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Outside the dugout: What's cooking?

Discussion in 'Diamond Gators' started by GatorLurker, Jul 28, 2016.

  1. Dinogator

    Dinogator Freshman

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    WSM busy today. Home made Pastrami, smoked chuck roll and beer can chicken to celebrate the new year. 2017 was the best of times/ the worst of times kinda of year. Kudos to baseball (first), track and tennis ncaa titles and we won't discuss football. Here is looking at 2018. Happy New year!
     
  2. gatorfan5220

    gatorfan5220 VIP Member

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    Home made pastrami?

    Recipe please!
     
  3. GatorLurker

    GatorLurker GC Hall of Fame

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    You are probably thinking about a beef pastrami that uses a beef brisket. It is not so hard to do, but takes a lot of time for the brining. You can google some decent recipes. You probably won't save that much money with a DIY, but you will get the satisfaction of doing it yourself and if you keep at it you can fine tune it to taste exactly the way you want it.

    Someday I will try and go very old school and make some goose based pastrami. I bet that is a delight and not readily available.
     
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  4. GatorLurker

    GatorLurker GC Hall of Fame

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    Making green (tomatillo based) pozole with chicken thighs tonight. Good hearty stuff for a cold and wet day.
     
  5. 74nole

    74nole GC Hall of Fame

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    Jan and I have been fighting the full-fledged crud since Christmas--ugh...

    Cooking's been homemade soups...

    Tonight is breakfast--Ham & Cheese omelets, grits, and home made biscuits.
     
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  6. gatorjjh

    gatorjjh A Gator with a Glass half full attitude Moderator VIP Member

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    chilly here in Irvine so more time to cook, made Pecan Chicken and a nice risotto for dinner, not a lot of left overs :)
     
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  7. GatorLurker

    GatorLurker GC Hall of Fame

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    A few days ago I needed one celery stalk for my yellow rice pilaf so I had a lot left over.

    Today I made celery soup (celery, onion, Yukon Gold potatoes, butter, chicken stock, dill, and cream) and have a beer can chicken on the grill. Also the remnants of the yellow rice pilaf.

    Tomorrow is 2" thick rib-eyes that we got as a Christmas present. We froze them and then thawed two of them yesterday. We got four huge steaks and each one could easily feed two persons.

    I don't usually cook steaks so thick and I don't like them very rare and prefer medium rare. So it will be a low and slow first stage with lots of flipping to get the internal temperature up and then a fast and furious second stage on high heat to get a good char on the outside. I figure that a salt rub about 40 minutes ahead of time is also in order. I find that seals the juices in pretty well.
     
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  8. 74nole

    74nole GC Hall of Fame

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    One of my "soups" was a pot of chili--

    Tonight it's chili cheese dogs, something we can actually taste!
     
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  9. GatorLurker

    GatorLurker GC Hall of Fame

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    Heal up!
     
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  10. 74nole

    74nole GC Hall of Fame

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    The headache is down to a mild roar, and I've got some of my taste buds back, so--

    Grilling 3/4" thick bone-in pork chops, last two turns I'll candy Pat's HoMade BBQ sauce on both sides.

    Black-eyed peas & onions with fresh steamed cabbage along with AuGratin potatoes to go with.

    Ice cold longnecks while I'm cooking and a tumbler of good cough medicine after the meal. Tonight that will be Evan Williams Single Barrel standing in as cough medicine.;)
     
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  11. gatorjjh

    gatorjjh A Gator with a Glass half full attitude Moderator VIP Member

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    here we finished off the pecan chicken and risotto, not bad for leftovers :
     
  12. 74nole

    74nole GC Hall of Fame

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    I'm betting there were no complaints there!
     
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  13. GatorLurker

    GatorLurker GC Hall of Fame

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    Steaks are almost done.
     
  14. GatorLurker

    GatorLurker GC Hall of Fame

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    Steaks done!

    OMG! They are perfect.
     
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  15. gatorjjh

    gatorjjh A Gator with a Glass half full attitude Moderator VIP Member

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    not a one :)
    now, on to doing the dishes :(
     
  16. gatorfan5220

    gatorfan5220 VIP Member

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    Tell me how you, from scratch, prepare a steak.

    Had a cook from a local steak house show me the three finger method for determining how rare...or well done a steak was, interesting.
     
  17. GatorLurker

    GatorLurker GC Hall of Fame

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    Dinner was late, but nice for a winter's day. It was a pork loin roast roasted with red cabbage, carrots, onion, caraway seed, garlic, beer, molasses, and beef stock. Also made oven roasted redskin potatoes with butter, lemon juice and zest, garlic, and rosemary.

    And left over pork roast for escarole soup early this week. Yum.
     
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  18. GatorLurker

    GatorLurker GC Hall of Fame

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    There are so many ways to do this.

    First of all it varies greatly with thickness. I won't go into excruciating detail, but I will hit the main points. For a thinner steak I don't want to bring it to room temperature first. I prefer it to be at refrigerator temperature. There is some engineering going on here. When cooking a steak the inner meat has to come up to the required temperature for how well you want the steak "done": rare to well done. One must also get the outer layer up to a high enough temperature to kill any bacteria. I find this easiest to do with thin steaks that go on cold by just getting the outer layer hot enough. A few minutes of resting before serving seems to get the internal temperature high enough for my taste (medium rare).

    But this does not work with really thick steaks. If you put them on a medium high grill cold, by the time the outer part is cooked properly the inner part is still cold and raw. Here for 1" thick or so steaks I first bring them to room temperature and grill a little hot. That seems to work well. I am just now experimenting with really thick steaks because I got some for Christmas. Bringing them to room temperature first, then cooking on a low to medium flame slowly with lots of flipping followed by a few minutes of high heat worked like a charm.

    As for surface prep that all depends. On a really thick steak I will give it a light salt rub to dessiccate and seal the outer surface because the cooking time is longer and I don't want too many juices to leak out. Sometimes I rub a slight amount of sugar on the surface as it gives a nice carmelization crunch. Sometimes I prepare a cream cheese, shallot, serrano pepper, rice wine vinegar topping. Sometimes I marinade for an hour or so with olive oil and flat leaf parsley. There are lots of different ways to surface prep and they are all good.
     
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  19. 74nole

    74nole GC Hall of Fame

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    As usual Lurk is spot on and giving you several options, all good ones.

    When I grill steak it's going to be ribeye (boneless or bone-in) or Porterhouse--I have them cut 1 1/2" thick.

    I take a BBQ brush and lightly coat each side with olive oil (it gives a great base for your seasoning to stick to and provides for a great sear). I season with coarse salt and coarse black pepper.

    I grill on charcoal so I use the Weber chimney to light my charcoal in. When my charcoal is orange/black on top I take one of my grill grates and sit it on top of the chimney. I lay my steak on the grill grate and sear each side for 1:30 minutes.

    When I move steaks to the grill I cook on my watch, turning them every 5 minutes. We like'em medium rare here.
    Actual grilling time can vary as every charcoal fire has it's own personality.
     
  20. 74nole

    74nole GC Hall of Fame

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    Alan gave us a "Lodge" enamel porcelain enamel on cast iron 7 Qt Dutch Oven for Christmas.

    We broke it in last night making a boneless chuck roast beef stew with vidalia onions, potatoes, carrots, and celery hearts. It cooked great. I did fry cornbread to go with.

    Tonight I'm grilling wings with the typical cold tray vegs for the Dawgs/Tide scrimmage.:)
     
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