This is a recipe that I learned from my father in law. I first made it when i was just getting into cooking, and the best part of the technique is that it’s nearly impossible to screw it up. If you are a beginner when it comes to cooking and want a recipe that will inspire confidence and make your guests think you are a pro, this is the one to start with.
The reason this technique is foolproof, is it’s nearly impossible to dry out the ribs. For the majority of the times the ribs are cooking in a sealed environment in their juices and beer. That means that even if a beginner were to say, leave them in a little bit longer than what the recipe says, your still going to end up with moist and delicious ribs.
You only really finish them on the grill directly at the very end. This allows you to get that amazing bark on the ribs, while making them ultra tender. You can control the firmness of the meat by altering your cook time.
All you are doing though is deciding if they are firmer or more of a fall off the bone when you bite in.
Ribs for beginners: An impossibly delicious and easy recipe
If you are new to cooking and want a recipe that is sure to impress while being nearly impossible to screw up, this is the recipe for you. These ribs are guaranteed to be tender and delicious even if you are a newbie to cooking.
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp Rub of your choice
- 1/2 BBQ Sauce Bottle
- 1 Rack of Baby Back Ribs
- 1.5 cans or bottles of beer
Instructions
Place your baby back ribs in the aluminum tray and give a generous coat of the rub on the baby back ribs.
Pour the beer into the aluminum tray.
Cover the aluminum tray with aluminum foil.
Put the tray into the grill (400 degree or so) and leave it for 45 minutes.
Take tray out and put the ribs directly on the grill.
Mix the BBQ sauce with the remaining juices that came from the pork. If you have too much liquid left you can pour some of it out.
Continually coat the ribs with your BBQ sauce mix. I will normally turn the ribs over several times on the grill to add coats. This is important because it will give you that delcious bark.
After about 15 minutes of direct grilling and basting, take the ribs out and put them back into the tray.
Serve and enjoy
Yellowtail Tiradito – California Style
I travel a fair amount in my line of work. This, has allowed me to try some of the more unique and delicious foods that different cities and countries have to offer.
Back in 2011 I went to Peru for an implementation and was treated to Tiradito for the first time. For those of you who have never heard of the dish, it’s similar to a ceviche, but there are a few key differences.
First, the fish is typically more raw vs many ceviche’s that are left to “cook” in the lime. Second, is the sauce. It’s made of a hot pepper called “Ahi” and it’s blended to a cream and mixed with lemon and oil to make a creamy delicious sauce that is poured over sushi grade white meat fish. The traditional fish used is the Corvina.
I have made Tiradito in the traditional way, but finding fresh “Ahi” peppers is a challenge, in fact I ended up growing some myself.
So I decided to experiment. I used the technique used in making the Tiradito sauce, and simply replaced it with local jalapeño peppers. I then experimented further by adding garlic in to the mix (because garlic is awesome) to see what this new take on an already delicious dish would be like.
It did not disappoint.
Ingredients
- Roughly 1lb of fresh yellowtail. (This will also work with other white meat sushi grade fish)
- 4 Cloves of Garlic
- 5 Jalapenos
- 3 Yellow Chiles
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Garlic Salt
- Handful of Chives
- Two large lemons
Preparation / Cooking Steps
- Slice the Jalapenos Yellow chilies in half and put them off to the side (De-Seed and De-vein if less heat is desired).
- Finely mince the chives and put aside.
- Blanch the Jalapenos and Yellow peppers for 3-5 minutes. This will also reduce the heat so if you can’t handle spicy food, don’t worry.
- Put the blanched peppers into a food processor and begin blending.
- Squeeze the lemon into the food processor and continue blending.
- Pour the EVOO into the blender. The quantity is going to vary on the size of the peppers, I normally let pour for about 3 seconds to begin with and then add EVOO to taste. The idea is to have the sauce creamy and emulsified.
- Add Salt to taste and blend to integrate the salt into the sauce.
- Slice the fish into thin slices (about ¾ inch or so) and plate it on your serving tray.
- Pour the sauce over the fish (Be liberal on your application of the sauce, you will likely have left over).
- Add the chives on the fish for garnish.
- ENJOY!
Grilling with Gramps
I have mentioned on a number of occasions that my Father in Law was one of the main reasons I got into cooking. We have even featured one of his recipes when we talked about how to make Beer Can Chicken. The difference with today’s recipe was that he actually did the cooking and all of the tips and tricks are coming right from the source. So what are we going to talk about today? Grilling some beautiful Rib Eye and T-Bone steaks.
This is not a complicated recipe. There are no fancy marinades or sauces. Why? Because a good steak doesn’t need much added to it to make it great. What you do need however is good technique so that you can make the most of the delicious cut of meat.
So let’s get to it. Here is what you need to know to make a great steak.
The first step is to trim the meat so that the hard outer fat layers that you often find in cuts like these. Some of you may have heard the phrase “Fat is flavor” and my father in law agrees for the most part. However he told me “These hard outer layers doesn’t melt into the the meat so it’s not really adding anything to keep it on”. If you think about it, whenever you get a cut of meat like this at a restaurant and it has that hard thick layer of fat, all you ever do is cut it out.
Once the meat is trimmed it’s time to do the seasoning. He kept the seasoning pretty light. Just a little bit of salt, a little bit of pepper and a healthy dash of paprika.
Once the meat is seasoned, let the meat sit because it’s time to get the grill fired up. He opted to use his Weber Charcoal grill over his gas grill. It was more of a hassle, but when you are cooking a great piece of steak he insists on cooking over the coals. The key is getting the coals nice and hot before putting the meat on them.
The reason for this is you want to get a a good sear on the steak early so that you can “lock in the flavor”.
Timing is key here. You want to make sure that you get a good sear on both sides but once you do, you should move the meat away from the hot coals and letting the indirect heat of the grill finish off the cooking. My father in law refers to this phase as “putting the steak in the oven”. At this point, the only thing left to do is wait until the steak is done. Now if you were to ask either of us, done means medium rare, medium at the most.
But that’s the beauty of cooking you can make your own meals to your own taste.
So fire up the grill try it out and let us know what you think.
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Beer Can Chicken and Potatoes
This weekend was a bit colder than normal which us allowed to do a favorite cold weather recipe of mine, beer can chicken. What’s so great about this recipe is that not only is it delicious but it makes the entire house smell amazing as you prepare it.
Ingredients You’ll Need
- One chicken, I prefer organic but it’s up to you.
- One small bag of baby red potatoes.
- One small bag of baby yellow potatoes.
- Rub for the bird, I used my Father in Law’s proprietary blend.
- Two cups of Chicken stock (I used the homemade stock we discussed in our first post).
- One can of the beer of your choice.
Food Prep
- Check the chicken for gizzards, you really don’t want to be baking those accidentally in your meal.
- Put the beer can inside of the beer can chicken rack and put the chicken on top.
- Put the chicken & rack on a deep baking pan
- Apply the rub on the chicken, it’s ok if some of it falls to the bottom of the pan, which will add to the flavor of the potatoes. In fact I often apply my Father in Law’s rub liberally because it makes the potatoes taste a whole lot better.
- Cut the baby potatoes into halves and place them inside of the baking pan.
- Pour the chicken stock on top of the potatoes.
- Wrap the chicken completely in aluminum foil, this will help to keep the juices inside of the bird.
Cooking
Once the prep is done you have literally done 99% of the work to make this dish. All that’s left to do is heat your oven up to 400 degrees, put the bird inside and wait. On my oven, it normally takes about 1:45 minutes.
You will want to make sure you keep an eye on the internal temperature of the chicken so you don’t overcook the bird, 165 degrees is your magic number.
What I love about this recipe is how juicy the chicken turns out. It’s a combination of the beer moisturizing from the inside while the foil keeps the juices trap from the outside. The juices that do fall down go to the potatoes, infusing them with flavor.
If you don’t have the beer can chicken rack, here is the link to Amazon.
Give this recipe a try and let us know what you think!
Thanks for reading