Recent publications by GrillMyBunz

Fabulous "Preserved Lemon I-Don't-Know-What-to-Do-with-It" Saucy Stuff

ahurvitz@gmail.com — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:42:38

I'm looking for some help and I just know I've come to the right place. A long, long time ago I posted a recipe for Lamb Tagine from Diane Wolfert's book. Well, I was chillin' out last winter (literally) and thumbing through her book and wondered what the heck preserved lemons were and how they might taste. Being the adventurous lad that I am, I grabbed a couple of lemons, a Mason jar, a stick of cinnamon and I did the deed. Well, nine months later, I now have preserved lemons.

Wolfert recipes generally call for one or two preserved lemons and it's usually something chicken-y. I wanted to experiment on a smaller scale and make something like a sauce. So I went poking around online a couple of months ago and cobbled together the following "recipe". I can't even remember now whether I copied it verbatim or got creative.

If you've never had preserved lemons, I can now confirm that they don't really taste lemony. If you've made sauces before, you'll see the ingredients I'm listing and you'll have an idea what this tastes like. You'll be wrong, but some of you out there will no doubt have some great recommendation to improve it. So first, here are the ingredients and the recipe.

1/4 c. olive oil
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp vinegar (I used white balsamic, recipe called for champagne which I didn't have)
1/4 preserved lemon, flesh discarded, rind chopped pretty fine
2 Tbsp butter (called for unsalted which I was out of)
2 Tbsp shallots
2 Tbsp olives (I had Greek kalamatas but I wanted to use green olives and I think green would be best)
Parsley
1 Tbsp chives
Tarragon
1 small roasted pepper chopped pretty fine (I used one from a jar)

Combine liquids and preserved lemon and bring to boil over moderately high heat until volume reduced by half. Whisk in the butter. Stir in everything else and salt and pepper to taste. Sauce is served warm. (I let it simmer and sit for a while to have the flavors meld.)

Let me tell you, this is one SPECTACULAR sauce. Preserved lemons taste silky smooth and exotic, like nothing you've ever had before (especially with the cinnamon that seems optional). There was definitely a salty tang (though I wouldn't call it a salty sauce).

I grilled marinated (oil, vinegar, garlic, mustard, salt and pepper) chicken breasts (over hardwood charcoal on a Weber).

So, there were all these chicken breasts and what amounted to a relatively small amount of "sauce" (less than a cup). At first, I put a heaping tablespoon of sauce across a sliced breast. It "looked" about right, but it was so rich and flavorful, that it tasted best with about half that much. In other words, if you put the correct amount of sauce on, it looked undersauced, but tasted great. If you put the "right" amount of sauce on, it looked great, but was way too much.

So, I'm trying to figure out what to do. Maybe thin out the sauce, but not sure how. Or maybe find a way to combine the sauce in the prep of the chicken so it isn't just a breast with sauce ladled across.

Any ideas? And yeah, I can't begin to tell you how fabulously interesting this stuff is. VERY exotic in a Mediterranean kind of a way (and really easy to make). People will actually begin to think that YOU are exotic and mysterious. If you're a guy, exotic women will no doubt fall at your feet. If you're a woman, those same women will fall at your feet because no real men think preserved lemons are much to talk about.

One tip... I originally planned to just buy a preserved lemon. They are wicked expensive. As in $11 for two around here. I found lemons on sale and made my own (you basically brine them in lemon juice and salt). Much cheaper and, you get about six months to figure out how you're gonna use them (they take a long time to cure and last up to a year unrefrigerated.

So that's it. Any creative ideas? I think this stuff could kick some serious ass on chicken, fish or eggs.

Elder Ward's Brisket on a Big Green Egg

ahurvitz@gmail.com — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:19:22

Elder Ward is something of a legend in Big Green Egg-Land. This is his famous recipe for brisket. I believe it is a Carolina brisket, though I'm not certain. It's pretty incredible. One thing I plan to do the next time is to reduce the rub to more of a dusting than a crusting and to cut back on the flavoring wood. The recipe makes for a fairly spicy (not all that hot or overpowering, but spice-laden) and smoky brisket. I'm looking for a slightly more subtle result.

The recipe references a sauce and beans. Those recipes can be found online by googling Elder Ward. Also by searching the Big Green Egg Forum. And yeah, there's a forum. And no, I guess I really don't have a life.

Way-Too-Easy-Cheesy Broiled Feta

ahurvitz@gmail.com — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:48:00

We were invited to a Greek-themed potluck dinner. Time got away from me and any thought of making something that took any time was out of the question. I found a recipe online which I modified slightly that I hoped would be at least a couple of steps above cutting up a frozen spinach pie and jamming in some toothpicks. Much to my surprise, everyone RAVED about this and they all asked for the recipe. It's easy... if you can shop and chop, you can make this. And it's fast... 15 minutes... and that's if you're lollygagging. The secret is to use top quality ingredients. Buy good feta and use good oil and olives.

Moroccan Lamb Tagine

ahurvitz@gmail.com — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:33:05

This might just be my favorite dish ever. It's stolen from a Paula Wolfert cookbook with only a couple of minor mods. She uses lamb shoulder with bones, I use trimmed boneless leg of lamb (from Costco). It's a nicer presentation, I can't taste a significant difference and it saves the dreaded "picking" out the bones step. (I'm also of the opinion that once you remove the bones and fat, the price per pound isn't much different.) I also substitute Muir Glen (worth finding) diced tomatoes for fresh tomatoes.

One of the best things about this recipe is that it tastes better the next day. So, you never have to cook the night you entertain. And, it just keeps getting better day after day (until it doesn't).

Prep is reasonably simple. The only pay-attention part is when you have to cook down the tomatoes and sauce. But it's not so tricky that you can't put on some great music and sing along while you do it.

The Roasting of the Beans

ahurvitz@gmail.com — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:26:28

Any interest in talking about coffee?

I began roasting my own beans 5-6 years ago. I am gainfully employed by a large company and choose to work out of my home office rather than drive to an office. When I made that choice, I decided I needed to somehow simulate the "go to work" experience which had always included donating about $1000/yr to whichever local coffee emporium I could find on the way (assiduously avoiding Starbucks... they don't even call those big cups "venti" in Italy... but don't get me started).

I bought an espresso machine (Rancilio Silvia) and a whoop-de-doo grinder (Rancilio Rocky) and I taught myself to pull a mean shot. I poked around online to figure out how to get the best results (it's tricky), and of course I started reading about how store-bought coffee beans were terrible. Poor bean quality (most all of them), over-roasted (Starbucks), stale (all of them), and expensive (all of them). If you wanted a decent espresso, you had to roast your own beans, they said.

Act 1:

I bought a dinky little roaster called a Fresh-Roast and a few pounds of beans from sweetmarias.com, the best place in the world to buy green beans. At the time, the whole deal cost about $60. I was skeptical. Until I roasted and brewed a batch. It was incredibly better than any coffee I'd brewed before. And, drum roll please, it cost about half as much per pound.

Act 2:

I graduated to an i-Roast. It has a much larger capacity (a cup of green beans) and has a bit of intelligence, so you can program in a "roast curve" which varies the temperature and time to get you to roast you prefer based on the bean you're roasting.

I'm still not much of a coffee snob. I'll down a cup of boiled-down-brown in one of those Greek diner paper cups on occasion, but I have learned that coffee from Panama tastes different than coffee from Nicaragua. That the better, the fresher the roasted bean, the better it tastes with a lighter roast. And that just about every coffee maker on the planet fails to heat the water hot enough to properly brew an exceptional cup of coffee.

And finally, there's the "oh really" stuff. When I ask people how long they think it takes to roast coffee, they imagine at least an hour. It takes anywhere from 5-15 minutes. The beans lose about 15% of their weight during the process, but grow substantially in size. And... they crackle and pop just like popcorn.