Pork Chops Grilled and Drunken

Pork Chops Grilled and Drunken

moist inside, crusted outside

6 medium cut pork chops, bone in

2 cups spiced rum

3 tablespoons brown sugar, light or dark

1 table spoon kosher salt

1/8 teaspoon ground, dry, smoked hot peppers

The chops are covered in rum and left in the refrigerator 3 days

Chops are removed and rubbed with the mixture of sugar, salt and hot pepper.

The rum marinade has the remainder of the rub added and it is reduced on low heat

Setting up the grill

Start the hardwood charcoal in a charcoal chimney

allow all the charcoal started and add to the base of the grill with your favorite wood (Apple is best)

allow the grill to become hot (there may be some fire from the wood

place the chops and get grill marks on one side

turn and close the top of the grill, this produces smoke

continue cooking for 20 minutes

remove and serve

Food Network Cooking and my grilled salmon

I love to watch the food network, i get some good ideas,
but in all of the shows, the ingredients (Yes, even the left over or discard episodes of chopped) use expensive, high quality products.
Of course with the time restraints in the competition, it might be necessary, but a cooks true talent is making something tasty from cheep ingredients.
I regularly purchase cheep ingredients and CREATE!
Some always talk of fresh food, but i buy my use the next day meat and freeze it and there are advantages.
On the molecular level, freezing pops open cell membranes making flavors easier to be lost, but also allowing flavors you want to add to penetrate.
An example is my grilled salmon, purchased and always frozen and allowed to thaw in a marinade of orange juice, smoked salt, crushed, smoked hot pepper and paprika and i do this overnight in the refrigerator.
The flavor simply does not penetrate if i use fresh fish.
One of the complaints i have heard about fish on a grill or smoker, is that it is dry.
Guess what?  Not what i cook.
The manner i grill it imparts a smoked flavor, but because it is quick and a high heat, i consider it a grill method.
On a grill with the charcoal just white hot and i add my smoking wood that is NOT wet (usually apple, cherry or maple) and the temperature is about 300 F
I Skin side down!.
Close the cover for 10 minutes.
Smoke billows out.
Open the cover and the flames begin for 3 to 5 minutes and remove, by the way, the fish removes easily from the grill when it is done perfectly.
The skin is crispy, the salmon a PERFECT medium rare.
I have usually reduced marinade as a sauce for any one who wants (and you do want, it is good).
This works well with any salmon on sale and i do NOT pay more than $6 a pound.
My half a salmon will easily feed 6 with seconds (which always happens).

Smoking a chuck roast beef

Everyone who has a bit of knowledge about me, knows i enjoy cooking low and slow and if possible with smoke!
The hot days made me not want to cook inside so my/smoker/ grill was active, but chuck roast beef?
This is not a brisket and does not have much fat, so cooking it for 24 hours like i do a brisket would render it tough and inedible.
So my goal was a temperature internally of about 145 F - medium rare which means a higher temperature for a shorter length of time.
I wanted the flavor to be a bit traditional, so my normal beef rubs were not employed.

The rub for a 3.25 lb chuck roast of beef:
1 part salt
2 parts black pepper
1/4 part white, refined sugar.
Patted on the meat and left for a minimum of 6 hours.

The set up for the grill/smoker (which after 4 years of hard use is beginning to rust out):
a square of my wood of choice (Cherry in this case) with a hollow in the middle.
Hardwood charcoal (commercial brand).
I start the charcoal using one of those hand held starter which have paper as the starting material and the charcoal above.
Since my grill is 2 tiered, i covered the second tier with tinfoil to provide indirect heat and had a large pan of water on the first to provide moisture and still another direct heat barrier.
Add the charcoal to the center of my square and let the wood begin to catch fire.
Place the beef on the top rack with the water between it and the fire and close the grill.
I set my temperature to about 300 F (this is done by maneuvering the air intake and chimney closures in a way that i have become fairly good at).
Then i walk away only checking to insure the temperature remains at 300 F.
Large amounts of smoke are produced and the heat remains constant.
i come back in 1 and 1/2 hours to check the internal temperature of the meat...148 F
The meat is immediately removed and let rest for 20 to 30 minutes before cutting...
Perfect!

A weekend of cooking

Of course memorial day is a somber holiday,
saluting those who have given their lives in wars we have been involved in,
but it also marks the beginning of Summer and outdoor grilling (where it is not raining) is a must.
While i did a significant portion of grilling and slow smoking, Hamburgers and a Korean style short rib,
there was a major request, nay an insistence that i bring my Greek inspired Tapenade.
Not cooked, not grilled and served with crusty slices of a french baguette, here is what does it:

Tapenade

20 oz jar of pitted Kalmata olives with half the juice, minced
6 oz of black olives, drained and minced
1 tablespoon apple Cider vinegar
1 clove garlic, minced fine
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
8 oz Tomato and basil feta, crumbles
4 oz plain feta, crumbled

1 tablespoon fresh basil, minced fine

Mix, add more olive liquid to the desired consistency

half is usually good, depending on if the feta cheese is drier or wetter.

salt to taste many times not needed

let sit in the refrigerator and serve cold with crusty bread!

Rubs and seasonings

those who eat my food, know i love rubs.
This especially true for my slow cooked smoked creations, but i also use them on a hot grilled item!

So what do you want to grill quickly?
Rib Eye Steak, Hamburger, pork chops!
For steak and hamburger, i use the same mixture:
Salt, paprika, ground dried smoked peppers (i use a mixture of jalapenos, habaneros and the long green, or red chili pepper) and black pepper.
The ratio is almost 1:1, except that i skimp slightly on the dry smoked chili mixture so not to make it too hot.
All coats the meat evenly before it goes on the grill.
A quick sear on both sides on a hot grill so the inside is just medium rare (okay i do mine rare, yes even the hamburger, but i make it with either my own beef that i ground or one from a store that they ground)
Never use pre-made patties because:
1) the patty is too thin and will overcook
2) is the source of most E coli outbreaks because they are made at the packing plant
The hamburger mixture is 85% meat-15% fat.
to get a "juice factor" you can use 80% lean-20% fat, but why?  The extra fat might cause flare-ups, never a good thing.
Now if you can get it - use grass fed, organic, Angus...i recently purchased some at a favorite store (Trader Joe's) and i am hooked, but have done well with the regular hamburger.
Hot coals (with wood, always have some wood flavor)on half the grill and the other half coolish and you want to avoid flare-ups, they ruin the flavor.
If you start to have a flare-up, move your meat to the cool side of the grill until the flame is gone.

What about those pork chops i talked about?
I use a slightly different rub, similar to all the other pork rubs, but i reduce the sugar significantly.

what i normally use ratio:

3 orange zest - eliminate for quick grilling burned orange is bitter

6 raw sugar - reduce to 2

1 garlic powder - eliminate for grilling burned garlic is bitter

6 paprika

1 1/2 annote powder

6 salt

1 1/2 dry hot pepper - use the smoked pepper mixture and increase to 3

3 ginger - fresh ginger is desirable, but dry works

2 cumin - cumin is eliminated - taste bitter burned
Pork is a bit more complex and the chops should be then so the grilling is quick!

topping always make a burger, the others stand alone.
Burger toppings:
grilled jalapenos, chard, grilling onions - i like a fresh one as well.
Ice burger lettuce, red ripe tomato...i use mayonnaise, but go with what you want.
Always, ALWAYS toast the bun - i happen to like sourdough, but that is personal.
And there you have it!
My friends want me to do burgers all the time now and i have 3 engagements for memorial weekend.

Beef short ribs

They are beef so should not be given a really sweet taste

They are a tough meat, so cooking them low and slow is necessary

They dry out, so one must cover them while cooking and it should be done in liquid, braising, as it were.

Finish off on a grill or broil!

Dry Rub ratio:

·       2 black pepper

·       2 salt

·       2 paprika

·       1/2 hot pepper

·       2 ginger

Coat the ribs with the rub and let sit for a minimum of 1 hour

Add 2 cups rose wine, cover tightly and begin cooking at 250 for 4 hours

After 4 hours, remove the liquid and begin to reduce it

add 2 tablespoon Honey,

1 teaspoon salt,

1 teaspoon dry Chipolte peppers, crushed fine

1 tablespoon tomato paste

after the sauce has reduced by 1/2,

uncover the ribs and begin to broil them for 10 minutes on the middle rack

remove as much fat as is possible from the sauce and

thicken the sauce to your liking with a flour roux

Serve with the sauce over the ribs

Capturing the heat

Or how i extract it from peppers.
My initial observations have been that the Capsaicin (8-methyl-N-vanillyl-6-nonenamide) is soluble in alcohols, but when washing cut hot peppers in warm to hot water, some of the component is aerosoled and can make breathing a bit difficult.
I have also noted that the chemical formula contained nitrogens and have known that if the soil where you grow your pepper plants is high in nitrogen (think compost here), the heat index of the pepper is higher.
Okay enough  of the chemistry lesson, lets just say that after 38 years as an analytical chemist, i knew what to do.
Now at this point in my life, i am labless and so can only use the tools in the kitchen everyone else can,
otherwise i would have used a Soxhlet Extraction device to do my extraction.

Ingredients:
2 glass jars with a plastic (Teflon is best) cover - you can use plastic, but NOT metal.
Hot Peppers, chopped, not blended
cheesecloth
GLOVES!
Safety glasses
Graves 190 proof (95% ethanol) grain alcohol
funnel 
shallow glass or ceramic bowl
coffee filters
kitchen vent fan
An apron is recommended

For all procedures you must have gloves and glasses on! 
The chopped peppers are put in a jar with enough alcohol to cover them by more than 1 inch.
The jar is shaken and let to sit in a cool dark place for 2 to 3 days, shaking the contents ever 12 or so hours.
This alcohol extract (which should be red) is placed in the refrigerator
This is filtered into the second jar and the peppers placed back in the first jar
Warm (~130 F) water is added to almost cover the peppers and shaken
This is filtered into the shallow bowl, covered with cheese cloth and left in a dark place to dry
(an oven with a pilot light is ideal)
After it is mostly dry (it should still have some liquid, usually 2 days)  The alcohol extract is added to this bowl and allowed to sit another day to dry to the desired concentration.
Place back in the seal-able jar and refrigerate for use.

note everything used should be washed in a strong soap solution and do not touch any sensitive part of the body after!  Unless you used gloves for washing also.