Bobby Flay's Bar Americain -- the restaurant!

I had the recent privilege to visit New York city with my wife for my 10th anniversary.  We booked a reservation at Bobby's newest restaurant, Gato and a small trendy Italian restaurant in the Upper East Side.  However, life interrupted, our kid got sick, and we made it to Manhatten barely in time for the show.   We looked to see what was available that night, and nearby and found Bar Americain, Bobby's other restaurant

I was excited to return here, because my last post covered my meal cooked from the recipe book of the same name.  I wanted to see how my food compared in taste against Bobby Flay's chefs.  

Sadly, the meal I made (New York Strip Philly Style) was the special for Saturday night, and I was there on a Thursday.   I settled for the fresh, hot potato chips with blue cheese sauce, the crab cake, and the shrimp and grits.  

The real winner here was the potato chips.  I just could not get enough of them.  I tried to duplicate myself from the Bar Americain cookbook.  I'll compare the ones from the restaurant to the ones I make in my next entry.    These were really good!

The crab cake was beautiful and meaty.  I mean really beautiful.  The green basil sauce it rested on smelled strong and sweet.  Look at the dark green swirls.  I really liked the presentation here. The taste was amazing too, but...I almost felt like it was a bit undercooked inside.  I'm not sure if that's the way it was supposed to be--I'm not a crab cake veteran or anything.   Crisp outside, but the binding was a bit delicate--but tasty.  I don't want to say it was bad.  The tarragon tartar sauce added a bit of "tang" to it with just a tinge of anise flavor.  

The shrimp and grits had that distinctive seafood smell.   I saw that bacon and shrimp and I knew it was going to be great.  I tried my best to note the texture of the "grit."  The last time I made I threw it all out because I thought I got it all wrong.   I thought it was supposed to be smooth.  I think you can make it that way, but clearly there was some bite to this.   Very subtle, but the smoothness of the grits was off set my just little bits of texture.    This was good to note, because I guess I wasn't too far off when I made them.  

But holy butter, batman.  As the grits started cooling down, I saw a bit of butter separation in there--it was a layer of oil that must have come from adding a stick just to my dish.  It actually started getting unappetizing at that point--but not enough to not make me finish my meal..  I was very sad after I ate there.  I must say I was a bit disappointed.

I shouldn't be a food critic.  It really was quite good.  And I cleaned my plate.  But this was my second time here, and both times I felt like I got the "wrong thing."  My wife's meal looked better.  She got the french onion soup and the standard filet mignon.  I was like, "Really?  Those old tropes?"  But she had the last laugh on me that night.

As simple as the filet was, the steak sauce (not pictured) really made the dish.   The steak was cooked just perfect.  I'm so jealous how perfectly they cook these steaks.  And just look at that cheese on the soup!  I want to rip it off and chew on the whole thing like a pack of cheese gum.  I should have gone basic.

Anyway, it was a notch down for Bobby that night, compared to my life changing experience I wrote about with Mesa Grill.   But I went to Gato the next night...mind blown again.   I'll talk about my experience in another entry, but first.... I'm going to make those potato chips!  They are in the Bar Americain cookbook, so I'll see you then!

Reuben Chips? What the...

New York Reuben Potato Chips by Lays

Taste: 3 of 5

So this isn't the first year Lay's has done their "Do us a flavor" contest, but this is the first time I picked up a bag of them.  I just think this year has some interesting combos.  But this--I had to try this.  Potato chips flavored like a Reuben sandwhich?  How can it be?

I half expected them to taste like barbecue chips.  I've been burnt before on cleverly named chip flavors that advertise themselves as one thing, but it ends up being a variation on a similar flavor.  But taking one bite of these chips and it is clear they put some thought into flavoring these bad boys.

They actually taste like Reubens!

I had to try another--what sort of black magic are they doing at Lays now?  Surely there are 5 men in dark robes arranged in a circle around a pentagram calling out to some dark evil to help them flavor these chips!  It's just unnatural.  I mean there is rye bread in there, I taste like saurkraut, and corned beef...what is going on?

The ingredients are equally mysterious--Reuben flavoring.  What's that?

So, after the novelty wears off, you kind of start to realize, it's just a potato chip.  And, nothing against good 'ol reuben, I wouldn't pick you over sour cream and onion or barbecue...just saying.

So I enjoyed my fling with my slutty chip, but I will come back to barbecue begging for forgiveness for cheating.  My time spent with Reuben chips really wasn't that good, (but it was fun while it lasted).

Bobby Flay's New York Strip Philadelphia Style

From Bar Americain by Bobby Flay

Taste: 4 of 5  

Difficulty: Moderate

Time: About 90 minutes

Cost: about $120 (Depending on the quality of steaks you buy)

I must admit, I'm a Bobby Flay fanboy.  Not because he's a celebrity chef, but because he made the meal that made me want to cook.  I was a picky eater for more than 3/4 of my life.  I brought peanut butter sandwiches to school every day from 1st to 7th grade until I discovered roast beef deli meat. In high school to college I lived off of pizza and hoagies.  In early adulthood I lived off of pasta, and anything Italian.  I wouldn't touch anything new...until I had a daring moment.

I was in Las Vegas.  Not the typical vacation for me, but nevertheless I was there with my wife and some friends.   One night we were there, my wife and I had a night alone and we decided that we'd go "all out" one night and eat at a "nice" restaurant.   At the time, I didn't eat at nice restaurants.   A nice restaurant to me was TGI Friday's.   My friend Greg mentioned that Bobby Flay had a restaurant there in Ceasar's Palace.  I had never heard of Bobby Flay before, but Greg mentioned he liked "chipotle," which at the time, I thought he was talking about the fast food chain.  I never watched food network.  This was probably in 2007 before Bobby had 30 shows on the air, but he was just starting to take off in popularity.   We booked a reservation at Mesa Grill.  For some reason, maybe because it was Vegas, I thought I'd try something new and not get the filet mignon for once, which was always my go-to meal at a fancy restaurant.  It was always the same, tender, juicy, safe, and flavorless.  Instead, I asked the waitress what she recommended.   She sang praises about the ancho-maple glazed veal-chop, so I just told her to bring it out.  Now, if you like meat, you know that is not a risky meal by a long shot, but for me, at the time, you might as well have put a plate of worms in front of me.  And even worse it came with a tamale.  Ewww...corn husks.

The plate came to my table, and it looked like modern art.  Bobby's trademark oranges and greens adorned the dish.   I cut into the perfectly cooked veal.  It was pink and dripping with juices.  It had a crispy sweet brown coating on the outside.   I took a bite and my eyes dilated.   I have not been the same since.  I never knew food could taste that good.  I thought I had good food before.  I thought a cheesesteak was the ultimate thing to eat.   This blew it out of the water--levels above anything I had ever tasted.   I took a taste of the tamale--it was just as good!!!  Buttery, spicy, sweet mush in a tidy little packet--how convenient!

8 years later and I can't get enough cooking.  My wife started it all by buying me the Mesa Grill cookbook which has that exact recipe in it.  I have been collecting cook books since.

So, in short, you'll be seeing a lot of Bobby.  

This book, Bar Americain, has been hit or miss for me.  So, Bar Americain, (that is french for American, pronounced slightly snobbier) is Bobby Flay's recipe book from his third Manhattan restaurant.  Their menu is mostly unique takes on traditional American dishes like chicken and waffles, Thanksgiving Day turkey, and even today's recipe, Philadelphia cheesesteaks.

This week I had some guests come over.  These are my "taste testers," my daring friends who won't mind getting a bum meal or two...or three.  They try out my food, I try to get some honest opinions, and I decide if it's worth serving at a dinner party later.   There is the daring one, who is the original invitee because he'll eat anything weird; his younger sister who is very picky but she is a good sport, trying the things I've been cooking; and their cousin, who is kind of in the middle of the road between the two.  They recently returned home from a trip overseas, and it was the perfect time to cook for them.

I went with the New York Strip Steak served Philadelphia Style, simply because I thought it would be a great comforting meal to come back to America after being away for 9 days.

  

The recipe is made of 3 main components that make up the traditional Philly cheesesteak - 

   1)    the steak - 1 1/2 inch thick NY strip steak in this case

   2)    fried onions - slow caramelized spanish onions

   3)    the cheese wiz - in this case an aged provolone cheese sauce.

Caramelizing onions can take a while.  Properly cooked, they take 45 minutes to an hour for me, but require the attention of a tomato sauce--you need to stir every 5 minutes or so they don't burn on the bottom. Caramelizing onions must be cooked slow--starting around medium heat on the stove top in a saute pan.  As the onions start getting brown they start to dry up.  The onion starts sticking to the pan. At this point you need to scrape this "frond" off the bottom of the pan so it doesn't burn.  The frond begins to color the onions.   As this happens you need to keep adjusting the heat slightly lower and lower.  Otherwise the frond will burn and you will have burnt onions mixed with your golden brown onions.

Making the cheese sauce can be tricky.  Basically the recipe calls for a standard bechamel -- one of the 5 mother sauces.  First you make a roux, which is a mixture of flower and butter that is cooked for a minute, then warm milk is slowly whisked into the roux.   The sauce has to simmer down some until it thickens.   This is where I always mess up, and it can be tricky.  The tricky part is, when is it done?  I always used to read recipes literally when it came to time.  "boil for 5 minutes"  Times are never exact in cook books.  Always look for other clues in a recipe of when something is done.  Color, texture, temperature:  I have found these to be the better judgement for when something is ready.  So use times as guideline, but not rules.   The sauce is ready when you feel it is thick like a cheese sauce would be--it won't look like milk anymore, it will start sticking to the wooden spoon.  Don't rely on any cheese you are going to put in to thicken it.  It will thicken a little but not as much as you think, and once you put that cheese in you're done.  You can always make it thinner by adding more milk (Tbsp at a time).  Take your time with a bechamel and it will get there.

Cooking the steak was a big controversy for me.  When I do steak, I get the best I can find.  We are going all out--prime where possible.  I'm not spending all this time and energy eating a bad cut of meat.  However, that means ruining the steak is a big deal because I'm also out a lot of money.  The recipe calls to "broil" the steak.  I had never broiled a steak before.  I've done pan-searing and grilling.  I understand restaurants all have these super powered 1500 degree broilers that cook a steak in one minute, but my oven does not do that.  I decided to take the risk and try it instead of pan searing it.   I made sure the steak was right under that flame.  I have a decent oven, but it's not restaurant quality.  The timing was about right in the recipe 4 - 5 minutes on each side.  After the first flip I was discouraged, it looked like cafeteria steak when I turned it over, zombie gray with some minor char marks from the broiling pan.  But when it finished 5 minutes later it actually had a nice crust on it.  The inside of the steak was the best I did of cooking a steak.  There was hardly any dark parts around the medium-rare centers.   The steaks on the outside of the broiler near the back and front came out medium rare and the two in the centers closest to the broiler flames were more on the medium side.  Take that into account when broiling.

I plated each of the steaks.  I made sure each plate had generous portions of the creamy provolone sauce. My wife and guests dug into their food.  I took a bite, and thought, "wow, this is amazing."  The rub on the steak added a bit of spice, the onions made it sweet and the cheese sauce gave it a creamy rich tang.  I had 2 empty plates, the picky one, who is a tiny thing cleaned it up, the moderate one cleaned it up as well.  However, the experimental friend, did not finish.  He said, "my honest opionion, I think the sauce was a bit too much."  I was stunned.  The sauce?  The cheese?  That is the bad part?  I looked at the other plates, and indeed the sauce was left over on their plates too.  I noticed that no one was actually complimenting the steak. What went wrong?

I'm not sure.  It could be they were cleaning their plates to be polite.  It is really hard to tell what guests are thinking.  Unless I get praises heaped on me, I can't help but try to think what went wrong.  I'm paranoid like that.  But then, I keep thinking about how stingy restaurants are about sauces, and how I always want more of the sauce after I finish the plate.  Sometimes I want to lick the plate clean just to get that remaining bit of sauce!  But maybe it's so good because there isn't too much sauce.  Maybe too much of a good thing is bad.  Had I gone easy with the sauce and let the steak be more pronounced in this dish would it have been better?  I think it would have.  I will take this into consideration next time I cook.

Bobby's Burger Palace is the Best!

On the way coming home from a business trip, I made a quick detour to Bobby's Burger Palace in Cherry Hill, NJ.  This is the burger chain built by famed chef, Bobby Flay.   I believe I just might have had the best burger in my entire life.  I am well familiar with the place, but it has probably been 4 years since I last visited.  I don't get to go there much because I'm not in the area.   I got a simple "Crunchburger"--translated cheeseburger with potato chips on top.   I go the crunchburger route for the simplicity of the burger.  I just want to taste the meat an cheese.  I savored every juicy bite of this guy.   My favorite thing to do is take a bite, then get one of their sauces from the table (my favorite was the jalapeno today) and just shoot a little bit of sauce on the next bite.  Then shoot a different sauce on the following bite, then back to no sauce.    Wow.  I left happy.

I left with one of these!  yum...

Carmine's Linguine with Red Shrimp Sauce

From Carmine's Family Style Cookbook by Michael Ronis with Mary Goodbody

Taste: 4.5 of 5
Difficulty: Easy
Time: About 1 hour
Cost: About $20

This recipe comes from a collection of books I have cornered off in a special section of my bookcase--the "restaurant" section, where the lesser-know chefs sit all alone next to their food network celebrity cousins.  9 out of 10 of these recipe books contain recipes with ingredients well outside the grocery store norm--like, what aisle would I find squid ink?  These are recipe books with funny names like "Spago",  "Sorrella" and "Delmonico."   I like these books because if you can pull these recipes off you can be a superstar to your friends.   These are the recipes that have made restaurants and their chef's famous.  Many of these recipes are so complex it may take a whole day to cook.  Many feature difficult techniques and equipment that most home chefs do not have.   However, Carmine's family style cookbook does not fall into this category.  It is a collection of easy-to-make Italian American soul-food recipes that in the Carmine's restaurant in the Upper West Side in Manhatten.

Carmine's restaurant is the brainchild of businessman Artie Cutler, who, after being inspired by the food at a big Italian wedding, wanted to open a restaurant that served gargantuan portions of family-style Italian food.  He then hired the late chef Michael Ronis to create the menu.   It was said that Artie Cutler made Michael "kick-up" the boldness of the recipes to give it the trademark Carmine's flavor.  I believe this just translates to tons of garlic, because most of the recipes in this book require an obscene amount (upwards of 2Tbsp of garlic).  The restaurant quickly grew in popularity and opened up five other restaurants in Times Square, Atlantic City, the Bahamas, Washington, DC and Vegas.  

I have cooked from this book many times before.  So much, in fact, that the pages are falling out.  I have to cook from it because it has become one of my go-to cookbooks for crowd-pleasers.  I bought the book out of a knee-jerk reaction to a failed dinner party.  For the meal, I served a complicated dinner that was a bit too complex for my friends.   The friends politely ate my food, but it was one of those things where you know they didn't like what they were eating--either they were too picky, or I cooked it poorly or whatever--it was not a good feeling to put people in that scenario.   Cooking for friends is a very difficult thing.  While many of my friends are experimental and would eat anything I put in front of them, I have also found that many of my thirty-something year old friends grew up as chicken finger kids and were as picky as me when I was a kid--only they never overcame that.   They only will enjoy familiar food.  They grew up with chicken fingers and mac and cheese. When something unfamiliar is placed in front of them, they panic, and have the look of a 3 year old faced with a plate of broccoli.

For the friends that are picky, I bought the Carmine's book.  Everybody loves Italian food, I said. Who doesn't like a whole plate of warm pasta in marinara? (except for my gluten-free friends ---sigh) Italian food is a whole category of food that people have warm memories from childhood. When people are impossible to please, I always come back to this book.

So the story behind why I chose this meal, is because my wife requested that I cook it.   It is her birthday, and as we do in our house, birthdays put the opposing spouse in a week of indentured servitude which we affectionately call "birthday week".  The birthday boy/girl can make requests which must be fulfilled by the spouse.   This usually results in me cooking, giving foot massages, and just forced into watching just plain bad movies and tv.   My wife's birthday request this week was shrimp with linguini. I must confess, this was not the first time I made this meal.  It has been so successful in the past my wife asked for this for her birthday.   I lucked out because this actually is a simple one to do. Follow this recipe to the nose, and it works.

The recipe starts with adding a ton of garlic to brown in some oil, followed by fresh herbs, chopped tomatoes and some white wine.  The white wine is cooked down until almost gone.

Some clam juice is added.   This give it a bit of a fishy smell, but after it reduces by half, the sauce kind of loses that smell and just has a hint of fresh seafood in it.

The shrimp are only cooked for a minute in the sauce reduction.  They are only partially cooked, and are finished right as the pasta comes out.   I think this is what really makes it great--having perfectly cooked shrimp.  Nothing is better than when the shrimp have that perfect snap to them when you bite into them.   The recipe calls for them to be cooked an additional minute in the warmed up sauce after the linguine is cooked, I maybe cooked for 2 minutes (just to make sure the were cooked through).  I use the big frozen shrimp you get in bags at the grocery store (thawed).  These particular shrimp turned out A+ but I have had some mushy ones recently.   Not quite sure what makes them mushy, my cooking or something else.

After the shrimp are par-cooked you boil the pasta in your heavily salted water.  The recipe tells you to cook one minute before what the package says.  The package already told me that to make it al dente to cook it 9 minutes.  I wasn't sure what to do, so I tasted the pasta at 7 minutes and 8 minutes.   Both times the pasta was hard in the middle.   I decided to cook it according to the package instructions.   The texture was perfect when I finally served the pasta.

Here is the plating...a little rough.  The pasta is tossed with the shrimp and sauce.

Like I said, this recipe came out perfect.  It is such a simple soulful Italian recipe.  The San Marzano tomatoes cut through the slightly briney sauce.  The fresh herbs make this dish very fragrant.  The shrimp were perfectly cooked, just slightly giving with each bite and absorbing all the sauce flavors. Big chunks of garlic gave it that family feast smell and flavor.  There never is enough garlic for Uncle Joe. I would serve this recipe to anyone who like shrimp--it is a real winner.

My wife was very happy.  I was happy too, as this recipe was a cinch too cook and much simpler than many of her other favorite recipes.   

Until later,

Steve

Emeril's Roast Beef "Debris" Po'Boy

From Emeril's Kicked-up Sandwiches by Emeril Lagasse

Taste: 4 of 5

Difficulty: 1 of 5

Time: 3 of 5 (about 4.5 hours total)

Price: About $30

So, I had a hankerin' for a roast beef hoagie.  Not just any hoagie, but a Cappriotti's roast beef hoagie.  A hoagie is equivalent to a sub, or submarine sandwhich, or a hero.  I'm told that other parts of the nation will look at you like you have 3 heads if you say "hoagie."  But that's what the greater Philadelphia area refer to it.  Cappriotti's is a local fast food chain in the Delaware valley, and other parts of the US, offering better-than-average-quality sandwhiches--more like a mom and pop shop. They have this sandwhich called the "Bobbie" which is your gratuitous post-Thankgiving day feast sandwhich--turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and mayo--which they claim has won one of the Best Sandwiches in America award from AOL.com.  I also like the Capastrami, which is like a heart attack sandwhich--hot pastrami, cole-slaw, russian dressing, and swiss. Wow. so good.  Joe Biden periodically does his politcal "I'm one of the people" stop and orders a sandwhich so it's kind of a thing in Delaware so you know that politicians will stomach a sandwich. 

But what sets apart Cappriotti's from all the other sandwich and hoagie chains is they don't use lunch meat.   They use meat like it was just pulled off a bone.  Shredded meat.  So when you order a roast beef hoagie with provolone, it's real pulled shredded roast beef not some processed beef sandwich (which has its place).   When you eat that turkey--it's like real thanksgiving day turkey.  And it is probably the best roast beef hoagie there is.  It has a deep beefy flavor unlike any of the deli meats.  Not salty at all.  Just pure cow.  Yum.

With my cravings in mind I sat down to look through my cookbooks to see what I was going to do next and I saw this one.  Emeril's Roast Beef Debris Po' Boy.  When I saw Roast Beef debris I immediately thought of Capriotti's roast beef.  Wouldn't it be great to make my own shredded beef?  I imagined that the beef would taste the same.  

What's a Po'Boy?  I didn't know before I started.  Nobody could really explain it to me only, it's a sandwhich, and it's often associated with Louisiana, and I hear it often has oysters or some type of fried seafood.  But after looking around I see that roast beef is often a popular filling.  One of the key components of a po'boy is the french bread it is typically served on, crispy outside with a chewy interior.  Basically, a Po'boy is a regional hoagie.  Looking at the ingredients it sure looks like a hoagie to me.  Chuck Roast, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomatoes.  Emeril adds some pickles and hot sauce too.  Ok, not something I'd put on my hoagie, but being true to the recipe and in the spirit of the po'boy, I resove to eat it that way.

It started out with the 3.5 lb chuck roast I got.  You start out by going "Billy Bats' on the chuck roast with your knife just like in the opening scene of Goodfellas except for you fill the stabs with garlic--a lot of garlic.  This roast beef will be a slow roast so you aren't going to end up with a rare inside.  It will look more like a pulled pork.  You will need a dutch oven to roast it.  But first the pan-sear.

Nothing unusual happened. This was fairly standard.  The recipe said let it get really brown on all sides.  I was afraid that the frond would burn (tasty bits of beef that start to stick on the bottom of the pan), so I didn't cook it the 4 minutes on each side.  I did about 3--you can see what I ended up with.  I'm not sure if it could go longer or not--please comment if you think otherwise.

 After the recipe tells  you to add a bunch of beef stock to the bowl.  It said 2 cups.  I added two cups, but it barely came up the sides of the roast beef in my large dutch oven.  The recipe called for a 6qt dutch oven, I'm not quite sure how big mine was, and it's too late to figure that out now.  Always know the size of your pans before you start cooking.  Pay attention to the size as it can have an affect on your recipe! The recipe later states that you should always have at least one inch of liquid in the pan at all times.  I only had 2 1/2 cups of homemade stock left over, so I had to turn to boxed beef broth which I hate doing, but I always keep it around for emergencies.  In retrospect, I probably didn't need it.  The juices from the beef raised the liquid level at least another inch.  The house smelled like I had a beef Glade plug-in.  The aroma of roast beef just permeated my house.  It was intoxicating.   I loved it.  After three and a half hours I had this:

And you could tear it apart...

Assembling the sandwiches was easy.  I took a big helping of the roast beef, toasted it in the oven on top of the bread and melted some provolone on it.  I added the lettuce, tomatoe, and yes even the pickles and hot sauce.  But the secret ingredient here was the jus.   Ahhhh beef juice.  How I love thee. I could write poems about you.  Soaking the roll in this took away some of the crispness but I was left with a delicious sandwhich.

So, did it taste like Capriotti's?  Yes! It actually did!  I was pleasantly surprised that this tasted similar to what Capriotti's has to offer.  I could have used better bread, but I don't know of any good close bakeries that I was able to get good bread from.  The roast beef was a pure, savory, beefy flavor.  It melted in your mouth.  It was so tender.  The tartness of the pickle, and the crispness of the lettuce contrasted the beef flavors and textures nicely.  And, what's better is I have a ton of it left over which I stored in the freezer to eat another time.  So this was a pretty economical meal.

As for the wife test, that weekend we went to Hershey park to spend a day with the kids.  To save some money, I made her a sandwich.  When she bit into it, I heard an immediate "mmmm" muffled by the full cheeks.  You know it was a success.

This has been my third time cooking from this book, with the first being one of the best things I have ever eaten (the meatloaf sandwich was levels above fantastic) and they have all been successful.  Looking forward to more sandwiches from Emeril!

Neely's Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Slaw

From Down Home With the Neelys by Patrick and Gina Neely

Taste: 4 (of 5)

Difficulty: 2 (of 5)

Time: 5 (of 5 -  Took about 12 hours total for me, cooked slightly different than instructions)

Price: 3 (of 5 - around $50 Got a nice pork shoulder from butcher that was rather expensive)

I love hosting parties.  Every chance I get I try to host one.  While I am quiet around large groups, for some reason I like basking in the chaos that a jovial group of party-goers can cause.  I don't mind it one bit.  For this reason, One of my favorite days of the year is Black Friday.  I just like the movement, the white noise produced, by hundreds of people talking at the same time all excited about buying gifts for their loved ones, and me just behind the scenes watching everyone.  (hmm...that sounds kind of creepy, but it isn't) To me, Black Friday feels like a big holiday party out in a mall. I get the same sensation when we host a bunch of guests.  I'm just in the background preparing for my own thing, while people are enjoying themselves around me.

Over the weekend, my wife, Karly hosted a party for her school friends.  A few things about Karly--she works as a private school teacher and is quite the social animal.   She can make a friend faster than you can order some chicken mcnuggets at McDonalds.  She invited the entire elementary school teachers and their children to our house for a small barbecue.  Don't worry, it's a very small school so we weren't looking at anything more than 40 people.  She just wanted to have a nice summer barbecue, let the kids run around through sprinklers, while the parents sat around and had a good time.

When she told me this months ago, I was ecstatic.  This means, leading up to the party I get to plan the meal out, usually resulting in some lavish spread that seems impossible for one man to do.  However, life happens, and right before the party we were hit with some serious bills.  Our air condition broke and our Volkswagen's alternator blew up.  I had to tone down all the things I wanted to serve.

So, what could I serve, that doesn't cost too much, and serve lots of people?  I've done a brisket before, and ruined it--several times.  I'm not good enough for that yet--too volatile. And good brisket can be pretty costly.  Burgers and dogs--that's a no brainer, but hardly anything to impress a crowd.  But a pig, a big pig pleases everyone.   What says summer barbecue better than a sandwich named after it--barbecue. 

I'm not a pulled pork man, being from the Northeast, most pulled pork I've had comes from overprocessed pork in plastic containers with "Lloyd's" written on it, or the occasional sandwich at a kitschy chain restaurant.   Word of good barbecue only comes from hushed legends spoken by people you meet from the west and the south.  Glorious tales of juicy pork goodness, legendary battles of North Caroline vs Memphis.  TV is riddled with fat men pulling out blackened bricks of meat that look like a piece of charcoal, but as soon as a fork is stuck in it, the brick just melts into fatty goodness. 

I looked through my books, and found one my wife bought me as a gift for Christmas -- Down Home with the Neely's.  I've watched the show the book is based on, and have been entertained with the Neely's on Food Network a few times.  They always seemed like a happy couple, Patrick always seemed like he couldn't keep his hands off his woman.  Surely that makes them good cooks!  They are happy in love!  They goose each other's butts in the kitchen, and they have a chain of barbecue restaurants in the midwest.  The Neely's claim to fame comes from the restaurants they ran in Memphis, and a televised barbecue contest they won.  They had several television appearances and eventually ended up on Food Network with their own decent cooking show.   (This was before it was a food competition station and they actually instructed people how to cook--don't get me started!) 

The recipe was extremely simple--at first glance.   It called for one Boston Butt, some of Neely's special spice rub, some Neely's special barbecue sauce, and Neely's sweet and spicy cole slaw.  Each of those items ended up being a separate recipe.  The good news is, the pork cooks low and slow so you have lots of time to make the additional items--and, you want to make those additional items...no short cuts here.  I want authentic Neely's taste.

Their base rub was extremely simple.  When I saw the recipe, I thought to myself, "How did they win a barbecue competition with this basic recipe--paprika, sugar and onion powder.  And by paprika, I mean LOTS of it.  I mean like, I had to buy 2 McCormick containers of it!  You are left over with a ton, and if you intend to cook more Neely's recipes, rest assured, you will use it again...it's in like every recipe.  I think they put it on their deserts.  

Then I saw the barbecue sauce.  I thought the same thing--"How do you win a barbecue competition with this basic sauce?" Ketchup, brown sugar, onion powder, mustard powder, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar and worcestershire sauce--and some base rub.  No secret ingredients here--fairly standard barbecue sauce.  After I made, I liked the sauce, but it seemed fairly standard--like something I'd get in a bottle at the food store--but I like that stuff.

Neely's sweet and spicy slaw was where I think this recipe leveled up.  And it delivered on the sweet--the recipe calls for 1 whole cup of sugar.  I kept rechecking the recipe..."1 cup???...I mean, am I making kool-aid?"   I almost modified the recipe thinking it was a misprint.  But I went forward with the full cup--I needed to be true to the recipe.  I went ahead added the whole cup of sugar to the cayenne, yellow mustard, apple cider vinegar and mayonnaise to make the cole slaw dressing.   As I feared, the dressing turned "crunchy."  I don't know how else to explain it.   The dressing was so saturated with sugar that it wouldn't dissolve.   Yet somehow, it did taste delicious.  The sweetness was well balanced with the tart of the apple cider vinegar and the little bit of cayenne that was in it was just enough to give it a slight kick.  But what to do about the grit?  Pat Neely tells me to "whisk until the sugar dissolves" but it wasn't happening.   I even waited an hour, whisking periodically but the sugar never dissolved. Well, if something is saturated and it won't take on more sugar, I figure I'd just start adding water--one tablespoon at a time--to the dressing.  This seemed to work, before long I had a nice creamy consistency that I could add to my cabbage.  I think I added about 2-3 tablespoons of water.

If I made the recipe again, I'd go easier on the red cabbage.  The recipe called for green and red cabbages, but the cabbage ended up looking pink--more red than green.  It just seemed like the red ended up so much more pronounced.  It had an unpleasent look to it.  In a summer barbecue, I just expect cole-slaw to look more traditional, so next time I'll add enough red just to make it look "right."  I also didn't flood it with all the dressing.  Nothing is worse than overdressed anything.  The final product was crunchy-sweet-tart-spicy.  It was very good. 

So for the pork, the recipe called for one 10-12 lb Boston Butt.   That is one large piece of pork!  I did pork before but never this big.  It did not mention if it was bone-in or out, but I don't think I ever seen a boneless Boston Butt that large.  I ended up with a beautiful 9 and 1/2 pounder bone-in from my local butcher with a nice layer of fat on top.

So I get this massive butt home (it really is a shoulder, but butt works for me), and I look at the smoking instructions, and Pat wants me to smoke this thing in a smoker at 275 degrees for 6 hours until the pork hits 165 with a meat thermometer.  Now, I've cooked pulled pork before--usually 4-6 pounders, and I would just be getting done in 6 hours.  I usually cooked at 250, but thisseemed really short for this monstrosity I brought home.   I've already been in that situation where my guests arrive expecting to get barbecue, my barbecue is supposed to be done, but it's about 30 degrees from where it needs to be.  To be on the safe side I decide that I would give it 12 hours to cook.  If I mess up and it cooks too fast, I'll just reheat--no foul.   The other thing that scared me was the Neely's only cook their pork to 165. The only clue the Neely's give about the correct doneness is they say the bone should be able to freely wiggle. Now, I have looked through multiple recipe books and almost everyone unanimously says 180 or190, and I know some people who swear by 200 degrees.  I have never seen anyone take the pork off at 165.  I could be ignorant, but my gut instinct told me cook until it hits at least 190.  So I went with my gut.  (ok, ok, I diverged from the recipe, but I had a party depending on getting this right!)  I also lowered the heat to 250 degrees.  

So at 2am after a late night Xbox One games session of Destiny I fired up my smoker and slapped the pork on the smoker (that's right you slap it!)  There is something giddy about firing up that smoker and getting that first whiff of smoke.  I own a Traeger, so there is little maintenance I need to do keeping the temperature right where you need it.  I just need to keep an eye on it so there isn't a blazing inferno of wood pellets that melt through my porch.  I slept on the couch with the door open so I could smell the smoke.  

12 hours later, my pork hit 190.  It had a bark, the bone was moving.  I could tell I did not screw up by how easily my meat thermometer went in as if I was putting the thermometer in liquid--no resistance.  Juice bubbled up and over where the thermometer was in.  My 5 year old daughter, Claire, saw me pulling the pork off and her tongue wagged out of her mouth.   She is a true barbecue girl.  She always makes the tongue wag face when she see barbecue.   She begged me for a "preview bite" which turned into her begging for more.  

I put the barbecue on a baking sheet and started shredding---nice big pink smoke ring.  Meat falling everywhere.  Juices just dripping over every morsel of meat.  I don't know how it tastes yet, but clearly this was cooked right.  In fact, this was the best pork I have cooked to date.  I put a piece in my mouth.   "Ok...it was pretty good but...a bit bland," I thought.   I added a dab of the Neely's barbecue sauce...closer...warmer...but still...something missing.

Fast forward 5 hours later, the guests have come gone except for two faithful party goers who were from Virginia, and have a much better idea about good barbecue than I do.  A big pile of pulled pork lies left over in our bain marie.  The guests were polite and at least said they liked it.   I didn't get rave reviews like, "This pork is unbelievable."  I reflected on when I made myself a sandwich earlier during the party and couldn't help think it was just a pretty average sandwich and felt a bit disappointed in myself.  My wife gave me a encouraging, "Your pork was so amazing."  I never know if my wife's judgement is clouded by her love for me.  Then it hit me.  I know why it was so average.  I forgot to put out the cole slaw!!!!  I exclaim to my wife and remaning guests, "I forgot the cole slaw!!" Karly's friend's husband looks up at me and has this look of, "Oh, you did have it--I was looking for it."  A pulled pork sandwich with no cole slaw is so incredibly bland!  I was stuffed, I had a burger and a sandwich, some deviled eggs, and some jalapeno poppers not 3 hours ago, but I had to try the pulled pork with the cole slaw!  

It did not disappoint.  That delicious formerly gritty cole slaw was the secret ingredient to take this once average sandwich up another level.    The acidity of the vinegar in the cole slaw really cut through the savoriness of the meat, as well as adding a nice sweet-spiciness to the mix.  I wonder how the guests would have felt if they had this essential barbecue condiment.  That brings me to today's lesson: when hosting a party, create a list of all the things that need to be out for the guests otherwise, your famous dish may end up being only average.

Overall, I really liked the recipe, but only once it all came together.  Individually, I thought that these components all tasted very average.  I am not at all discouraged from cooking from this book.  I have had pretty good successes from this Neely's so far.   This will not be the last you see of it.

Sorry for lack of pictures of final product.  I didn't know I'd be blogging about it, but I will be sure future posts will be more colorful!

Tuscan Rosemary-Smoked Whole Chicken

From Barbecue Addiction by Bobby Flay

Taste - 3 (of 5)
Difficulty - 3 (of 5 - because of the smoking in the charcoal grill--smoker might be easier)
Time - 5 of 5 (Took about 8 hours total, much of that was waiting)
Price - 2 (probably about $20 if you get a bargain chicken, probably could get cheaper)

So this recipe caught my eye because I was looking to improve my ability to cook chicken over charcoal.  I am notorious for ruining chicken breasts over charcoal.  It gets this thick tough crust that is unappetizing.  Instead of cooking chicken parts, the recipe encouraged me to cook the whole chicken on top of the grill, something I normally reserve for the oven.  However, the whole shtick of this recipe was to slow smoke the chicken and smother it with rosemary flavoring presumably to make you feel like you are eating chicken from some Italian villa in Tuscany, hence the name.

The recipe called for a ton of rosemary.  20 sprigs.  I have a small rosemary bush in my garden but it hasn't really grown enough to farm 20 sprigs from it, so I had to spend at least $5 on rosemary.  It also called for almond wood chips for smoking, I didn't have any, and could not find them at the local home depot, so I used cherry instead as suggested by the recipe as a backup.   It also said I could use apple.

The first thing the recipe called for was a brining in rosemary, chicken broth, and garlic.  This brine smelled aromatic and garlic-ey--like I was walking through a pine forest eating a meatball.  I know that doesn't sound good, but who wouldn't want to chomp on a meatball during a long hike through a pine forest?  After soaking for an hour in this concoction, I wanted to eat the chicken right then.  It smelled really good.

It then came time for the cooking after being air dried in the fridge for an hour.  So this was my first attempt at slow cooking something on the charcoal grill.  The instructions for slow cooking said to shut the top and bottom vents, pile the wood to the side, and the chicken on the other.   The recipe called to cook the chicken between 275 and 325 degrees.   I used a full chimney of lump charcoal.  I put a grill thermometer on the indirect heated side of the grill.

Once lit and covered with the vents, the grill quickly rose to 350 and higher.  I added rosemary and cherry wood chips to the fire, and it smelled unique like a sweet herb smell that almost a menthol quality to it.   I'm assuming that was the rosemary, because I added more cherry later and did not smell it.

The temperature maxed out around 375.  I closed the vents to allow the tiniest of air circulation, and it didn't seem to lower to the require temperature (325) until 40 minutes of the 45 minutes of cooking time.  I actually burn the skin off my hand adjusting the grill vents--something I will be more careful of next time.   I only touched the bottom of the grill where the charcoal for a split second -- enough to blister my skin.  Clearly, I was doing something wrong.   The chicken cooked too fast, and started to look burnt.  If I decided to slow cook something in the grill again, I will not use a full chimney's worth of charcoal. maybe a half.  If any charcoal experts are out there I'd love to hear from you.

The recipe said to measure the chicken doneness by checking the temperature of the thigh for 160 and the breast for 170.    The breast never made it to 170 before I decided to make the call to pull it off to prevent it from burning (it was 160).  I checked the thigh and and it as already at 180.

The chicken looked beautifully burnt in a pathetic way--like that quirky girl you were attracted too in highschool, but were too embarrassed to tell people because you weren't the only one sure if she was hot.  I'm not quite sure how it is supposed to look, but I thought the final product looked a bit..er over-done, but I couldn't help admire the color of it. It really did look seductive like a cartoon chicken from Tom and Jerry.  I loved how Tom would pick up a chicken and take a big bite out of it.   Cartoon chickens always look perfectly cooked.  The inside of the chicken was a different story--I knew when I cut into it that it was good.   The meat was succulent and juicy, the smokey rosemary flavor was prevalent throughout the meat.  My wife and I had a breast and a drumstick each.

We both agreed while juicy and delicious, it was in the end, just chicken, albeit smokey, fragrent delicious chicken.  As far as roasted chicken goes, this is how I want to eat it.  I just would rather have a pork chop.  We'd eat it again, but we are not in a hurry to try it.  Given the chicken takes all day to prepare, (2-4 hours brine, 1-2 hours to dry, 1/2 hour to warm, 1 hour to smoke) I wouldn't rush to make this again, unless I had some really good sides to go with it and I had the hanckerin' for slice or piece a chunka chicken.  This was fun to cook, and experiment with brining and trying to slow cook.  I know what to expect next time.

My Mission

I am getting old.  I love food and I'm getting old and I can't remember all the great things I've eaten.  I literally have a wall full of recipe books from tv chef celebrities, famous restaurants, topical food books, weight recipe books, grilling books, plating books and books that will teach you how to properly cut off the head of a chicken (yeah, and I've decided not too do that--it involves a traffic cone and a lot of blood).  I've made so many recipes from these books, and yet I have never sat down and tried to write about my experiences.  I've been to dozens of "business casual" restaurants and had food that blew my mind.  I simply rely on my aging memory to tell me what was really good, and what was bad, what mistakes I made.  And my memory fails me.

It wasn't until one night I made something that I thought was "new", and it wasn't until it was in my mouth, that I remembered, "I made this before."   At that point, I had the idea of creating a list where I wrote down everything I made, so I can remember what is good.

And then I think about all the times my wife and I sit down to plan the meals for the week and I go blank.  I can't remember any of the recipes that were both simple to make and delicious.  We ultimately end up going with the same tired recipes we ate when we were first married.  (Not that the quesidillas made with soup are bad, after a while I just want something new).

I thought, if I just made this list it would be great, then I could peruse the list and find the recipe I want.  But then, I'd probably not remember what the recipe looked like and I'd want pictures, and so I thought I'd make a web site.   Then I remembered, I write code all day at work and the last thing I want to do when I get home is more coding.  Then I thought, I'll just write about it and blog my food and let the blog site take care of the technical bits.

So I am setting off to write this blog about my experiences in the kitchen.  I am not a chef, I am simply an amateur, middle-aged man who used to eat nothing but peanut butter sandwiches as a kid, but found much later in life food can be glorious.  (more on that in later posts) Every time I post, I'll be chose a recipe from one of my hundreds of recipe books.  When I cook, I resolve to take photos, write about what I did wrong, and whether the recipe worked or failed.  I'll write about the complexity of it, how long it took, so I can remember if it is something I want as a casual night's dinner, or if it's something I want to serve to guests during the holidays.  I'll probably mention if the wife and kids like it, as her opinion sometimes differs from mine.  (I swear if I even put a dash of cayanne in anything she complains that her mouth is on fire) I will also simply comment about what I think of the recipe, so I can remember if I want this again, or if I should serve it to guests.

That's it.  My mission statement is, "Create a place where I can look back with nostalgia on the things that I have cooked."  I hope you enjoy as much as I enjoy cooking it.