Yes Jan, there’s skin on that chicken. You bet.
It’s still winter, just in case you were wondering. The trees are bare, the sun is going down too early and the days are only warm enough to wear only one sweater outside (I’m in California). Everyone has been spending too darned much time in the house, our little noses are pressed tight to the windows longing for the spring. There’s a few things one can do to lift the spirits. One of which would be to spend a morning at the local Farmer’s market, that helps. Especially if you’re able to pick up a package of Taylor’s Bordelaise sausage and fresh bacon. Another thing one could do is to fire up the grill. I did both and by Saturday afternoon I was feeling a bit better.
Category Archives: Grilled Meat
A Meeting of the Minds or Open Wide, Smoked Pork Comin’
Click on image for larger explosion!
Where were you on December 26th 2004 at 4:10 in the a.m.? Yeah huh, sleeping or giving up your holiday dinner to the porcelain express. Hopefully not the latter. The above photograph you see is a starting stove rig for getting your mesquite hunks all lit up, at 4:20 Sunday morning. You see, I had a few honored guests coming for a mid day meat gathering. One of which being Joe Bob, our plucky reporter from Denver. I had this really nice stuffed pork shoulder roast that I wanted to smoke, but I was sure it was going to take at least 5 hours. And if the guests were to arrive about noon, I had to be up and ready very early. It was a bit cold and moist, the fire didn’t want to blaze. Even so I got the smoker warmed and ready in 50 minutes. Meat in, hickory sparklin’, time to pull the chicken and get that pieced out. The effort it took was worth every second, the day was a complete success.
Biggles Viestad’s Meyer Lemon Chicken
This area, this year, this month is having a real cold snap. We Californians living in the Bay Area here aren’t used to freezing temperatures. Albeit, this is at night. Even so, our daytime temperatures aren’t getting much past 50. That ain’t right. How do we cope?
Smoke meat.
Birthday Smoked Pork Shoulders and Crepinettes and Simmered Meaty Beans and Pate and Pepperoni and Best Ever Potato Salad and I Forgot the Green Leafy Salad Birthday
Meathenge’s very own recipe featured above! The Bean Experiment. A rich & wonderful pot of beans anyone can make. So good everyone had 3 helpings.
I know it may not seem busy around here, what with the posting slowing a degree or nine. Meathenge has been working furiously behind the scenes for family & friends. Last Saturday we hosted a birthday party for my father and a celebration for my sister finding a new job. I began the meal by choosing Fatted Calf’s Spalla Ripiene, a stuffed pork shoulder. I figured along with 6 of Fatted C’s Guinea Fowl Crepinettes, Guinea Fowl Pate and Pepperoni, we’d be set. Nope.
As I was perusing the meat section at our local super market I noticed one of the young butchers attempting to find a place for a lone pork shoulder. I already had one, a really bitchen’ one. Ah hell, one more can’t hurt. Besides, smoking just one pork shoulder is a waste of smoky goodness. So I bought it.
Beef Onglet – Prather Ranch Delivers Flavors
A few days ago, early in the morning, at work, before coffee, Meathead walked in and handed me a bag with some bloody meat in it. He assured me it was a cut of beef and the label said, Onglet. Since it was from Prather Ranch I figured it must be okay. They gots all that fancy Certified Organic meat. I thanked him & my sister for the gift and ran back to my computer to google “what the HELL is a beef onglet?”
Smoking your own chiles – Chipotle that is
Last Thursday I received an email from Kim, she used to work at Fatted Calf and now works for Stonehouse Olive Oil Company. It was an innocent little email, the subject header only read, “have you seen this?” The body contained an url to an article. SOUTH TO NORTH, Smoking chipotles can become a great habit, written by Jacqueline Higuera McMahan. I read through the article a few times, I love the little smoky beasts. It seemed innocent enough, but I knew better. It isn’t easy maintaining a low temperature fire (under 200 degrees) for long periods of time. I wasn’t interested at first, but after doing a little research I decided to go for it, immediately.
Smoked Pork Shoulder Stuffed with Bacon
Yes you are correct. I have posted several ways of dealing with a pork shoulder roast, bone in and otherwise. Yes you are correct, they came out very pleasingly and worth the time and effort. Even so, I would really like to get something mouth watering explosive right out of the smoker. This means you don’t need to shred it and fry it in lard with more spices. Which is fine, believe me. But I want a large thick hunk of meat to have stunning mouth splitting flavor from the center all the way out to the edges. This time, I succeeded.
Savory Sausage Stuffed Quails – Smoked
Welp, it was time to smoke the little quails. I spent some time after work cleaning out the smoker, getting things ready. This year has seen a lot of meat run through the beast and it needs looking after. I got the fire started a little later than I had planned, but after seeing how tiny these little stuffed quails were I figured I had more time to fuss.
I used mesquite as my main heat source with large chunks of raw hickory to bring up the flavor side.
And boy did we get flavor, let me tell you whut.
La Caja China – The Odyssey
Are you holding on to something? Maybe you should sit down, a good sit. MeatHenge Labs is proud to introduce our very own La Caja China Roasting Box. This year we’ll be able to roast a 100 lb pig. Since I figure I’ll need a little practice, turkeys get to go first. My eyes are vibrating along with shaky hands as I get this down on monitor. The Caja China is a portable plywood box lined with steel. The marinade injected meat goes inside on a rack over a fat tray. Once loaded, a charcoal tray goes on top. In this tray goes maybe 14lbs of Kingsford charocal briquets. It’s kinda like a pressure cooker, a big pressure cooker. There is no smokey flavor, just roasting like in a big fricken’ oven. This is a fine wonderful thing.
Injectable Marinade – Caja China Roasting Box Preview
This last weekend has to have been one of the most exciting weekends in quite some time. Both Saturday & Sunday was filled with shopping, preparing, experimenting & cooking/smoking/roasting meat. There will be a lot of information both informative & fun over the next few days, so please keep yourself propped upright long enough to get through it, K?
The catalyst for the last few days was the arrival of the La Caja China Roasting Box. I purchased it a few weeks ago, maybe 3. I had planned on roasting a pig for my birthday party that’s coming up, but realized it was too much too late. I attempted to cancel the order, but it showed up anyway. Fine, I’ll find a use for it.
I figure I can do up some turkeys, that’s straight forward enough. One of my first rules about cooking for a party is to not do something for the first time that day. This means I have to learn how to inject meat with a marinade (no, I haven’t been through that yet) and make a few runs through the roasting box before the following weekend. I can do that. But first I wanted to try out my personal injection technique & recipes before ruining 2 14lb natural turkeys. Which means today we’re going to figger out how to inject a marinade in to a Boston Butt Pork Roast. Baby Steps.
IMBB – Smoke the Meat, then Eat the Meat
If you’re a fan of the Henge, there are posts that you expect to see. At the root level, we’re talking about cooking food. Just above that, maybe MEAT and then all hell breaks loose.
Well, it’s been about 14 months since we went up and this will be our first Is My Blog Burning (IMBB).
Aroo ?!??! you say? It is a game that a fellow food blogger (Il Forno ) put up on
the wall. To play you have to cook the Food Theme called, then either post it directly to the host or put in your URL of your blog. There really aren’t any rules, just some people getting together for some fun.
It can be interesting to see what people come up with when you say, RICE !!! Or SEAFOOD. Sure as hell I’m going to cook something with rice differently that someone in Manila.
This time it is all about Grilling / Barbecueing. I thought this might be the time to step in.
Reheating Barbecue
This conversation comes up far more often than you’d expect. Mostly because sometimes there ARE leftovers from cooking out of doors.
Here you find yourself with a rack of pork ribs or 3 lbs of smoked beef brisket. Today we have the 3 lb smoked beef brisket I got from Rick’s Quality Meats of El Cerrito. I’m glad I called that second on Monday, because by the time the meat came out of the smoker (82 pounds), it was all sold. I got mine and here it is. But that was yesterday, now it is cold and the fat has solidified. No problem.
Ham – It isn’t just for the Holidays
Ham, it isn’t just for holidays anymore. I picked myself up a brined ham (needs cooking) this last Saturday from the Fatted Calf, just a little one. Not the 9 pound beast like last time, this one was about 2 pounds. Perfect size for a little snack treat. And a wondeful luscious treat it was.
MEAT ALERT !!! smoked brined chickens
HOOYAH there are some happenings about town today. I know over the past year I’ve mentioned Rick’s Quality Meats of El Cerrito a few times. He, back then, was smoking meats out of the backyard smoker I sold him (he modified it considerably to make it more efficient). This means he was only able to do a dozen half chickens or so at a time. They were usually pre-sold, if not they were gone that day. Times have changed for Rick.
Mem Day Smokey Pork Ribs & a Meat Side
pre-thought side note: Coming soon will be a picture of my new awning for outdoor living. It is almost complete, I just need to purchase and lash down the bamboo roof and what-not. It is 10′ x 20.8′ and will give us a great space to be. Yay for us.
As far as parties go, meat or otherwise. What pops in to your mind when someone says Memorial Day? That’s right, people everywhere, drinks a-flowing and great food as far as the eye can see. I know you expect no less of MeatHenge Labs. Yeah well, we were tired and enjoying the fact we didn’t have to deal with acres of friends and/or family. It was really nice to spend a few days just puttering about doing what we wanted, when we wanted. This, and yelling at the children, breaking up fits and fights.
Early Sunday morning I was driving around in my truck for no good reason and the radio told me to go buy some Luscious & Meat Pork Ribs on Sale, $1.99 a lb. Rarely do I buy Grocery Store meat, rarely. I was weak and sped over to get myself one of two packages left. They looked just fine and didn’t smell all manky. I had something ‘to do’ on Monday.