Double Smoked Ham

I like ham cause it provides for left overs that are great with breakfast, lunch and dinner. But what do you do when you are having ham (which typically come cold smoked) on a night you fell like bbqing? You smoke it again.....lightly. I treated the ham like most pieces of meat that get smoked. I first scored the top lightly. This was more for presentation as this was a ham roll not a spiral so there was no fat to render off. I then rubbed mustard over the entire ham for a rub of chili, cayenne, garlic, dry mustard, and red pepper flakes to stick to.

It was smoked with one small chunk of apple wood, and not put on until a nice clean burn of blue smoke was coming out of the top vent. I felt this was important as the white smoke may have provided too harsh of a smoke flavour to this pre smoked piece of meat. So waiting for the wood to heat and burn clean is an important step.

After 1 hour of smoking at 275-300 the ham was placed in a pan and glazed with a mixture of honey, apple cider vinegar, red pepper flakes and a pinch of cayenne. Cooked for another 45 mins to 1 hr.

 To make it feel like I was eating with my fiances family who often serve Spiral ham with a cold salads, deviled eggs and perogies. I whipped up a quick potato salad and deviled eggs.

Coarse Spiced Wings

The best thing about bbqing and grilling is it is easy to get creative. Whether it is trying to grill something that you wouldn't normally grill to try and add a little bit of smoke flavour or getting creative with your spices and rubs. But sometimes it is nice to be able to turn to a good bbq recipe book and know that you can follow the layed out steps and end up with something great. That is how I am finding Serious BBQ. The coarse spiced chicken wings have another dimension of flavour compared to normal wings tossed with BBQ and hot sauce.

The wings were tossed in paprika, chili powder, garlic, red pepper flakes and coarsely cracked coriander, black pepper. They were then smoked with hickory and apple wood.

And tossed with a mixture of APL bbq sauce and honey in the last 30 minutes of cooking.

Served with Thirsty Grillers ceasar salad, carrots and a Molson Canadian. A beer I haven't had in years, bringing me back to high school when I drank it more often. The coriander really allowed the wings to have a lot more extra flavour.

Smoking a Salmon

Jenn and I both love smoked salmon that you get in those little tiny 150 g packets from the grocers. The only thing is you pay $10 dollars for so little of salmon I almost feel guilty for buying it. So with my success with smoking a rainbow I thought I'd pick up a large fillet of Salmon from Costco. I don't have a cold smoker so, I had to hot smoke it like the rainbow on my performer. I tried brining the salmon with a wet brine composed of 2 cups water 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup sea salt. Brined for 4-6 hours then rinsed and dried.

Once the flesh was dried the salmon was placed on a sheet of aluminum foil with holes poked in the bottom every few inches. This was just to allow for easy transfers of the fish on and off the grill without tearing it apart. The salmon had a sprinkle of lemon pepper applied to the surface. The grill was heated to 250 degrees with 1/2 a cup of wet Alder chips. It was smoked for about 1.5 hours. A good way to tell when it is done is when you see a lighter pink liquid form on the surface which is a protein that is released while cooking. The fish was excellent, nice smoke flavour that was not over powering and the fish flavour was front and center.

EG's famous Chinese BBQ

I have made this dish a couple times, as a nice alternative to chinese take out and pretty fast. It consists of grilled chicken patties and fried rice. The fried rice is pretty simple. I just dice a carrot, onion, celery stalk, 2 cloves of garlic and shred about 2 cups of cabbage. Fry the vegetables on high heat throwing the cabbage in at the end so that it is still crisp. Then put in about 1 cup of cooked rice and continue frying. Add 1 tbs of sesame oil, 2 tbs of soy sauce and a couple dashes of Sirachi. The nice thing is the ingredients for this are pretty flexible, instead of cabbage bean sprouts could be used, peanuts or water chestnuts could also be added for more texture.

The chicken patties are just as easy. Mix ground chicken, 2 green onions, 1 inch of ginger diced ginger, 2 cloves of garlic. Add some hoisin, soy and an egg and roll into patties or rolls.
For a glaze, mix 1/4 cup of sirachi and hoisin and 2 tbs of honey.

Grill the paddies putting on the glaze in the last 5 minutes of cooking time. Making the patties just big enough so that they can be picked up with chop sticks is the perfect size. Serve with a cold Sleeman Original Draught

I love Lamp...... I mean Lamb (Grilled Lamb Shanks with couscous)

It's been a while since I had lamb. In fact the last time I had lamb was over 6 months ago and on that day I got engaged to my best friend and the love of my life Jenn. We ate at the Sultans Tent in Toronto and I had lamb shanks. But enough of the gushy stuff and back to the lamb that I am about to talk about. I went to Mr. Meat to get a chicken but they had fresh lamb shanks, so I had to get some. I decided to grill them and have them with couscous with carrot, raisins, and dried cranberries in it. The shanks were coated in olive oil and rubbed with salt pepper, dried oregano, thyme and red pepper flakes. Then I wrapped them in foil and added sliced garlic, a splash of water and olive oil. I threw them on the grill on direct heat at 350 degrees for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. I then put switched them to indirect heat and grilled them for another 1 hour 15 minutes.

They were then taken out of the foil and grilled over direct heat and glazed with butter, honey, chili, and lemon juice to until the outside crisped up.

They may not have been as good as Sultans Tent Lamb Shanks but they were pretty darn close.

Honey and Apple Glazed Top Sirloin.....in the snow/rain

Like a lot of hard core grillers, I use my grill all year round. Today was one of those days when most people wouldn't even think about grilling. It was raining when I light the charcoal, but when I came back out to put the cooking grate on it was snowing. It helps that I have a covered porch so I shouldn't be bragging, plus I wouldn't want to get my performer wet if it wasn't (its my baby). The snow shovel was on stand and my pal is looking for dropped food, not so lucky Paris I am a whiz with the tongs. I think I should tell my landlord the mailbox needs a coat of paint.

Steak was on the menu, Adam Perry Lang style. As per usual he builds the flavour by having a moist rub(soy sauce, worchestershire sauce, chili powder) then a dry rub(chili powder, garlic, salt, pepper, lemon pepper) before the meat even hits the grill. Then the meat is grilled and has a glazed applied at the end composed of apple juice, apple cider, honey, garlic, pepper flakes and butter. I used to be a strickly salt and pepper guy on my steak, but man is this technique is flavourful.

Then to build even more flavour you paint the cutting board. What this means is you put a flavour profile on the cutting board, typically, EVOO, salt pepper, an herb, and lemon zest. Then while you cut the meat you dredge it in the sauce on the cutting board.

Had dinner ready just in time to watch hockey, I think the leafs were down by 3-0 by this point though. And no I don't have a flat screen yet, I am waiting till they give them out for free.

German Deli Style Top Tound, AKA Gross Beef.

I am beginning to see that Adam Perry Lang really is the King of BBQ. I smoked a eye of the round on Sunday following a Serious BBQ recipe called German Style Top round. It wasn't like the dried out roast beef you may remember having as a kid.

It was smoked with one chunk of hickory at 250 degrees F till it hit a temperature of 115 then, the temperature was cranked to 350F until the meat reached an internal temperature of 135F.

It was then wrapped in Saran wrap with minced garilic and time to rest to about room temp and then sliced as thinly as possible.

As suggested by APL it was served on rye with with Russian dressing, and with a spinach salad and some sweet potato mash. Come get some!

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Smoking a Rainbow

I probably have fish at least once a week. Typically pan fried, sometimes with a dusting of flour and sometimes with out. It is an easy and fast week day meal. Grilling fish can sometimes be a bit of a pain depending on the type, particularly with it falling apart when it is flipped. That is okay as long as you are having fish tacos or you don't care about the presentation. You can't beat planked salmon when it comes to grilling fish. It doesn't have to be flipped, generally fast and easy with little need to tend to it while it cooks. But I have been buying Rainbow Trout a lot more and I don't want to pay 3 bucks for a cedar plank every time I want a good piece of grilled and smoked flavored fish. So I think I'll start experimenting. The other night I put together a glaze containing honey, lemon juice, Dill, EVOO, shallot, garlic and a BBQ rub and rubed it on a piece of trout. I then set up the performer for indirect cooking at 250 with some apple wood chips and smoked the trout for 40 minutes or so. It tasted great, I didn't have to baby sit the bbq while it was smoking so I could do other things while waiting for dinner like tiring out my hyper dog. I think I have to be careful with a delicate meat such as fish with the smoke concentration for future smoking because I am sure it could get overwhelmed with smoke if you aren't careful. Apple wood works good and the fish turned out great but I think I will get my hands on some Alder chips for next time and give that a go, as it provides a lighter smoke flavour.

Eat Me....I am a Perogie!

Probably my one of my favourite things to eat are perogies. I have it occasionally as a meal in it self with fried onions, bacon, green onion, sour cream and cheddar cheese on top. It is also my go to meal to bring to festivus with the boys. However I always buy them and have never made them. Jenn found a perogie recipe in Canadian living so we decided to make them while she was visiting me in scenic Windsor Ontario. We made two fillings, a sweet potato and a cheddar potato. The dough was just basically flour, oil, salt and egg, pretty simple and turned out great.

A standard pint water glass makes the perfect sized circle for perogies.

Lady fingers fold better perogies than stumpy man fingers, I had the dough all over the outside when trying to roll them up. PS gotta love living in a student apartment with lots of counter space.

They turned out great, the cheddar potato were probably the favourite.  The dough recipe was

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tbs canola oil

Super Sunday

The great thing about football is it gives you an excuse to drink on sundays.......especially if it is Super Sunday. I spent this Super Sunday watching the game by myself(isn't that sad), working till 2:30 then running home to get some ribs on the grill so they would be ready for kickoff. I followed an APL(Adam Perry Lang) recipe and put a little cinnamon in the rub. I don't know if I noticed the cinnamon but the ribs were dynamite. I wrapped the ribs after they smoked for 2 hours. This is something I don't typically do but I think I might have to start because they turned out tender and moist. I had some coleslaw and baked beans with them as well. Beans were an APL recipe as well. They were delish but I think I might have to watch the sugar ingredients for next time because sometimes I find his recipes a little sweet for my taste buds.