BBQ Beef - a retrospect

Well, it's that time of year again, we have had a run of dry weather so time to get a BBQing!

A little earlier than last two years this time, as my first official BBQ of the year was 9th April, and its been good to get back on it.

It's actually been a busy old time cooking, as usual, but not much new to update here, so this is really just a recap of what I have been up to.

The BBQs have both mainly been beef short ribs, as they are really my favourite bbq, both times combined with baby back ribs. The baby back ribs have been cooked well both times, but the rub on the second outing wasn't quite as good so I didn't enjoy them as much. The first beef ribs were individuals and came out really well, but the second attempt of doing a full rack of ribs didn't come out as well, and were a little over cooked - second outing I upped the temperature to 275F, as I had read several people cooking at a higher temperature with no real difference in the results, but in the end, the outer section of the ribs were a bit tougher and over cooked, which is a shame.

Pork belly burnt ends:

The first BBQ of the year:

I have also been busy baking sweet things, including home made bourbon creams, easter inspired brownies and passion fruit sponge cake..

Latest fad #47 : Burgers

Yep. Time for another random fad.  This one is not entirely my fault though, as I did receive a cook book entirely about making burgers at Christmas (a very aesthetically pleasing and readable one at that), so it's to be expected that I give it a try at some point.

There seemed to be quite a craze about home made burgers a few years back. I'm not sure if it was actually a national thing, or just a craze when I was younger/a student that students go through. Anyways, the craze back then was for non-burger burgers. By which I mean, they never actually resembled burgers you might be in a restaurant or burger place. They were typically big oval-ish balls of supermarket mincemeat with, at the very least, chopped onions, eggs and flour added, often lots of other things (herbs, cheese, etc).

Now I have nothing against this brand of home-made burgers, but really, as my tastes (and I suppose my understanding) has evolved, I am more inclined to make burger-burgers. The type that burger joints make, the type that I guess you could say burger-snobs prefer (if you can truly be a snob about something as dirty as a burger?).

There are lots of these burger purists about, on the internet, or in the aforementioned Hamburger Gourmet book, who focus on three things:

1. The only ingredients in your patties should be: beef & salt
2. Everyone has their own "secret" blend of three beef cuts that they use (for some reason, three is the magic number). Kenji over at the FoodLab has a great run down of different beef cuts for burgers along with tasting notes and fat content.
3. Cooking technique is very important - They need to be seared at a high temperature (for the maillard reaction and to hold the patty together)

So I decided to have a pop. Due to a fairly limited choice at my local Waitrose meat counter, and on the basis that I was just testing out the technique, on Kenji's recommendation, I went with the standard chuck mince (no blend here!), which is more commonly braising steak in the UK.

I found it took quite a while to get my pan up to a high enough temperature to effectively sear the patties, I pre-heat for about 10 minutes but still didn't seem as hot as it should be. I will try a different pan next time.  Applying pressure whilst cooking also helps sear quicker (and also helps for a more "smashed" effect burger)

In the end, it tasted pretty good. The problem I have with burgers, is that for all the effort, they just taste like burgers. Now this isn't a bad thing, they are satisfying, warm, soft and definitely fill a need, but they rarely blow you away. Great burgers are great, but run of the mill burgers from half-decent fast food burger places can taste pretty great too..  For me, the magic really lies in the combination of cheese, relish (maybe mustard) and meat wrapped in soft bread soaking up the juices.  So for all the effort you put in, I'm not sure you really a proportional increase in return on your effort.

That said, its actually pretty low effort required, so I will do it again soon. Who knows, maybe this weekend..

Beef rib casserole

Having discovered the value of beef short ribs, whilst shopping for the weekend roast I took the opportunity to grab some more from the supermarket meat counter.  The meat is cheap and its marbling makes it fantastic for slow cooking - this dish took less than 10 minutes prep time and then sat in the oven all afternoon and turned out pretty great.

(If anyone can teach me how to take a good photo of what is essentially a mush of vegetable casserole and a lump of meat then please do!)

If I'm honest, it was a fairly random, BBQ inspired casserole, whilst distinctly trying not to taste like BBQ.  What I mean is, the ingredients are really just a combination of my usual BBQ ratatouille and short beef ribs, but no BBQ rubs/spices/flavours.  As you would expect with the level of marbling in the meat, after slow cooking the meat fell off the bone and was incredibly soft - I could literally cut the meat with a spoon.

Ingredients

• 1 beef short rib (just under 500g, served two people)
• 1 tablespoon of mustard
• 1 tablespoon of tomato puree
• 250ml stock (vegetable/beef/whatever)
• 1 onion
• 1 aubergine
• 1 courgette
• 1 clove of garlic
• butter for cooking onions
• salt and pepper for seasoning
• 400gram tin of chopped tomatoes

Method

1.  Chop the onion and garlic and cook over a medium heat in the butter, untill soft (5 mins or so)
   
   
2. Whilst the onions are cooking, chop the aubergine and set aside (on a plate/kitchen towel etc) and salt liberally - this is just to draw out the moisture and bitterness - we will wash this off later
   
   
3. Next chop up the courgette
   
   
4. Once the onions are soft, stir in the tomato puree and mustard and cook for another minute or two
   
   
5. Now quickly throw the rib into the pan and brown it
   
   
6. Wash the aubergines in cold water, layer them in the bottom of a casserole dish and then sit the rib(s) on top
   
   
7. add the chopped tomatoes to the pan with the onions etc, mix through to de-glaze the pan, then pour the tomato mix over the rib in the casserole dish
   
   
8. Cover and cook in the oven at 140 degrees for 4 hours or so, serve with mash, crusty bread, or whatever!

BBQ beef short ribs

We recently celebrated older boy's birthday, and as part of celebrations we had both sets of grandparents over for another BBQ.  Once again, another opportunity to experiment, so this time I included beef short ribs - I'm not sure that I had ever tried beef ribs before, but having heard some good things I thought they could be good. The meat is great value - Waitrose sells it on their fresh meat counter at just under £7 a kilo, and you get a lot more meat on the rib than you do with normal pork ribs.


I followed a fairly simple, time-honoured BBQ pattern - dry-rub + slow cooking. The dry-rub wasn't anything special, just a few simple spices, but it worked well.

Ingredients

• American style yellow mustard (probably a tablespoon or two, but its just got to be enough to coat the ribs)
• 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
• 1 tablespoon chilli powder
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon coarse salt (sea salt or something similar)
• 2-3 short beef ribs (obviously cook more if you want more! but you might need more dry rub if you do)
• salt and pepper 

Method

1. Mix the sugar & spices in a bowl until combined
   
   
2. Coat the ribs in the yellow mustard, it doesn't have to be thick, just make sure it is coated evenly across
   
   
3. apply the dry rub to the ribs - rub/pat to apply evenly
   
   
4. I cheated the slow cooking, by pre-cooking them in the oven - I popped them in the oven at 110 degrees centigrade, for about 3 hours or so.  I sat the ribs on a rack sitting in the roasting tray, adding water to the roasting tray (not so much that it touches the meat) and then place a foil tent over the top of the ribs
   
   
5. When I was then BBQ-ing, I moved the ribs to the cooler side of the grill (indirect heat) and cooked them there with the rest of the food for about an hour or so (I had smoking chips on the BBQ too)

Recipe: Slow cooked smokey chilli

My parents came to visit again this last weekend, which once again provided the opportunity/necessity to cook something nice, whilst not spending too much time locked away in the kitchen. So no surprises, I once again turned to slow cooking with my trusty casserole dish.

The weekend before, The Guardian had featured in their food pullout a piece on the top 10 chili recipes - as it happens they were almost all non chili-con-carne recipes, and mostly jams and stuff. Anyhow, it put chili in my head, so eventually the subliminal messaging came out when I cooked.

I made chili-con-carne lots of times whilst I was a student, and younger, but it was never much to it - some mince beef, chili powder, cumin and tomatoes - quick, cheap and easy.  But this time I decided that there are probably a lot more satisfying chili's to be had.  As always, I wanted it to be rich, but I also decided I wanted a really smokey flavor, invoking images of slow cooked chili on damp fire coals.  So I set about reading.  I had an idea for some things that could go in (chili powder, cumin, cayenne pepper, oregano) but decided to do some research, and ended up whittling away quite some time reading lots of them, noting the bits that I liked or thought might work - as you might expect, recipes for great chili are quite divided! Pork or beef or both? mince or steaks? tomatoes or not?  I was originally planning on using liquid smoke to provide the smokey flavour, but didn't get a chance to pick any up, so have used smoked paprika instead.

Anyway, from my scribbled notes, and what I then didn't forget to buy from the supermarket, here is the recipe..

Ingredients

Serves about 4-5 people 

• 1 medium onion chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic chopped/minced
• 400g mince pork
• 400g mince beef
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree
• 2 400g tins of tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
• 3 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional - and adjust to taste)
• 1 large red Romano pepper
• a knob of butter

Method

Preheat fan oven to about 130 degrees

1. Chop the onions, throw them in the casserole dish with the butter and cook over a gentle heat until translucent and soft
   
   
2. Throw in the garlic and cook for a few more minutes
   
   
3. Add the pork and beef - continue to cook until browned
   
   
4. Stir in the tomato puree - cook for a further few minutes
   
   
5. Mix in the sugar and herbs/spices
   
   
6. Mix in the tinned tomatoes and the chopped red pepper
   
   
7. Fill up one of the empty tomato tins with cold water and mix that in
   
   
8. Cover and stick in the oven - cook for anything from 2-6 hours!(this can be adjusted to your schedule)  Stirring occasionally - if it gets too thick then add a bit more cold water, if it isn't reducing fast enough then turn up the oven (slow cooking is very forgiving - nothing happens too fast and its unlikely this will get over cooked)

I served with lime-cilantro rice (rice with fresh lime and chopped corriander) and easily went to 5 people.

Recipe: Slow cooked ragu

Not much creativity this week I'm afraid, and if you have tried/read the slow cooked beef recipe then you will notice quite a few similarities between the two.  The end result is quite different, but both share the rich, sticky reduced quality of slow cooking, possibly this one even more so on account of the addition of tomatoes to the recipe.

Before hitting the shops yesterday, I was planning to use diced lamb - partly for the flavour, but also because I was planning on flaking/forking the meat after slow cooking so it would disperse in the sauce more. But no joy - they didn't have diced lamb in the supermarket (elder boy was with me, so couldn't pop to the other shop as he was getting bored by this point).  I was also planning to serve with pappardelle  but was also out of luck on that front, so went with fresh tagliatelle (but can be served with anything really!)

Ingredients

• 500g diced beef (or lamb)
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes (400g)
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree
• 2 carrots
• 1 red onion
• flour
• 1 stick of celery
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 100ml red wine 
• parmesan (optional)
• a splash of cream/milk
• salt & pepper for seasoning

Method

Open meat and salt generously before hand. Preheat oven to about 150 degrees.

1. heat the butter in a pan, add the chopped onion, carrot and celery. As before, slowly cook those over a medium-high heat until soft and slightly browned
   
   
2. Add the beef to the pan and brown. Then remove meat (I just stick the meat in the casserole dish for later)
   
   
3. Add the tomato puree, oregano to the pan and cook for a minute or so. The oregano and tomato puree will have made the vegetable base fairly thick already, but sprinkle a little flour to really bring it all together
   
   
4. Add the tinned tomatos, 200ml cold water & red wine to the pan and reduce until it starts to thicken (probably around 5-10mins
   
   
5. Pour the tomato sauce base into the casserole dish (assuming your beef is already in there), and stir through. Then top up with boiling water, so all the meat is submerged
   
   
6. Cover the dish and cook in the oven for 3-4 hours, stirring every hour or so.
   
   
7. By about three hours it will probably be reduced to a fairly thick, tomato goo (in a good way) - if it is reduced too soon, then just top up with boiling water from the kettle.
   
   
8. Add a handful of grated parmesan (if using) and then add a splash of cream/milk - this will just bind the sauce together and off set the acidity/decadence of the tomato/wine sauce!
   
   
9. Serve and eat. With more cheese probably. And bread. And Pasta. Whatever..

Recipe: Slow cooked beef casserole

We had my parents come to visit on the weekend, which inevitably means an opportunity to cook something different.  It was all fairly last minute, and it wasn't really an opportunity to spend several hours in the kitchen (that would have been pretty rude!) - but it was an opportunity to make something different.

Having popped down to the new Waitrose that had just opened (also very exciting in itself) just before they arrived, we picked up some food and I opted for a simple slow cooked beef casserole.  As I have mentioned before, my preference is for richer, indulgent, stick-to-your-ribs type food, especially in the colder months, so this seemed good.

I was so busy concentrating on ingredients, I forgot to photograph the food until it was all eaten.

It's really simple, and something that I had created once before. Well, more-or-less anyway. I don't really remember what I put into things in detail - so this time, with the blog in mind I made sure to try and guess-timate the amounts I was putting in of everything. That said, if you are just cooking for yourself at home, then it probably doesn't make much difference, you can swap ingredients/quantities based on what you have. Most of my recipes will be based on availability!


Anyways, on with the food..

Ingredients

• 2 Large leeks (as usual, interchangeable with onions if you don't have leeks. But I prefer leeks), chopped
• 2-3 large carrots, chopped
• 2-3 tablespoons of unsalted butted
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree
• 1 tablespoon mustard
• 1 beef stock cube
• 800g braising steak (or whatever casserole meat)
• 1-2 tablespoons flour
• 3 bay leaves
• salt & pepper for seasoning

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees

1. Get your meat out of the fridge, open packaging and season with salt and pepper.
   
2. In a large pan (I used a large heavy based frying pan, but you can do this directly in your casserole dish if you want to cut down on washing up) melt the butter, then over a medium heat throw in the carrots and leeks.  Cook these for a while until they are soft and browning. To borrow from Nigel Slater, these will be the savoury base of the meal, so if you can, take your time with this.  Apart from anything, slowly cooking leeks in butter over a medium-high heat smells awesome.
   
3. Add the tomato puree and mustard to the leeks & carrots and stir in well, and cook for a minute or so
   
4. Add the meat to the pan and cook until lightly brown/sealed. Once meat is cooked sprinkle over the flour and mix - this will make sure we get all the juices/butter/fat/flavour from the dish
   
5. Transfer everything so far to the casserole dish - pour over the made up beef stock. Then top up the dish with boiling water so that all the meat is covered. Stir and throw in the bay leaves
   
6. Cook covered in the oven for a few hours - the oven will do the hard work for you here, and the sauce will reduce to a rich, sticky sauce. The longer and slower you cook it, the better (the meat will be softer for it), but if you don't have long, keep an eye on how it is reducing, and then try uncovering slightly for the last 30mins cooking time to speed up that bit.

Serve with anything really, bread, mash, vegetables..


(I'll try and get some photos next time, I promise)