Hickory-Smoked Beef Brisket

I decided to do a modified version of this recipe from the LA Times. Last night I made a rotisserie chicken and tonight I decided to do a rotisserie version of beef brisket that actually turned out fantastic. The meat was very moist and I put in adjusted cooking times from the LA Times recipe to account for a smaller piece of meat. The recipe that follows works great for a 2-2 1/2 pound brisket. If you want to use a larger piece, follow the LA Times recipe.

For the barbecue sauce, I went with Bandana's BBQ sauce from St. Louis, Missouri. I used their Sweet & Smoky version which went very well with the hickory smoked meat.

Hickory-Smoked Beef Brisket
Serves 4

1/2 tablespoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1 (2 1/2 pound) beef brisket with a layer of fat no thicker than 1/2 -inch

2 bottles of beer

1 cup water

Hickory chips, soaked

1. In a small bowl, combine the salt, pepper, onion powder, cumin and garlic powder. Rub the mix into the brisket and let sit at room temperature, 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, prepare your smoker or grill to cook over low, indirect heat for several hours. Set up a drip pan underneath where the brisket will smoke, and fill with the beer and water. Shortly before cooking, adjust the heat as needed to maintain a temperature around 250 degrees, and add hickory chips to start smoking.

3. Place the brisket on a rotisserie rack and cook for 1 1/2 hours. Set a pan with beer and water mixture below rotating beef making sure the beef dips into the basting sauce. Adjust the heat as needed (add several coals to either side of the grill as needed if using a kettle grill) to maintain the ambient temperature (around 250 degrees); replenish the chips as needed to keep smoking. The rotisserie will baste the brisket keeping it moist.

4. After 1 1/2 hours, wrap the brisket (fat side up) tightly in foil and continue to cook over indirect low heat until the meat is fork-tender, 2 additional hours (time may vary depending on the heat of the smoker and size and thickness of the brisket).

5. Remove the brisket from heat and, still wrapped in foil, cover it with a layer of newspaper and kitchen towels to keep warm. Set aside, covered, for at least 15 minutes before serving.

6. Slice against the grain of the meat and plate. Squirt barbecue sauce over meat and serve an extra portion of sauce on the side.

Rotisserie Chicken in a Cherry Ale Basting Sauce

This recipe requires a rotisserie. Also, I used Cerise Cherry Ale from Grand Rapids, Michigan for the beer which added a nice sweetness to the basting sauce. You can use any beer, I would just avoid stouts or porters as they overpower everything.

I did not make a sauce the night I did this recipe. It is optional.

Our local farmers market
Rotisserie Chicken in a Cherry Ale Basting Sauce
Serves 4

One whole roasting chicken

Basting Sauce
12 oz. beer
12 oz. water
1 stick butter
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
flour

Heat grill rotisserie for 15 minutes on high.

Wash chicken and pat with paper towel to remove water. Cut one tablespoon of butter off stick of butter and place into cavity of chicken. Put chicken on rotisserie rod.

In a pan add beer, water, butter, pepper, salt, and garlic powder. Place chicken on grill rotisserie and place basting pan under chicken so chicken is dipping into the sauce. Cook chicken for 1 1/2 hours on high heat in closed grill.

When done cut chicken into serving pieces. Add about half of the basting sauce to a small sauce pan and heat at medium on stove, bring it to a boil. In a small bowl, add 2 tablespoons of flour and mix with equal part water and blend so there are no lumps of flour, add water as necessary. Reduce basting sauce when at boil and add flour/water mixture and mix. Let it heat so the sauce thickens.

Plate chicken and drizzle sauce over chicken.

Gnocchi with Red Sauce

You can make this recipe without the Italian sausage for a vegetarian version. Also, you can skip the whole oven process and just serve the pasta with the red sauce and pasta finished in a saute pan. If you make it without the oven steps, skip the bread crumbs but still use the mozzarella and parmesan cheese just cook them in the pan with the pasta and sauce until they mozzarella partially, but not fully, melts.

Gnocchi with Red Sauce
Serves 4

1 lb ricotta gnocchi
14 ounces of red sauce*
1/4 lb. italian sausage
1/3 lb. fresh mozzarella balls
1/2 cup of cooked spinach
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons bread crumbs
2 tablespoons parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Heat water for gnocchi to boil, reduce heat to a gentle boil. Add a sprinkle of salt to the water and add gnocchi. Cook according to package directions. For fresh gnocchi, cook for about 2 minutes.

In a pan on medium-high heat, add italian sausage, sprinkle dried basil and oregano over sausage, and break it into smaller chunks with spoon. Cook until done, about 4 mintues. Mix often and set aside once cooked.

Heat olive oil in saucepan on medium heat. Add sliced garlic to pan and let it cook for 1 minute. Add spinach and cook spinach until done. You want to make a 1/2 cup of cook spinach. Set aside once done.

Heat red sauce in pan on medium heat. Reduce heat once it boils to remove boil. Add spinach with garlic and add cooked sausage. Add the balsamic vinegar and cook for 1 minute.

In a dutch oven or oven safe ceramic pan, add cooked gnocchi and red sauce mixture together. Tear mozzarella balls into pieces and mix in with gnocchi and sauce. Mix in parmesan cheese. Sprinkle top of pasta with bread crumbs and drizzle with olive oil to help brown bread crumbs in oven.

Place dutch oven in oven and cook for 15 minutes. Sauce should be bubbling and bread crumbs should be golden brown when finished. Plate with garlic bread or salad. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over pasta.

* For the red sauce , I use Mario Batali's Basic Red Sauce recipe. The most important thing about this recipe is using the right canned whole peeled tomatoes. I highly recommend using ONLY Carmelina 'e San Marzano. I make it according the recipe and freeze about 4 containers with enough sauce for making a pound of pasta. For this recipe you just need 1 container, approximately 14 ounces.

20-Minute Tabbouleh with Chicken

This simple recipe is all prep. In fact, if you don't want to cook a single thing all you have to do is substitute the chicken I use with a store-bought rotisserie chicken. This would leave you with only having to heat a cup of water to a boil, remove from heat and add the bulgar wheat to thicken. Beyond that, all you have to do is chop, chop some more and keep chopping until you finish a few simple dashes of spice and some crumbled feta cheese. Easy.

The best part is that this meal is really, really good. It's the perfect summer meal or dieting meal. There is so little to it that all you have to do is make sure you wrote down all the ingredients before making a trip to the market.

Here is the recipe using boneless-skinless chicken breasts. Like I said above you could substitute the chicken with a rotisserie store-bought and avoid cooking altogether.

Chicken and Feta Tabbouleh
Serves 4

3/4 cup uncooked bulgar
1 cup boiling water
2 cups shredded chicken breast, skinless boneless
1 cup chopped plum tomato
1 cup chopped cucumber
3/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/2 cup (2 oz) crumbled feta cheese
1/3 cup finely chopped green onions
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon bottled minced garlic (or 2 chopped cloves)
1/2 teaspons ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

Place bulgar in a medium bowl; cover with 1 cup of boiling water. Let stand for 15 mintues or until liquid is absorbed.

Slice chicken into bit-sized chunks and saute in a pan with 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat cooking and turning for about 8 mintues. Remove from pan and set aside.

Combine remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Add bulgar to mixture and toss gently to combine. Spoon out mixture on plates and top with chicken.

Mediterranean Turkey Burgers

The idea of a burger made from anything not red kind of repulsed me until today. Sure I’ve had garden burgers, but they always leave something to be desired like, oh I don’t know, animal? Recently, there has been a bit of a movement for turkey burgers as an alternative to beef hamburgers.

It wasn’t until this weekend that my wife found a recipe that looked appealing. Why? Because we both agreed it was a recipe that didn’t try to replicate a traditional burger with bun, ketchup, mustard, lettuce, onion and tomato but was made with ground turkey. Why not just make beef burgers if you are going to do that? Instead this recipe uses pita bread, tzatziki and arugula. It looked refreshing and fit well with a lighter meat.

Mediterranean Turkey Burgers
Serves 4

1 pound ground turkey
1/2 panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
1/4 cup (1 oz) crumbled feta cheese
1 tablespoon minced red onion
2 tablespoons commercial pesto
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 garlic clove, minced

2 cups arugula or mixed greens
4 pitas, toasted and halved

Tzatiki:
1/2 cup plain low-fat Greek yogurt
1/4 cup finely chopped, seeded cucumber
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper

Combine the first 8 ingredients in a bowl; mix until combined. Divide mixture and shape into four patties about 1/2-inch thick.

Mix Tzatiki ingredients by combining all into a small bowl. Set aside.

Heat grill and add patties cooking about 6 minutes on each side until done.

Slice patties and pita bread in half. Stuff pitas with Tzatiki sauce, arugula, and turkey patty. Serve.

Jamaican Chicken Curry

I can hardly believe it's been two months since my last post. It must be a busy summer. Fortunately, this week I decided to catch-up on some cooking magazine reading and ventured into Martha’s Food magazine that has an excellent stew recipe in its May 2009 issue.

The following recipe has some “kick, but just enough to make it intense, yet not insane” as my wife said while we enjoyed a couple plates. Three tablespoons of Indian curry did the trick (the recipe calls for Jamaican curry but I only some hot curry powder from a local Indian market.) Also, I went with organic frozen peas that I think add a nice sweet flavor to the dish. We also spent the morning at the local Farmer’s Market and picked up some great onions, carrots and garlic – all perfect for this recipe. The carrots were like butter.

Jamaican Chicken Curry
Serves 4

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into bite-sized chunks
coarse salt and pepper
1 medium onion, rough chop
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
3 tablespoons curry powder
1/2 teaspoon thyme, dried
4 carrots, bite-sized sliced at an angle
1 can (13.5 oz) coconut milk
1 cup water
1 package (10 oz) frozen peas
Cooked rice for serving

In a large Dutch oven or heavy pot, heat oil over medium-high. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Working in two batches, brown the chicken, 3-4 minutes per side. Transfer to plate.

Reduce heat to medium. Add onion, garlic, cumin, curry, thyme and 1/2 cup water and season with pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion has softened, 3-5 minutes.

Add carrots, frozen peas, coconut milk, 1/2 cup water and chicken with any accumulated juices. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover partially, and cook until chicken is cooked through and carrots are tender, about 10 minutes.

Remove from heat and serve over rice.

Cinco de Mayo Enchiladas

I know it's May 9, but that's because I'm behind writing this. We did enjoy these excellent enchiladas last Tuesday.

I'm including the best way to make these with the two recipes below. Making homemade salsa verde takes this recipe to a 9 out of 10. You can use store-bought salsa verde but that brings the recipe to a 7 out of 10, still good but not amazing.

Swiss Enchiladas
Serves 4

For the sauce
2 cups of Salsa Verde (see recipe below)
1/2 cup heavy cream

12 6-inch Corn Tortillas
1/4 cup canola oil
4 cups of shredded store-bought rotisserie chicken

For the toping
1 cup shredded queso Chihuahua
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/3 cup fresh cilantro

Preheat oven to 375.
Make the sauce: Pour the salsa verde and cream into a saucepan and simmer over low heat.

To soften store-bought tortillas: Heat canola oil in sauté pan on medium-high heat. Place a tortilla in the hot oil and quickly turn to heat both sides, about 10 seconds per tortilla. Put on paper towel to soak up oil.

Fill and roll each tortilla with 1/3 cup of chicken in each tortilla. Rollup and place in 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Keep doing until you fill baking dish.

Pour the salsa verde sauce mixture over the enchiladas. Jiggle the dish so the sauce settles in the between the enchiladas. Sprinkle with cheese evenly over the top. Bake until sauce around edges bubbles and the cheese is golden brown, about 20 minutes. Let it stand for 5 minutes before serving.

Scatter the onions and cilantro over enchiladas. Serve with plenty of sauce on each plate.

Salsa Verde
Makes 2 cups

2 pounds Tomatillos, husked and washed
2 jalapenos
3 small garlic cloves
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 bunch cilantro, thick bottom stems removed, the remainder washed and shaken dry
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon salt, or to taste

Put the tomatillos and jalapenos in a saucepan, pour in enough cold water to barely cover and bring to a boil. Cook for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and let it sit in water for 15 minutes.

Drain the tomatillos and chiles in a colander. Wipe out the saucepan and set aside. Put the tomatillos, jalapenos, garlic and cumin in a food processor. Blend for a few seconds, until tomatillos are coarsely chopped. Add the cilantro and blend until sauce is smooth and speckled with finely chopped cilantro. Do not overblend, make the sauce thick and shiny.

Heat the oil in the saucepan over medium heat. Pour in the salsa, bring to a simmer until lightly thickened, about 10 minutes. Season with salt. Sauce can be refrigerated for 3 days or freeze. Reheat on low heat before using.