Ribfest 2011 - Find our favorite rib recipe

Now that I've used the big green egg some more and have a good feeling for how it works, I figured now is as good a time as any to work on finding a go to rib recipe.

The plan was to take 6 different racks of baby back ribs, try 6 different rub / sauce combos and do a blind taste test with a neighbor who also loves BBQ. From there Ribfest was on.

I had the colored rubber bands that are used to keep roasts together. I crated a unique color combo per rib and rubbed each up. Gave each rib a few hours in the rub, pulled out of the fridge to get to room temperature. Using the V-rack I put all 6 ribs in the rack and got ready to warm up the egg.

For Rib fest we tried the following:
Store bought Famous Daves Rub and Sauce
Store bought Dinosaur BBQ Rub and Sauce
Chris Lilly's Memphis BBQ Rib Recipe from his book Big Bob Gibson's BBQ Book
The Rib Recipe from the Weber Way to Grill Book
Bourbon Rib Recipe from Smoke and Spice Book
And a recipe from the web

I fired up the egg with some cherry and apple wood chips, let the egg reach 300 degrees and put the ribs in for a 3 hour smoke.

Once the 3 hours were up I took all of the ribs out to baste each in sauce and put back on at full heat in the egg for a good hot seer.

We broke each Rib combo into individual bones and did a blind taste test of all 6 ribs.

We really enjoyed all of them, but in the end the consensus for best taste was the Weber Way to Grill Recipe. I just had the best overall full flavor.

We had a lot of fun trying this eggventure. It wasn't the easiest to make 6 different combos and keep them all separated, but I'm glad we did and can't wait to make an entire batch of the weber recipe.

Up Next: Vacation, we're going to be gone for 2 weeks, so no eggventures for a couple of weeks.

Aged Sirloin Steak Hot Seer

The local Byerly's had a nice sale on dry aged sirloin steaks, so no better time then the present to cook up a couple of steaks.

The thick steaks were weighing in at around 1.75 pounds, so for this exercise I cut them into two before I even started preparing them. I also thought this was as good as time as any to try the new potato rack I recently bought. For the potatoes I just coated them in a little corse salt, placed on the rack and put on the green egg as it was coming up to temperature. Once the Egg reached 400 degrees I stopped it there and cooked the potatoes for 30 minutes.

For the steaks I prepared them with a simple montreal steak rub from McCormicks. I know it's a boring store bought rub, but for simplicity, it delivers a good enough flavor for me.

Once the potatoes were done (30 minutes at 400), I pulled them off and opened up both of the vents on the egg to get it up to 700 plus degrees to get the big green egg nice and hot.

I used the 2-2-2 method of cooking. 2 minutes on one side, flip. 2 minutes on the other side, flip. Turn the egg off and let sit for on the big green egg for 2 minutes. This creates a nice char on both sides and cooks the inside just enough to be medium rare (after a 5 minute rest on the counter as well).

The potatoes and steaks turned out very well. Tasty as usual. The sirloin was cooking just to my likely and had plenty of flavor.

The rack worked well in terms of holding the potatoes. I'm not sure if it delivered much value in terms of helping the potato cook. I'll have to do a side by side sometime with and without the rack to see if there is a noticeable difference.

Lessons Learned: Don't try and pick up a hot potato rack with your heat resistant meat gloves. They are apparently not made for 400 degree plus heat.

Up Next: Ribfest.. 6 racks of ribs, 6 rub/sauce combos. Trying to pick my favorite go to rib sauce/spice rub combo. Will be interesting..

First Attempt at Pizza on the Big Green Egg

I decided to buy myself an early birthday present and get a pizza stone for the big green egg from the BGE company.

I've always struggled with making my own pizza dough, so I decided to buy it from Byerly's and use their version. I purchased 3 balls of dough, some sauce, fresh mozzarella and a handful of toppings from the salad bar.

Ingredients we used (not all on one Pizza):
Spinach
Arugula
Prosciutto
Chicken
Bacon
Fresh Mozzarella

I put the plate setter in legs down with the pizza stone on top. And fired up the egg with both vents open all the way.

Once the egg was up to 700 degrees it was time to start making pizza. We made sure to put corn meal down on the pizza peel so the pizza would slide off easier.

After 3 minutes the pizza was ready and nicely crisped.

Round 1 and 2 of the pizza came out really well, but the third one unfortunately was left on a little too long and ended up with a burnt bottom.

With the high heat I may have ruined the gasket, but it's too early to tell. The previously soft felt gasket is now much harder. Being new to the egg, I don't know if I'll have to replace it or if this is just more "seasoning". Only time will tell as I do some form of smoking and see what type of "leakage" I have.

Overall the Pizza stone worked great. On 2 out of 3 pizza's the crust was nice and crisp, yet soft on the inside. I'm chalking it up to user error on the last pizza's burning.

Lessons Learned: With the variability of success with the different rounds of Pizza I learned I need to formally time the pizza's instead of going on feel. In the 700+ degree range the pizza took about 3 minutes. Next time I will have a timer handy. Also learned to be careful with the high heats, it turns out it's pretty easy to do some work on the gaskets. Too early to tell if there is an issue with the gaskets or not, but only time will tell.

Next Up: Dry Aged Sirloin Steaks at a high temperature quick cook.

Let's Dish Cinco De Mayo

A few months ago, my wife and a neighbor went and used the service let's dish. It's a place where you can put together ingredients for meals ready to be frozen and cooked on demand. It works well at times for our busy lives. We've enjoyed it enough to do it again sometime when we really need more food.

One of the dishes she made was a flank steak "fajitas". With Cinco de mayo and the green egg, I figured why not cook the flank steak on the egg and enjoy. The freezer bag comes with a pound cut of pre-marinated flank steak, peppers & onions, a cream sauce and some flour tortillas.

Nothing special with the big green egg here, just fired it up to 400 with no plate setter. The instructions said to cook it 8 to 10 minutes, but I know the instructions are usually overly cautious to make sure the meat is cooked to a safe temperature. Instead I cooked it for 6 minutes a side. Took it off, let sit for 5 minutes and sliced cross the grain.

The fajita's were fine, nothing special, nothing bad.. added a little sriracha sauce but a simple meal, which is what I was going for more then anything.

Lessons Learned: Nothing special here. Don't always cook meat the recommended time. You may end up with overcooked steak. The meal was I hoped it was. Easy, had some flavor and quick clean-up.

Next Up: Dry aged Choice Sirloins are on sale at Byerly's. I can see a nice steak on the egg coming up. Plus the Paquiao / Mosley fight on Saturday.

Himalayan Salt Block Salmon

For Christmas this year my sister in law gave me a Himalayan Salt Block. Having not known quite what to do with it, I saw this post over on Big T's Big Green Egg Recipe Blog and figured now is as good as any to give it a try.

I picked up some fresh Norwegian Salmon at Byerly's and gave it a go. I also had some seafood rub from flavor foundations in the cabinet (also a christmas gift from someone) that I had not given a try to yet, so I pulled that out as well. In general I normally use Paul Prudomme's Salmon magic seasoning and love it, so this was a nice diversion.

I put the salt block on Big Green Egg and fired up it up without the plate setter in place. While the egg was heating I cut the salmon filet into two pieces and liberally covered them in rub. Once the thermometer told me the salt block had heated up to 350, I basted on a little EVOO and placed the two filets on the salt block.

I checked back in at 10 minutes, but the filets were not done enough to my liking (I like my salmon medium). Checking every 3 minutes, it turns out they needed another 6 minutes for a total of 16 minutes.

Plated with some Spinach and rice and we were ready to go. The salmon was very juicy and tasty. How much can I attribute to the rub vs. the salt block is anyone's guess. Either way, the meal was a hit. Maybe next time I'll do some with the salt block and some without to see if there is a taste difference.

Lessons Learned: My pieces of Salmon were thicker then the recipe pictures, so I should have adjusted for the longer cooking time. But no harm, no foul on this eggventure.

Added Equipment to my collection

I had a gift card to Sur La Table and decided last night would be as good of a time as any to add to the collection of equipment I have for BBQing.

Last night I purchased a Potato Grill Rack. Seems like a neat idea for cooking potatoes on the grill or egg.

Also added a new set of grill tongs and grill spatula. They seem to be made of high quality and the folding mechanism has a good locking feature similar to a buck knife.

Not much in the short term planned for the egg.. a few things going on that means I won't be home for dinner. But we'll back grilling soon.

Still on the search for a good pizza stone for the Big Green Egg. Trying to not have to drop $65 on the official stone, but as of right now I haven't been able to find anything that works.

Easter Leg (boneless) of Lamb

Easter time and my wife's favorite food is leg of lamb. We went with a boneless leg and for today's eggventure we took the recipe straight from the big green egg's web-site and followed it to the T. As usual we purchased the boneless leg from Costco. It was a nice 5 lb leg.

The recipe called for a paste made of flour, salt, marjoram, thyme, sage, pepper, garlic, ginger and olive oil. Mixed together the paste, instead of using a garlic mincer I used a microphone greater to help the garlic mix into the paste better. I then coated the inside of the leg with half of the paste/rub, folded up and used some cooking bands to essentially tying up the roast. I left the roast in the fridge for a couple hours to let the seasonings add some flavoring.

When it was time to get ready I fired up the big green egg with the plate setter in, legs up to 350 degrees. Put the roast on the grill rack and left it for an 75 minutes until it hit an internal temperature of 140 degrees.

Once the leg of lamb was ready I took it off and wrapped in foil for a good 15 to 20 minute rest. After that nice long rest we sliced it up in 1/4 to 1/2 slices and put it out to serve. The lamb was great. The combo of spices mixed in well and the lamb was cooked just right. Everyone that had some thought it tasted great.

Lessons Learned: Not a lot with this one. The lamb turned out great and tasted wonderful. I mistakenly cut two of the bands, so I should be more careful, but I did get the other 3 back to re-use. I can't say how easy these bands were versus trying to figure out the right way to tie up a roast, I'd definitely recommend them. They can be found at Amazon with the link below:



Next up... Not sure, but in two weeks I'm going to do a rib tasting of various rubs to start trying to figure out what I like best. Planning to do 5 racks with 5 different rubs.

Leg Of Lamb