  I'm picky about my tomato sauces.  They must all taste like my grandmother's tomato sauce.  I realize that this is not a reasonable expectation.  She passed away in 1997 and is therefore no longer producing tomato sauce.  She wasn't overly keen on sharing her recipe (such as it was - she never wrote anything down and owned no measuring equipment).  I did get the recipe, and even my sauce doesn't taste exactly like hers - she used some things I won't, and she used some things I can't even get my hands on here.  But all this is beside the point.  I expect cooked tomato sauces to taste like hers, and this one certainly wasn't going to. 

The first fear was easy to overcome.  I might not be overly familiar with polenta, but the recipe was well written and I do know how to cook, after all.  In order to get around the second fear, I added an ingredient: tarragon.  I never saw tarragon until I moved to Boston, so I certainly never saw it in her kitchen.  I'm not sure she would have even been able to easily pronounce tarragon.  By adding that one ingredient, I changed the flavor enough that it didn't seem like it was "trying" to be my grandmother's sauce.  This really solved the problem for me, and I liked the resulting sauce so much I scrupulously saved the leftovers. 

This dish went over pretty well.  I think the polenta could have turned out a little prettier, but I wasn't able to grill it as I wanted and really, it's the taste that counts.  I doubled the recipe, and in order to make that work I had to play around with quantities of some items I didn't have in sufficient quantity.  People really liked it though, and ate it all so I guess I did something right :)

Polenta and Vegetables with Tomato Sauce (serves 16 as a side dish; approx. $1.01/serving)

4 cups polenta flour (also known as corn grits)

12 cups water

4 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, thinly sliced

2 bell peppers, cored and thinly sliced

5 cloves garlic, crushed

3 zucchini, thinly sliced

3 yellow squash, thinly sliced

6 tomatoes, chopped (ours came from the garden, 4 store-bought tomatoes should suffice)

4 tablespoons butter

2 onions, finely chopped

2 28-ounce cans tomatoes, drained

1 tablespoon dried basil

1 tablespoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon dried tarragon

Kosher salt and fresh-ground grains of paradise, to taste

Equipment:

• 2 large saucepans, one with a lid
• Immersion blender
• Broiler pan
• Skillet
• Cookie sheets covered in aluminum foil

1. Melt the butter in a large saucepan.
2. Add the onion and cook until softened.  Season with a pinch of kosher salt.
3. Add the tomatoes and reduce heat to medium-low. 
4. Add the basil, oregano and tarragon.  Simmer, stirring often, until the sauce is thickened. 
5. Use the immersion blender to puree the sauce.  Set aside.
6. Bring the water to a boil with a little salt. 
7. Add the polenta in a steady stream, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and starts to bubble.
8. Reduce heat to low and cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture is very thick and pulls away from the sides of the pan.  This ought to take about 30 - 40 minutes.
9. Spread the polenta out on the cookie sheets to form a 3/4" thick rectangle.  Let it cool completely.
10. In the large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat.
11. Add the onion and the peppers.  Cook until softened.
12. Add the garlic.  Cook 1 minute.
13. Add the squash and tomatoes.  Cook until the tomatoes start to give off their liquid.  Season to taste.
14. Preheat your broiler. 
15. Cut the polenta into triangles.  Cook under the broiler 3 minutes a side until crisp. 
16. Put the vegetables on a serving platter. 
17. Top with the polenta, then pour some of the tomato sauce over it.  If you have excess tomato sauce and polenta, serve them on the side. 

Recipe: Pulled Pork Stuffed Poblanos

  If you read the Pulled Pork post from Saturday, you'll have probably already done the math.  "Serves: a lot" does not equal four people.  Despite the fact that all were very hungry, and everyone had seconds and some thirds, we still had an awful lot of pulled pork left over.  We had expected this and planned ahead.  On our foray north of the city to get said pork, we made a trip to Wilson Farms and found some beautiful looking poblanos.  I immediately placed two of them into a bag and put them in the cart.  Fearless Grill was leery - what, he asked, was I planning to do with them?  I immediately replied that I would stuff them with the pulled pork. 

A dish was born.  I used some cilantro and some cheese to round out the rest of the recipe.  We cooked them on the Big Green Egg and topped them with the leftover Piedmont-style sauce.  They made a pretty phenomenal side dish.  You could also serve this as a main dish.

Pulled Pork Stuffed Poblanos (serves 2; approx. cost per serving not available)

3 cups leftover Pulled Pork

2 good-sized poblano chilies

4 ounces Monterrey jack cheese, grated

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

2 cups leftover barbeque sauce

Equipment:

• Big Green Egg (optional; you can probably do this in the oven if you must.)
• Bowl

1. Combine pork, cheese and cilantro in the bowl.  Your hands are the best tool for this job.
2. Slice off the tops of the poblanos and remove the seeds and ribs.
3. Stuff the poblanos with the bowl mixture. 
4. Cook over direct heat 5 - 10 minutes or until heated through.  The poblanos should be soft enough to eat but not disintegrating.
5. Serve, topped with some sauce and with more sauce on the side. 

Recipe: North Carolina Style Pulled Pork (Guest Post from Fearless Grill)

Recipe Source:  Originally posted to the Big Green Egg forum by user Elder Ward, and reposted to a permanent site by the Naked Whiz (http://www.nakedwhiz.com/elder.htm)

I’ve had my Big Green Egg for a while now, and I’ve made some great barbeque on it.  The Egg really excels at traditional ‘low and slow’ barbeque, where meat is cooked for hours over low heat and smoke until it is falling apart tender.  This technique is great for dishes like beef brisket and ribs.  It is also great for pulled pork, and I’ve wanted to try making this barbeque staple for some time, but none of our local stores carry the large pieces of pork shoulder needed to make this dish.  I asked the local butcher last summer, and he said that not enough people buy it, and so they don’t stock it.     I guess more people need smokers.  Finally, I was on the opposite side of the city last weekend, and I remembered that there was an old-school butcher shop there, so I stopped in to see what they had.  Before my eyes were 5 or 6 10 lb. pieces of bone in pork shoulder.  I quickly grabbed one, and set off to make barbecued pulled pork for the first time. 

Although I hadn’t personally tried to make pulled pork before, it is one of the more frequently discussed items on the Big Green Egg online forum, so I knew where to turn.  Elder Ward’s pulled pork recipe outlines all the techniques needed to succeed at this cook, and is one of the resources that forum members point new people too.  Since this was my first time doing this, I chose to follow the recipe exactly as written, except that I eliminated the cheap hamburger buns for serving, as we already had way too much food, and didn’t need to add a bunch of carbs to the meal.  I made a minor substitution and used Spanish rather than Hungarian paprika since that’s what I had.  I also used apple wood for smoking, as I was out of the hickory recommended in the recipe, and I usually use apple with pork anyway. 

For those who haven’t tried doing true barbeque, this isn’t about throwing a steak over a fire for a few minutes and trying to keep it from charring.  The idea behind ‘low and slow’ is to take an otherwise lousy cut of meat (e.g. $.99/lb) and turn it into a delicacy by cooking it at a very low temperature over a long period of time, adding smoke from hardwood to enhance the flavor.  The ‘low and slow’ cook breaks down the connective tissues in the meat and melts away the fat.  This isn’t the kind of dish you can just decide to make after work, as it really only works with larger pieces of meat - smaller ones would just dry out - and takes about 2 hours / lb.  My 9 lb. pork shoulder took just over 18 hours to cook, which led to a somewhat funny exchange.  Once I was confident that I hadn’t burned the meat to a crisp, I called our friends who live nearby, explained that we had a large hunk of meat that needed to be eaten, and invited them over.  Their response was “have you started it yet?”  They were quite shocked when I told them it had been cooking since the previous day.  Don’t be put off by the huge amount of meat this makes.   It’s cheap, and because it’s cooked to a high temperature and smoked, the leftovers will keep for a while, and are useful in numerous other recipes. 

Of course, part of being able to cook a meal like this is having the right tools, and the Big Green Egg really excels at long low temperature cooks.  It can cook for at least 24 hours on a single load of lump charcoal, and it maintains its temperature very well.  This translates into few trips outside in the middle of the night to check on the smoker.  Unfortunately, this isn’t a meal that can be translated to a regular grill.  You really need a smoker, and one that can go for long periods of time unattended unless you really feel the need to sit up all night with it.  To supplement the Egg on this cook, I also got to try out a new toy that I got for Christmas, but hadn’t had a chance to use yet - a Maverick ET-73 remote thermometer.  This great little device comes with two temperature probes, one for the meat and one for the smoker.   These connect to a weather-resistant transmitter that sits next to your smoker.  A wireless receiver shows you a constant readout of the temperature and can alert you if the temperature of the smoker drops too low, goes too high, or if your meat reaches it’s target temperature.  The Maverick worked great, giving me a view of what was happening from in the house, alerting me once during the cook when the temperature dropped, and letting me monitor the meat as it came toward it’s target temperature without having to stand over the smoker to take constant readings with my Thermapen. 

The pulled pork itself came out perfectly.  The meat was extremely tender and easily pulled apart for serving.  It had a nice smoky flavor and remained moist.  Most of the fat on the meat rendered off during the long cook, so it didn’t come across as heavy or greasy at all.  I also made two sauces to go along with the pork, as recommended in the recipe - a vinegar sauce and a mustard-based sauce.  When I was mixing them up, I liked the vinegar sauce more, and the mustard sauce didn’t taste that good at all.  But when we ate them on the pork, the vinegar sauce didn’t really provide a lot of flavor, and the mustard sauce was definitely the hands-down favorite around the table.  Overall, I was very happy with this first attempt at pulled pork, and I’ll be experimenting to get this even better in the future.  

North Carolina Style Pulled Pork (Serves a lot.   Approx. Cost Per Serving Not Available)

Equipment Required

• Big Green Egg or other smoker
• Wood for smoking (I used Apple)
• Remote thermometer (Optional but recommended)

1 large pork shoulder / Boston Butt - 8 - 10 lbs.

For the Rub
2 tablespoons kosher salt

2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons ground cumin seed

2 tablespoons chili powder

2 tablespoons cracked black pepper

1 tablespoon cayenne pepper

4 tablespoons paprika

2 tablespoons ground sage

For the ‘Traditional North Carolina’ (vinegar-based) sauce
1 cup white vinegar

1 cup cider vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon Tabasco sauce

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon cracked black pepper

For the ‘Western North Carolina (Piedmont)’ (mustard-based) sauce
1 cup ketchup

1 cup water

¼ cup apple cider vinegar

1 onion chopped fine

3 cloves crushed garlic

 2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons molasses

2 tablespoons dry mustard

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Determine when you want to eat, and plan your cook accordingly.  The meat will take approximately 2 hours/lb. to cook, though you will judge doneness strictly by temperature.  So for a 9 pound piece of meat, you’ll want to put it in the smoker at least 18 hours before you want to eat.
Prepare your fire.  Since an 18 hour cook would usually start in the middle of the night to be ready for dinner the next day, I set my smoker up before dark, so all I have to do is go outside and light it when I’m ready.  To maximize the chances your fire will burn properly, clean out your smoker thoroughly, removing all ash.  If you’re using a BGE or other smoker that uses lump charcoal as a fuel, build your fire with the largest chunks of charcoal toward the bottom, and fill in with smaller pieces above.  This will prevent the air holes from getting clogged with ash over time and putting out the fire.  See Elder Ward’s writeup for more detailed instructions on this.

1. About an hour before starting the cook, mix the rub ingredients together and liberally coat the meat.  I had some rub left over, and applied a second coat right before putting the meat into the smoker. 
2. Start your fire, add your smoking wood, and set up your smoker for indirect cooking with a drip pan under the meat.  Put in the meat, either on a V-rack or directly on the grill.  Insert the probes from your remote thermometer if you are using one, and stabilize your smoker at around 210 degrees Fahrenheit.  Note that putting such a large piece of cold meat into the smoker will cause the temperature to drop.  Make sure you get it stable with the meat in the smoker before going to bed, or the remote alarm will be waking you up later. 
3. Let the pork cook.  If you’re using a ceramic smoker like the BGE, you don’t need to really worry about the meat drying out.  Just leave the lid shut.  On other types of smokers, you may need to baste the meat periodically.  You can either use the vinegar sauce, or another complimentary flavor, such as a 50-50 mix of apple juice and cider vinegar. 
4. Eventually, the internal temperature of the meat will hit a plateau in the 175 to 185 degree range, and will stay there for a while.  If you notice that your pork has done this, you can raise the heat to 250-275 degrees to help it on its way.  Eventually, the temperature will move past the plateau and continue to rise. 
5. At some point during the cooking process, prepare the sauces.  The vinegar sauce is easy - just stir all the ingredients together and put in a plastic squirt container or some other appropriate serving vessel.  For the mustard sauce, mix the ingredients together and simmer in a medium saucepan for about 20 minutes.  This one needs to be served warm, so if you make it ahead of time, reheat it before serving. 
6. When the internal temperature of the meat hits 200 degrees, remove from the heat.  Since this isn’t an exact science, just wrap it in foil until you are ready to eat.  If it’s done really early, wrap the foiled pork in a large towel, and put it in a cooler until you’re ready.  It will stay warm for at least 90 minutes this way. 
7. When you’re ready to serve, use a couple of forks to pull the meat apart with the grain, which should result in piles of string-like pieces of meat.  If you’re going to serve as sandwiches, use a cleaver or chef’s knife to cut the meat into smaller chunks.  Otherwise, just serve on a plate, with the sauces on the side. 

Recipe: Smoked Beef Ribs with Maple Bourbon BBQ Sauce (Guest Post from Fearless Grill)

Recipe Source (Rub):  Karen Putman.  Champion BBQ Secrets for Real Smoked Food. Robert Rose, Inc., Toronto 2006 p. 34

Recipe Source (Sauce):  Nancy Davidson.  Killer Ribs.  becker&meyer!, Seattle 2006.  p. 94-95

Around Christmas-time, I found the book Killer Ribs in my local Borders, and have been craving ribs ever since.  The book highlights ribs from around 50 different BBQ restaurants around the US and Canada, and provides selected recipes from those places. Unfortunately, I’ve been really busy, and with the lovely weather in New England in January, I never had the time or the motivation to dig through the three feet of snow on my deck to get to the smoker.  Unfortunately, this led to some unintended consequences, as I felt compelled to order ribs at several restaurants we went to during that time, and they were pretty unsatisfying.  This just made me want ribs even more. 

Finally on a recent weekend, I had the time to do an all-day cook, and the dog had packed down the snow enough that I was able to get to the smoker.  I went over to the local butcher shop to pick up some ribs, and they had some great looking beef ribs for sale.  I had been planning to make pork spare ribs, but I decided to give these a try.  This meant modifying what I was planning to do with them, since the same flavors don’t really work on pork and beef, and I came up with a combination, using an Onion & Garlic spice rub designed for beef from Karen Putman’s book, and a Maple Bourbon BBQ sauce that originates from Big T’s BBQ & Smokehouse in Calgary, according to Killer Ribs. 

I used the recipes pretty much as written, though the original rub recipe called for carrot powder, which we didn’t have, but the recipe said you could use additional paprika as a substitute, so I did.  Also, the recipe called for sweet Hungarian paprika, but we only had Spanish, so that’s what I used.  Finally, I put in substantially more black pepper than the original called for. For the sauce, I halved the recipe, and I substituted olive oil for the canola oil called for in the recipe, since that’s what we had.  I also upped the pepper in the sauce, and reduced the salt since there is a good amount of salt in the rub.  For two people, I used about 5 pounds of beef ribs, which seems high, but remember that they are mostly bone, and a lot of the fat will render out when cooking.  This was a good amount.  We finished them, and weren’t overly full when we were done. 

Overall, the ribs came out really well.  They weren’t falling off the bone, but that isn’t what I was going for.  They had a nice flavor, with a combination of sweetness from the maple syrup, some spiciness from the rub, and some additional complexity from the Bourbon and smoke.  My only complaint was that the sauce was kind of thin.  It worked fine as a glaze for the ribs during the last hour of cooking, but it made a real mess when more was added to the finished product. 

Beef Ribs with Maple Bourbon BBQ Sauce (Serves 2.  Approx. Cost Per Serving Not Available)

Beef Ribs - 2-2.5 lbs / person

Onion & Garlic Dry Rub:
1 cup packed brown sugar (I used light – the recipe says light or dark is fine)
¼ cup kosher or sea salt
2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon paprika (or 1 teaspoon carrot powder if you can find it)
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon black pepper

Big T’s Maple Bourbon Barbeque Sauce
2 tablespoons butter
1 ½ teaspoons olive oil
One onion, finely diced
Generous 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
3/8 cup molasses
Generous ½ cup real maple syrup
¼ cup Jim Beam White Label bourbon
¾ cups ketchup
Generous ½ cup orange juice
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt

Equipment

• Big Green Egg or other smoker
• Hickory wood chunks or chips for smoking

1. Prepare the ribs by removing the membrane from the bone side.  This is best accomplished by getting a grip on one corner of it with a paper towel, and pulling.  In a couple of spots, I needed to use a butter knife inserted under the membrane to help it along. Removing the membrane is supposed to help the smoke and flavors penetrate the meat, and make the end product more tender. 
2. Apply the rub liberally to both sides of the ribs.  Allow to sit for at least 1-2 hours before putting in the smoker. 
3. Set up your smoker for cooking.  Using my Big Green Egg, I set up for indirect cooking, putting in the plate setter legs up, with a drip pan sitting on the plate setter.  I used hickory wood chunks to add smoke flavor, and brought the temperature up to 225 degrees Fahrenheit. 
4. Smoke the meat at 225 degrees for at least 4 hours, or until the meat noticeably recedes from the bone.   
5. While the meat is cooking, make the sauce.  Sauté the onions in the oil until they’re translucent, then add the vinegar, molasses and maple syrup, stirring till dissolved, followed by the rest of the ingredients.  Stir over medium heat until all ingredients are blended, and bring to a boil.  Then lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. 
6. Smoke the meat for another hour, applying 3 coats of the sauce to the meat side of the ribs, one every 20 minutes.  During the last ½ hour, raise the temperature to 275 degrees to allow the sauce to form a glaze. 
7. Remove from the smoker, allow to rest for a few minutes, and serve with the remaining sauce on the side. 

Recipe: Seafood in Boston Acqua "IPAzza"

Recipe Source: Appleman, Nate and Shelley.  A16: Food and Wine.  Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, 2008 p. 172. 

First, I have to apologize to my readers.  If you're someone who pays attention to the times I post, you'll probably have noticed that my posts have been later this past week.  My husband surprised me with a Distraction this past week - and it really does merit a capital D.  The Distraction is a copy of Sid Meier's Civilization IV, and I've become hopelessly and pathetically addicted.  I've been doing plenty of cooking, but I haven't been writing the recipes up... or cleaning.... or doing laundry... My vow for today is to not actually open up Civ IV at all.  Hopefully I can live up to it. 

Right.  Now on to the food.  This recipe comes from A16: Food and Wine, a book I picked up late last year.  I was really excited about it.  Most Italian cookbooks focus on the food of Tuscany and other more northern regions.  That's great and everything, and there are times I really enjoy that type of Italian food.  However, my family comes from Naples.  Most Italian-Americans I know have more southern roots.  I was really excited to see a cookbook that celebrates the food in "my" part of Italy.  The book does kind of dress up the food a bit compared to the way my family tended to cook, but it's still a very exciting and wonderful book. 

I made changes, as is my wont.  First of all, I halved the recipe.  There are only two of us, after all.  I decreased the amount of olive oil still further, but I increased the amount of garlic.  I left the chile alone, using the full amount despite halving the recipe.  I added jarred jalapenos, because they caught my eye in the fridge.  One tomato from the can fell into the dish so I left it there.  Finally, I substituted squid for the clams.  The clams at a reasonable price only came in two pound bags and I was uncomfortable storing the rest.  The pasta was my addition too, since we hadn't eaten all day.

There's one other change, that definitely alters the taste of the dish and may render it downright un-Italian.  The original recipe called for white wine.  The only white wine I had on hand had really worked out poorly in an earlier dish, which was so bad I didn't even post it.  I certainly wasn't going to use it again.  I used a bottle of Harpoon IPA that I had in the fridge.  While I could make up a bunch of stuff about how this makes the recipe more "local," the fact is it's just what I had on hand.  Since the original dish is called "Acqua Pazza" or "crazy water," I called this IPAzza, which is a very funny pun.  At least it's funny at 3:00 AM, which is when I thought of it.  I should really have more coffee before I write this stuff up...

Seafood in Boston Acqua IPAzza (serves 3; approx. cost per serving not available.)

2 tablespoons capers

1/4 cup small black olives, pitted

1/4 cup sliced jarred jalapenos (the kind they put on nachos)

2 tablespoons olive oil

6 cloves garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper

1 bottle Harpoon IPA

Juice and a small amount of pulp from 1 28-oz can San Marzano tomatoes (I used the actual tomatoes the next night in a different recipe.  Don't worry; no waste this time!)

1 cup water

1 pound squid, roughly chopped

1/2 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined

1/2 pound sea scallops

1/3 box whole wheat spaghetti

Equipment:

• Saute pan or skillet
• Pot for cooking pasta
• Mini-prep miniature food processor
• Colander

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.  When the water boils, break up the spaghetti and add it to the pot.
2. Meanwhile, put the jalapenos, olives and capers into the food processor.  Process to a coarse paste; it's okay if it's a little chunky.
3. Heat the oil in the saute pan over medium heat.
4. Add the garlic and cook about 3 minutes, stirring frequently, until the garlic starts to soften. 
5. Add the Aleppo pepper and the beer.  Cook for a few minutes.
6. Add the tomato juice and cook until reduced by half.
7. Add the caper mixture and the water.  Bring to a simmer. 
8. Add the seafood.  Cook until the seafood is done, but be careful not to overcook.  Halving the scallops if thick will help with this, but it's up to you.
9. Drain the pasta and throw it into the pan with the seafood.  Mix well.
10. Serve.