Tag Archives: beef

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American Barbecue in a Japanese Grill

Kamado grills, which most Americans know by the Big Green Egg brand, are renowned for rock-solid temperature control, a wide range of cooking intensities, and incredibly barbecue flavor. Costco recently carried the Vision Kamado grill, which is a pretty strong competitor to the Big Green Egg at a great price. I picked one up recently, along with a nice piece of brisket, and took a low-and-slow spin in the backyard.

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My last foray, several years ago, into real barbecue began with a big hole in my parents’ backyard and ended with the less-than-fully-cooked pork shoulder spending some time in the oven. Although ended up tasting great, I was looking forward this time around to having more control over the process than a shovel had given me.

Loosely following the instructions at AmazingRibs, I first dry-rubbed the brisket and let it sit in the fridge overnight. Early the next morning, I filled the fire bowl on my kamado to the brim with natural charcoal, added some hickory chips and lit it up. When the temperature hit 225F, on went the brisket. After about 9 hours (and, more importantly, an internal temperature of 204F), I took the meat off and put it in a cooler that had been warmed slightly, and let it sit for about 90 minutes.

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The meat was a huge hit. A few observations that worked well for me:

  • Some sites (AmazingRibs included) talk about trimming the fat cap and other even suggest it. Don’t trim the fat cap. Brisket is a fairly lean cut, and that fat is delicious in the final product. If you don’t want to eat it, cut it off your own piece, but don’t deny your guests the succulent fat
  • Take advantage of the long rest as you time dinner. The rest period can be anywhere from about 20 minutes to almost 2 hours. Use this time as slack as you prepare the other stuff and pull dinner together.
  • A good thermometer that you can put in the meat is key. This saves you from having to continually open the lid

Check out AmazingRibs for directions and the recipe for the dry rub.

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Carne Asada

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I was having lunch the other day with a friend of mine, and we were trying to figure out what we should make for an upcoming barbeque. We wanted to move away from the standard burgers and dogs into something a little more interesting. He first suggested bone-in filets, which are always great, but I always feel like I can’t get quite the heat needed for a hearty, steakhouse char on my home grill. That’s not a problem for a lot of cuts of meat, but when it comes to filets, I want all the flavor I can get, and a nice sear alongside the bone is a big part of that.

 

I threw out flank steak as an alternative, served either as tacos or on top (or alongside) a Greek salad. His eyes looked at my quizzically — “isn’t that one of the inferior cuts of beef?”.

 

Flank steak, prepared and served like a normal steak, can be a chewy, tough affair. Long, tough fibers and generous marbling make for lots and lots of chewing if the cut isn’t handled the right way. However, those long fibers, and particularly, the beautiful marbling, create one of the most flavorful and delicious cuts of beef if they are marinated, cooked, and, most importantly, cut, the right way. Combined with a nice salad or fresh corn tortillas, flank steak is the perfect summer steak, and one of my favorite ways to cook beef at home. Of course, this is no secret to anyone who has enjoyed a steak taco hot off the grill at a taqueria — carne asada is simply marinated skirt steak (very similar to flank steak) grilled quickly and chopped up.

 

Yesterday I came home about an hour before I wanted to serve dinner with a 1.5lb piece of skirt steak in hand. The marinade is key, and I hoped that I could get good flavor in such a short time. Working off a mental list of my favorite things in a skirt steak marinade, I combined chopped fresh rosemary, chopped fresh garlic, soy sauce, lime juice, fresh black pepper, olive oil, and salt in a ziplock bag. I mixed it all up, added the steak, and pressed all of the air out of the bag. Since the meat was cold, I left the bag out on the counter for 45 minutes to bring it to optimum grilling temperature (room temperature) as well as more quickly infuse the marinade.

 

I then turned the grill up as high as it would go, and laid the steak across the grates. After roughly 4 minutes, I flipped the strip of delicious meat, and gave it another 4-5 minutes until the poke test felt like the meat was roughly medium-rare. Of course, you could also use a thermometer or even cut into the meat to determine if it’s cooked to your liking — although try to cut as little as possible, as cutting meat hot off the grill will cause juices to run out.

 

After a 10 minute rest of the cutting board, I cut the meat into strips against the grain. You can tell which way the grain is by looking closely at the surface of the meat and determining which direction the fibers are running. On skirt steak, the fibers run perpendicular to the length of the meat, so your cuts are going to be in the same direction as the long side of the meat. Once the meat is in strips, cut into smaller pieces for tacos or leave in strips for salad, and enjoy! For me, about 1/4 of the strips end up in my stomach right from the cutting board, but your mileage may vary.
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Beef Tenderloin Stuffed with Roasted Red Peppers, Goat Cheese, Basil and Spinach

Yesterday was my mom’s birthday, so I wanted to cook something a bit nicer than usual. Many years back, my dad made a beef tenderloin from a recipe in Bon Appetit (at least he says that’s where it was from — I found no record of said recipe on the internet). It was spectacular — buttery soft tenderloin with the earthy sweetness of red peppers and the tang of goat cheese. I’ve asked him a few times since to make it, but to no avail — it is quite a bit of work, so not necessarily an everyday recipe.

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I’ve never made a tenderloin before, and I did find myself intimidated — as far as meat comes, tenderloin is pretty expensive and relatively unforgiving. Cut it wrong, and it will be very difficult to stuff properly. Overcook it, and there is very little buttery fat to hide the sin. After unwrapping the package I got from my local butcher, I stared down at it for a good three or four minutes, trying to figure out how I was going to butterfly it. The tough part is the thicker end, where the loin is basically two pieces, so one cut won’t butterfly both.
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I ultimately opted to give each part its own cut and stuffing (although I left them connected). The next step was stuffing it with the red peppers, basil and goat cheese mixture. Layering these ingredients over the butterflied meat (which I also pounded to about 3/4″ thin) was easy — tying it all up, however, was more of a challenge. The thing that really saved me was the butcher’s knot, which I had come across earlier that day as I investigated the best way to tie up a roast. A butcher’s knot is designed to allow the cook to cinch tighter by simply sliding the knot up the string.
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I cooked it to a beautiful medium rare, and served it with bay-scented domino potatoes and garlic sauteed green beans.

 

Recipe:

 

[If you look at the recipe — I made the port wine sauce, but ended up not serving it. The sauce recipe as it stands was too tomato-y for me, so if you make it, I would suggest starting with only a spoonful of tomato paste, and adding more as you see fit.]