September 17, 2005
Southern Style BBQ
Go anywhere is the south and the religion there is BBQ. It is not just a food, it is a lifestyle. You won't find many with your standard BBQ Grill in the yard, and if you do, they have their pre-grill equiptment as well.
Most meat is smoked, to not only add flavour but a great tenderness as well. And smokers are a given in the competition circuits of BBQ. After a little research and some hands on handywork, below is a how to for putting together your own backyard smoker.
MATERIALS NEEDED
Metal garbage can with tight fitting lid
6 thin metal rods
Hammer and awl
3 racks (to fit into garbage can)
1 metal pan (to fit into garbage can)
smoking chips (hickory, mesquite or something similar)
METHOD
Building a backyard smoker is really much simpler than you might think. All you need is the materials listed above and the will to smoke some meat.
To begin, about 3 inches from the bottom of the garbage can, poke holes that will enable you to suspend the metal rods and place a rack on top of them. On this rack will be your fire.
About 4 or 5 inches above this rack, follow the same routine you did with the bottom rack. This rack will hold the second pan filled with liquid.
4 inches above this rack will be your cooking rack. Follow the same procedure and your smoker is ready for use.
Build your fire in a chimney smoker and dump the coals on the bottom grate.
On the second grate, place the metal pan with at least two inches of water or another flavorful liquid like beer or wine.
Put on the top grate and place the food in the center over the water pan. Add your wood chips to the coals or the smoker pan through the door. Cover the smoker. Cook your meat according to recipe and enjoy a taste of Southern hospitality.
Posted by Andrew Webber at 07:54 AM | Comments (0)September 14, 2005
Pepper Roasting Festival - I feel like family
To a passerby, it would look like a typical weekend party - 75 people spilling into the alley from a garage in Little Italy, eating, drinking and having a fine time. But where's all that smoke coming from?
Peek inside the concrete block garage, and you'll discover a buzz of activity as the 7th Peperonata party heats up.
My fried Anthony stands before an enormous brick fireplace in the corner roasting bushels of red, Ontario grown sheppard peppers. He gently lobs each long, waxy pepper into the flames and ashes and turns them with a metal rod attached to a long stick as they blacken.
He drapes each pepper over a bushel basket to cool and steam a bit, then everyone sets to work. With yellow plastic bags on our laps to protect our clothes, we gingerly pick up boiling hot peppers with a clean towel and begin plucking off the black skin, opening up each pepper and sliding the rows of wet, creamy seeds into the basket. The dark red flesh that remains is tossed into a stainless steel bowl.
You think this is busy? In another month, he'll join the rest of his family in roasting and puréeing 25 bushels of plum tomatoes, then filling more than 300 jars of thick red sauce for the next year. This old country ritual is repeated every autumn in Italian backyards throughout the city.
Suddenly, there's a flurry of activity. Anthony appears with an empty, gleaming stainless steel pot, easily 1 metre across. In go the cooked, peeled potato chunks, followed by a landslide of slippery peppers and a blizzard of salt. While a friend empties a litre of olive oil into the pot, she and Anthony attack the vegetables with two giant wooden spoons, breaking up the potatoes and straining as they toss the heavy mass. At last, dinner is ready.
Next up are some amazing recipes with these beautiful peppers!
Posted by Andrew Webber at 07:49 PM | Comments (0)August 26, 2005
A taste of Niagara Falls
Every Father's Day, while my friends and colleagues are waking to half charred breakfasts and horrendous ties, I have the opportunity to spend the day drenching my well trimmed facial hair with the most delicious BBQ sauces on the planet.
June 17th, 18th and 19th Niagara Falls Ontario hosts the Rotary Ribfest. Teams of "Ribbers" from the United States and Canada set up their booths, BBQ and serve up a load of some of the best award winning ribs found on either side of the border. The competition is fierce, these great tasting BBQ Ribs compete to win trophies and top honours each year.
Truly a family event, there is something for everyone - Great barbequed ribs with all the fixings, and some Ribbers even cooking up some great chicken. Music, fun and entertainment and for the kids - a playground with inflated bouncers, a dinosaur themed adventure playground and a giant 24 foot slide.
Regardless of all the family fun stuff, the 3 day fest is all about flavour! 3 days of cruising the beautiful park setting, tasting the most tender and juicy ribs around, while washing it all down with some beverages from the on-site beer tent sounds like the PERFECT Father's Day to me. And the fact that the whole family can come only sweetens the deal.
In the spirit of pork perfection, below is a great rib recipe that will have you loosening that gawd-awful belt the kids guilted you into wearing in no time!
Truly Canadian BBQ Ribs
Now this recipe may be a little more involved and time consuming than others you have tried, but BELIEVE ME it is well worth it.
Ingredients
Dry Rub:
5 tsp Ground Black Peppercorns
5 tsp Sea Salt (coarse)
1/4 cup of Cayenne Pepper
1/4 cup of Cinnamon
Wet Marinade/Baste:
1/2 cup of Brown Sugar
1/4 cup of High Quality Maple Syrup
1/4 cup of Chopped Garlic
1/4 cup of Chopped Onion
1/4 cup of Tim Horton's Black Coffee
First take all your dry rub ingredients and swiftly mix them in a small bowl. Do the same with your wet ingredients, but set those in the fridge for now, covered with cling wrap. Take your pork ribs and apply the dry rub to both sides, making sure to rub until the ingredient colours merge into one. Place them in a wrapping of aluminum foil and leave them in the refridgerator for about 2 hours.
After the ribs have been sitting in all that flavour, take them out as well as your marinade. Place the ribs in a large freezer bag and pour 1/3 of the marinade on top of the meat. Seal the freezer bag, and shake it a few times to ensure all the ribs are covered. Return the marinade to the cool of the fridge, and send the freezer bag full of pork ribs there too. Let them sit for another 3 hrs.
After these perfect pieces of pork have done their time in the box, take them out and prep your grill. Simply open the aluminum foil, dont remove it, we are going to be using it to keep in all the moisture.
You are going to cook these over low heat for about 3 hrs, using the remaining marinade to baste every hour. While the ribs are on their last minutes of grilling, preheat your over to 400 degrees. Remove the ribs from the grill, place them tinfoil and all onto a cookie sheet and drizzle a decent portion of the remaining marinade onto them. Pop them in the oven for about 10 minutes and you are done!
Again, this is a pretty lengthy process just to make some ribs, but these aren't just SOME ribs - these are THE ribs! The coffee and maple syrup give the pork a rich flavour while the cayenne garlic and onion provide serious bite. And that brown sugar keeps the sauce just clinging to the meat perfectly.
Serve this with some grilled pineapple and poast potatoes and you have a meal fit for a pig....I mean king. Yeah, that's it.
August 24, 2005
Turkish Breakfast
Whether at a seaside town overlooking the sparkling Med. or wedged in with the crowd in Istanbul, one thing you can always count on in Turkey is the breakfast. Well that, and drinking lots and lots of apple tea. Turkish breakfast is worlds away from our usual American morning fare, with several fresh, simple components. It also looks and feels like a lot of food when you put it all on a plate, set out a pot of honey with a little silver spoon, and accompany it all with coffee or tea, then sit and enjoy each bite. Give it a try when you’re sick of pancakes and sausage, or just looking for something filling but not heavy. Put these on a plate, and presto—breakfast.
Sliced tomato
Sliced cucumber
Feta cheese
1 hard boiled egg
Olives
Bread (pita or other)
Slather honey on the bread, crumble feta over the cucumbers and tomatoes, sprinkle a little salt on the egg, or eat each delectable morsel with nothing to detract from its flavor. You can go basic, or seek out local honey, real feta blocks, garden-grown tomato and cucumber, premium olives and fresh-baked bread for the most authentic experience.
August 18, 2005
Greek Yogurt
I swoon at the memory of a big bowl of yogurt drizzled with honey. Indulging at a little cafe on a Greek Island probably has something to do with that, but I swear, the yogurt was the best part. You could be thinking, plain yogurt--what's good about that? But if you haven't hopped a plane to Santorini yet, you've to try Greek yogurt yourself. You'll understand.
Greek yogurt's super thick texture is closer to that of cream cheese, but more... spoonable. It makes our American version seem like a soupy container of goo--and I like our yogurt. In an effort to replicate a big fat bowl of Greek goodness, I figured out the trick that turns our regular old yogurt into the Greek goddess of dairy products (except for feta--that's another story).
1.) Get a container of plain yogurt (I use Stonyfield organic); fat free, low fat, or bring on the fat will all make good Greek-style yogurt.
2.) Put a cup or two into a small mesh strainer lined with a coffee filter and put it over a bowl for liquid to drain.
3.) Refrigerate for at least an hour, but about 3 hours is better.
The result is very thick, decadent yogurt. Eat it drizzled with premium honey, walnuts, sliced strawberries, banana, kiwi, any other fruit, or granola.
