You say "grilled flatbread" ... I say "pizza"

I realize that our society is hung up on words and phrases, but I don't understand it.  Somehow, we've transcended to a plane where you can rename a common thing and we'll willingly, lemming-like, accept it as the greatest new invention since sliced ... well ... anything.

Case in point:  Patagonian Toothfish.  The name alone is as unappetizing as a toothpaste sandwich.  It paints a mental picture of of a cross between Flipper, Shamoo, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Jeff Dunham's Bubba J.  But, with a flurry of penmanship, the name morphs into "Chilean Seabass", which is now Seafood Watch's overfished list.  Has the fish changed?  No.  Has it gained additional, magical flavor?  No.  It's just gotten a "media makeover" and people have gone gonzo over it.  I'm not blaming Americans as the exclusive reason this is happening, in Japan it's called "mero" and is incredibly  expensive.

Where am I going with this?  In a word:  names.  I've seen it happen in restaurants over the past couple years, where what we used to call "pizza" is now being labeled as "grilled flatbread".  Is it new?  No.  Is it different?  No.  It's a flat piece of dough with toppings.  It's flipping pizza. Call it "farinata", "cecina", "tarte flambée", "Lahmacun", "pissaladiere", "calzone" or "stromboli" it all boils down to the same thing:  dough with toppings.  Period.

Sorry for the rant.  George Carlin passed away last week, and I've been a student of his analysis of language for years, so I get a bit carried away.  What I'm trying to say is this:  doesn't matter what you call it, it's a basic recipe that you can adapt to whatever you wish to top a slice of bread with. 

So enough of the rant, let's get topping!  If you've been following my adventures, you know I've got BBQ coming out of my ears, and have been having fun getting "BB-creative" with smoked meat in recipes.  Tonight it's a simple dish (I'm lazy, I'm tired, and I don't want to waste time, shoot me):  BBQ Pizza.

BBQ Pizza

This can be done on the grill or in your oven.  For the grill, get the coals going and set up the grill for "dual-zones" (a hot zone and a cool zone).  For the oven, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (the hotter, the better).

Take a Boboli prepared pizza crust (or, alternatively, you can us pita bread or something similar, for smaller "personal" pizzas) and brush with olive oil.

Sprinkle over the crust the ingredients:

• BBQ chopped or shredded pork (or brisket, each works well)
• BBQ Sauce (drizzle over the meat, less coverage than what you'd do with a marinara)
• shredded mozzarella cheese

Place the pizza on the cold size of the grill or in the oven and  bake for 10 minutes or less (depends on the heat of your grill/oven).  You're looking for a golden brown crust and melted cheese.

If you use the Boboli small crusts, you can let each guest create their own pizzas and vary the toppings.  Easy party food, since you don't have to cook it (the guests do the work and they love the participation factor).

Leftovers

Went back to pick up the rest of my gear from the gig this weekend (by the end of it, I was way too tired to pack up the truck).  I hurt in places I didn't know I had, but it's a good hurt.  Everyone left happy and I'm still basking in the afterglow. 

But enough about me, let's talk about leftovers.  No matter how good an estimator you are, no matter how accurate the guest count is, and no matter whether all the predicted guest show up (with no suprise additions), when you're doing a buffet you're going to have leftovers.  Part of it is basic planning technique (add 10% to your quantities when doing a buffet to accommodate people that don't show offset by people who go through the line multiple times), part of it is psychological:  An empty or near empty steam tray will empty even slower as no one wants to be the one to take the last serving of anything.  Well, almost anything:  I've seen people fight over the last cookie but completely pass up the last baby-back rib.  Weird.

The bottom line is this:  when you're done, you're going to have extra food.  What do you do with it?  For those of you screaming "donate" I have a word of caution:  not all charitable organizations who accept food will accept all kinds of food.  If it's cooked at a private party, probably not (many have rules about the production facilities), for health and safety reasons.  Just bear that in mind.

If you end up taking it home, and I can't bear to see good BBQ go to waste, you are then faced with the challenge of what to do with it.  Either eat it as is for as along as you have to, or get creative.  I opt for the latter.

I'm starting to fade now (long day), but I'll leave you with a quick and dirty recipe for BBQ hash.  I made it this morning for breakfast and it was wonderful.  The idea is to use the BBQ pork as a bacon substitute, so think about other recipes using bacon that might benefit from a change up to smoked pork.

BBQ Breakfast Hash

Put a non-stick skillet on medium-high heat with a little olive oil.

While it's heating, dice up a medium potato and a quarter of an onion.  Make the potato dice smaller than the onion (this helps to even out the cooking time).  Rinse the potato to wash off some of the excess starch, pat dry, and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and your favorite herbage (I like to use a little Mrs. Dash).

Add the potato to the hot skillet and saute for a few minutes to start the browning process.  When it starts to brown and is soft when you poke a piece with a knife, add the onion and a half cup of pulled or chopped smoked pork.  Saute for a little longer.  We're not trying to completely cook down the onion, just soften it a bit and give it a little color.  The pork will lend it's fat to the browning process as it heats through.  When the onion's barely soft and the pork is warmed through (and may have some nice crispy bits), plate, cover and set aside.

Crack two eggs into the skillet and cook to your preference, plate on top of the hash.  Alternatively, you could mix the egg in the skillet with the other ingredients (the "breakfast scramble"), or if you're really lazy, crack the eggs in on top of the hash, cook on the stove top for a couple minutes then put under the broiler to finish.

Eat!

G'Nite, Internets.

BBQ For the Truly Lazy

With Independence Day tomorrow, grills will be out in force around the country.  I'll be doing more smoking than grilling, since I have to cook for a friend's wedding this Saturday and he wanted some of my 'Q (Not much ... just enough to feed 70 people).  I love summer but, even more, I love BBQ.

For those of you serious about your BBQ, you know there's only one way to do it:  low and slow.  Every pitmaster has their own rules, but generally:

• Smoke at temperatures below 300° F and closer to 225° F (I personally aim for 215-235° F).  This is often referred to as cold smoking.
• Pork shoulder (also called Boston Butt) should be cooked to an internal temperature of 180° F, so the meat is tender yet still juicy and ready for pulling or chopping (depending on the kind of sandwich you like).  This translates to around 1.5 hours/pound of smoking time (roughly). 

Everything boils down to the amount of heat applied (focus on temp not time, and you'll always have great 'Q), so monitoring the temperature is critical.  Many BBQ fanatics recommend 2 probe thermometers when smoking:

• One stuck in a wine cork and wedged into the grill grates of the smoker to measure ambient temperature.  Make sure you push the probe all the way through so the end is exposed.  Also make sure the end does not touch the grates (or your readings will be way off).
• One stuck in the meat itself.  Aim for the center of the thickest piece of meat, avoiding any bones.

If you get probes with alarms, so much the better.  Set the temperatures you're looking for and go do something else.  In the case of the ambient monitor, set the alarm to a temperature 5-10 degrees below what you want not to exceed.  You may even wish to use 2 ambient probes:  one for the upper and one for the lower limit of your optimal smoking range (if you do that, you are truly a BBQ geek).  However you do it, the smoker will then alert you when it needs tending.  As an added benefit, this keeps you from continuously opening the lid and peeking at your creation in the making which, while good for the ego, slows down the cooking time as the heat (and smoke) escape.

But what if you find yourself in a time and coordination crunch.  You want to throw a party, but can't afford to sit and watch a smoker for 8-10 hours (or more).  How can you possibly BBQ when you've got a smaller grill and still have fun at the party?  It's easy, as long as you're willing to bend the rules a bit and braise your meat before you smoke it:

Braised, Smoked, Chopped Pork Sandwiches

Ingredients

• A boneless pork shoulder (boston butt), sized to how many people you're feeding (# people / 3 = lbs of pork)
• Your favorite BBQ rub
• A can of your favorite beer

The Braise

Preheat oven to 275° F.

Rinse the pork to get rid of the excess blood.  Pat dry with paper towels, and place in an aluminum half-sheet pan (like those used for disposable buffets).

Sprinkle BBQ rub liberally over the pork, getting all sides and into the folds.  If there's a large fat "cap" on the pork, position it in the pan so the cap is on top (to baste the meat as it cooks).  Pour about 1/3-1/3 of the beer over the pork (you don't need much, as the meat already has a good deal of liquid in it).

Cover the pan with aluminum foil tightly (no cracks or leaks), place in the oven, and braise for about 6 hours.  Remove from oven, leave covered while preparing the grill/smoker.

The Smoke

Put some hickory chunks in another pan and pour the rest of the beer over them.  Add enough water so the chunks can soak and let them soak for at least 30 minutes before you need them.

After the chunks have soaked for 15 minutes or so, fire up a chimney of coals (or start the coals in your grill), and let them burn for 15 minutes until they get nicely covered with fine white ash.  Rake the coals to one side of the grill (creating hot and cold zones), toss a couple of the soaked chunks on the coals, cover the grill and let it sit for a couple minutes and start smoking.  Position the lid so the lid vent is over the cold side of the grill.

Once smoke is coming through the vent, take the foil off the pan, drain off the liquid that's accumulated, and place the pork pan and all on the cold side of the smoker (you may wish to put a few more wood chunks on the coals).  Put the lid back on and let it sit for at least 30 minutes to an hour.  At this point, you're not cooking the pork (you don't need to), you're imparting smoky goodness into the exposed meat ("building a bark" as they say).

After an hour, the meat should have a crusty mahogany color to it.  Take off the grill, cover, and let it rest for 15 minutes, then chop it up (or pull it apart with a couple forks).  Be sure to mix it up so you combine the smokey exterior meat with the juicy interior meat. 

Serve with sauce, slaw, pickles, whatever trips your trigger.

You can do the braising overnight in your oven, and the meat will be ready to finish in the morning for you.  The purists will argue that "it's not true BBQ".  Whatever.  It still tastes darned good.

Roll, Canada!

Don McMillan ("the only comedian who works in PowerPoint") speculated that we've been spelling the name of our northern neighbor wrong all along, the correct spelling being "CND":

"Just ask a Canadian how they spell the name of their country.  They'll say 'C, eh, N, eh, D, eh' ..."

Ok, ok, ok.  So you had to be there (or get the CD).  Regardless of how you spell it, yesterday was Canada Day.  Once called "Dominion Day" (now that sounds ominous, coming from the land of the cruller and Kokanee), it celebrates the July 1, 1867, event that created the federation of the original four provinces:  Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario.

And the "cuisine d'Canada"?  It's as varied as that of the US, with a prominent French influence (can you say Québécois?), which lends itself to delicious dishes and even more delicious names (bear with me, I'm just warming up).

Take the humble cinnamon roll:  dough wrapped around a cinnamon-sugar filling (a pastry roulade, if you will).  My mother made some wicked ones when I was growing up, though they were called "caramel rolls" (that's "sticky buns" for some of you).  Brown sugar and butter in the pan, melting during the baking process to produce a wonderful sugary glaze that was almost better than the cinnamon/sugar-infused bun itself.  And that wonderful, yeasty aroma that would spread through the house was intoxicating.

When I was little, I'd help bake sometimes, though it was often less "help" than "eat the odd-shaped ends of raw dough, sugar, and melted butter".  I wish I'd picked up my mother's skill with baking, but I'm as good a baker as I am a gardener, but I've a very "brown" thumb(when I'm not hitting it with a hammer while aiming for a nail).  I've killed more sourdough starters than should be legal in civilized society, and I've not had to register as a yeast offender (there is no proof that the "marinara bread' adventure ever happened, I swear).

At any rate, enough waxing sentimental.  Sticky buns are the order of the day, and here is the recipe my mother gave me 20-some years ago:

Rolls

• 1/2 C lukewarm water
• 2 pkg dry yeast
  
• 4 T sugar
• 2/3 C warm milk
• 2 eggs
• 2 t salt
• 1/4 C lard, melted
• 4 C flour (about)
  
• 1/3 C butter, melted
• 1/2 C brown sugar
• 1 T white corn syrup or water

Soak the yeast in the lukewarm water for 5 minutes.

Pour milk and melted shortening over sugar and salt in bowl.  Cool to lukewarm.

Add yeast and unbeaten eggs.  Mix well.

Add flour a little at a time and beat.  Knead in remaining flower to make a soft dough.  Cover and let rise 15 minutes.

Mix the butter, brown sugar, and corn syrup or water together, and pour into greased pans, drizzling thin layer on the bottom of the pan (make sure it's spread around so there's a deliciously gooey pool for each roll to sit in while baking).

Divide dough into two parts.  Roll into rectangles and spread with softened butter.  Roll rectangles into roulades.  For added flavor, sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar before rolling.

Slice roulades into rolls about 2" thick, producing about 12 rolls per roulade.  Place rolls in the greased pans, making sure each gets its face-down end dipped in some of the butter/sugar mixture.

Cover pans and let rise for about 1/2 hour (or until doubled in volume).  Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Bake until golden brown (about 30-45 minutes).  Remove from oven and let cool in pans briefly.

Flip pan over onto cookie rack.  The syrup will still be rather hot (be careful), but if you do it soon enough, it will be fluid enough to aid in removing the rolls.  Let cool until you can't take it any more.  Indulge. 

Makes about 2 dozen rolls.

What's so Canadian about sticky buns?  I'm glad you asked.  The Canadian version's filling is a wonderfully decadent brown-sugar creme, with an even more delicious name:  Pets de soeurs.  That's French for "nuns' farts". 

Bon Appetit, eh?

You Gonna Eat That?

Sometimes, late at night, you get the munchies ... and all semblance of food sanity goes right out the window (it also seems to happen when you're pregnant, or so I'm told). At any rate, I remember people looking at me as if I'd completely lost my mind when (in response to "What do you wanna eat?") I say "I'm thinking pasta and caramel sauce". Now, granted, I wasn't really hungry for pasta and caramel sauce, I was just going for the shock value ... and I usually got it in spades.

Well, checking out metafilter tonight, I found this. Oddly enough, it sounds kinda good (apparently someone else agrees).

Smoked Potato and Andouille Soup

Yet another experiment in crockpot cooking.

Ingredients:

• 3 lbs red potatoes, cleaned and halved
  
• 4 links andouille sausage, rough dice
  
• 1 C onion, rough dice
• 1/2 C carrot, rough dice
• 1/2 C celery, rough dice
• garlic (to taste)
  
• chicken stock
• vegetable stock
  
• olive oil
• chipotle powder
• crushed red pepper flake
  
• crushed habanero pepper flake

Additional Tools:

• Stovetop smoker
• Wood for smoker (either sawdust or chips), hickory, maple, cherry, apple (whatever you prefer).

Instructions:

• Boil potatoes in chicken stock until fork tender (~ 15-20 minutes). Drain, let cool.
• If using wood chips, soak in water for 30 minutes before placing in smoker. If using sawdust, place in smoker according to directions. Place drip pan and grill in smoker, then place potatoes on grill. Place smoker on stove burners on medium heat.
  
• Smoke potatoes for about 30 minutes. They'll develop a nice mahogony color around the edges (using BBQ terms, "bark"). Remove smoker from heat and let cool.
• While potatoes are cooling, heat a little olive oil in a sauce pan over medium heat.
• When warm, add garlic and sautee briefly (don't let it turn brown), then add mire poix (the onions, carrots, and celery) and sweat the mixture. Add salt, pepper, and a dash of chipotle powder (to taste). Sweat for a few minutes.
• Add sausage to pot, and let the mixture heat through.
• While heating, large dice the potatoes and place them in your crock pot.
• Add the mire poix/sausage mixture to the crock.
• Add enough vegetable stock (or water) to cover the mixture.
• Dust the top of the soup with any combination of chili powder (chipotle, crushed red pepper, habanero flake, etc.). This is very much to taste, so add as much or as little as you wish.
• Put the lid on the crock and let 'er rip for anywhere from 4-6 hours.