Salmon with Guava BBQ Sauce

Mmmm... guava BBQ sauce. So good.  Made with my guava jam and caramelized on top of a nice piece of salmon, quite tasty.

I used this recipe, although I added a liberal squirt of Sriracha for extra spice to balance the sweetness in the sauce.  I plopped the salmon atop this bell pepper free mango and cucumber salsa recipe from Simply Recipes, mixed with a can of black beans.  Good stuff.

Smoked Brisket - Aaron Franklin Style

Anthony Bourdain went to Austin, TX a couple of weeks ago as part of his final season of No Reservations.  He spent time with a guy by the name of Aaron Franklin, the chef/owner of Franklin Barbecue.  Tony declared Aaron's Texas-style brisket to be the best he'd ever tasted.

So, I decided to replicate Aaron's masterpiece - Butcher Paper Brisket.  This entailed not only finding everything I could about how he works his magic online and scouring the web for tips from every other BBQ source out there, but also investing in a new gas grill and learning how to turn it into a smoker.

New grill waiting assembly

Several hours (and drinks) later...

Sweet new natural gas supplied Weber

9 lbs USDA choice brisket from Iowa Meat Farms

Kosher salt and pepper rub

Brisket wrapped in foil and kept overnight in fridge

Acadian Oak smoking chips

Making wood chip packets for the smoker

10 am - brisket and wood chip packet in place

1 pm - wood chip packets replaced every 1-2 hours

Watermelon Cucumber Basil Salad courtesy of Martha Stewart

Jicama Slaw courtesy of Bobby Flay

Aaron Franklin's Espresso BBQ Sauce (modified with two Starbucks instant medium roast packets, chipotle pepper, brown sugar and less ketchup)

8 pm - Slicing up the brisket

Ming's stacked brisket sandwich

Ming enjoying a fully loaded sandwich

Very good.  But, did not have enough time to let it rest properly (they all recommend resting for 2+ hours) since I had dinner guests who were rather hungry.  Next time would start earlier and let it enjoy the full resting period.

Low Brow Know How

This week saw some pretty low-brow, but quite tasty recipes grace our kitchen.  Sorry for the terrible low-light photos!

1. Pineapple BBQ pulled chicken:

This recipe is embarrassingly easy, so easy that it almost doesn't require a recipe (but I got the idea from this website): pulled chicken made with pre-made BBQ sauce jazzed up with hot sauce, pineapple and onion, all melded together care of the slow cooker. I'm not normally a jarred BBQ sauce person, but we were the recipients of a bottle of Jack Daniels Spicy Original when Ben and Erin moved, and it's that bottle of sauce that sparked this idea.

Place boneless (or bone-in if you're feeling sassy and don't mind picking out bones later) chicken breasts (would probably be even better with thighs) in slow cooker, cover with a roughly chopped onion and pineapple (you could use drained canned pineapple, but I used fresh because I live in the tropics and that's how we roll), top with BBQ sauce and hot sauce (I used Sriracha, tentu saja) to taste.  Turn on cooker, cook for 3-4 hours, shred chicken with 2 forks, cook for a little while longer so chicken soaks up sauce, eat.

We served the chicken in wraps with a little bit of lettuce and cheese, but you could put it in buns, too.  

We also served it with a side of crunchy jicama and carrot slaw:  matchstick jicama and carrot mixed with raisins that had been soaking in lime juice, a squirt of hot sauce, a teeny bit of oil, chopped cilantro, salt and pepper... I also added matchstick yellow pepper, but would leave that out next time as it was too watery and its flavor was overpowering.

2. Chipotle egg salad:

Egg salad made with a little bit of mayo, some Dijon mustard, adobo sauce (from a can of chipotle in adobo), minced green onions, minced dill pickles, chopped parsley and S&P.   Served on slices of homemade 100% whole wheat sandwich bread a la Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.