Skewers

Skewers is something I have not done much of in the past, but lately we have done that a few times. First of all, its fun. And it is fast, and it looks every so pretty on the grill. Specially if you have varies types of meat and lots of different veggies!

When we were down south on a slittle summer vacation I made a ton of skewers with pork, beef, peppers, mushrooms and zucchinis. The entire grilled was packed! I had to feed most of the family, and they are big eaters!

A few days ago, we had some skewers again. We bought some entrecote in bits in Sweden some time ago, thinking it was gonna be little bits with lovely meat. It turned out to be one lump of meat, with lots of lovely meat on it, but also a fair bit of other things that makes chewing very difficult. So after cuting the good bits off, the meat is just perfect for skewers or stewes. But, the summer is far to hot for stewes!

 

 

Salmon filets on a cedar plank

As much as I enjoy spending an entire day by the BBQ watching and smelling its actions, sometimes it is good that dinner wont take 5 hours on the grill.

Today we had had salmon on a cedar plank. And it is a great way of doing salmon if you ask me. Its quick, and very little to clan up.

 

 

1. Soaked the plank in water for 30+ minutes. Next time I will try to soak it in wine or something else that will give it a wonderful flavor.

2. Cranked the BBQ to roughly 450 F and let the plank sit on the indirect side of the grill till it was all nice and pink in the center.

3. We had some fresh cilantro and some parmesan cheese sprinkled on top.

We served it with my one of my favourites i this world. Grated carrots in yellow jelly! My grandmother used to make me this all the time when i was a young lad, and I still love it! And it reminds me of grandma every time I eat it. Also threw on some zucchini on a skewer and heated some fishcakes for my son who doesn´t really like fish when it looks all fishy.

 

St Louis cut Spare Ribs

What kind of a BBQ summer would it be without Spare ribs! Wifey and I loaded the kids up in the car and drove to Sweden for a little meat shopping. We intended to get Baby back, since it is what wifey really wanted, but they did not have it, so we picked up almost 4 kilos of St Louis cut spare ribs. Oh well, as it turned out, I´m almost glad they didnt have baby back! So this is what happend on the BBQ that day:

1. Took off the membrane to make it as tender as possible.

2. Washed it off in water, to get rid off any bits of bone or other little bits and dry it with some paper towels.

3. Rubbed it first in with a sweet mustard to get the dry rub to stick nicely. There was little to none of the mustard taste in the finished ribs.

Dry rub:

5 T brown sugar

1/2 T Garlic powder

1/2 – 1 T Black pepper

3/4 T Chilli powder with cumin

1/2 T Salt

4. Applied the dry rub, and stuck it back in the fridge till the next day. Some say you don´t have to wait very long from applying the rub to grilling it, but surely, a little time to let it soak in can´t hurt.

5. Preheated the grill and put in one pack of apple wood chips. Used drip pans under the meat, and another drip pan with water over the heat to keep the meat nice and moist. I had the temperature sitting at roughly 225 F.

6. When the apple chips were done, I switched it out for a pack of Hickory woodchips. After that was all smoked out I did not add any more woodchips for the rest of the grilling.

7.After 5 1/2 hours the meat was just perfect, did the bend test on the meat, and poked it a little bit with toothpicks. I did not apply any wet sauce to the meat the entire time until the last 2 minutes. Then i brushed on a fair amount of some Baby Back Rays BBQ sauce, let it caramelize on both sides and wrapped it in foil until people were ready to eat.

It turned out perfectly if I may be so humble to say so myself. The guests really enjoyed it too. I thught i had gotten plenty and secured myself leftovers, but, no it was all gone by the time everybody was done eating.

We served the the ribs with corn on the cob and a coleslaw with an apple and a yellow pepper in it. It was good, but I think the next time, we will go back to a more traditional coleslaw.

Here is our daughter, Ida, giving her sign of approval of the ribs!

Honeyglazed duckbreast with a mango salad!

So for dinner today we had honeyglazed duckbreast with a mango salad. Duckbreasts are one of my absolute favourite meats, and its so wonderfully quick as well. The recipe worked really well for a summer dinner due to the mango salad, with its sweetness and limeness, it was the perfect sidedish to the duck.

I cut little sqaures into the fatty side of the duck, season it with salt and pepper on both sides. Put the breasts in a hot pan sitting at medium-high heat for roughly 7 mins. Then i turn the heat down to medium-low and for another 3 mins. Flip the breasts and let it sit in the pan for 5 mins.

I wrapped the duckbreasts in some alu foil for a few minutes while i made the glaze. Pour off the fat from the pan, add the honey and balsamic vinegar, and let it simmer for 2-3 mins till it thickens a bit. Then put the breasts back in the pan and flip them a few times, while they get all covered in the glaze. In the end i just pour the rest of the glaze on top of the breasts when they are on the plate. On top of the breasts i sprinkled some chopped walnuts.

Honeyglazed duckbreast sprinkled with chopped walnuts and mango salad

Glaze:

3 T balsamic vinegar

4 T honey

Mango salad:

3 large ripe mangos

1 yellow pepper

3 T brown sugar

3 T lime juice

3 T freshly chopped cilantro

Pulled Pork

Everytime I have been to Texas, i think I have ended up eating Pulled Pork somewhere. It is a wonderful eating! So my father in law, a seasoned grill champion, recently posted his Pulled Pork recipe on his blog, grandpasgrill.wordpress.com/

So i went to a great butcher shop in Oslo called Strøm Larsen at Torshov and got me a pork shoulder, weighing in at 1.6 kilos.

Friday morning i made the rub, and rubbed the pork wel and long, and put it back in the fridge for 24 hours.

Saturday morning there was a skip in my step as I got the pork out of the fridge and started to get the BBQ ready for this feast. After a brief chat with father in law for some last tips and tricks I fired up the BBQ. Drip pans on the indirect side of the grill and 2 smoke packs were ready. I used a mixture of Apple and Hickory wood chips, and it worked out great.

Put the meat in at 10:30 and got myself a cold one, its OK with an early beer as long as the BBQ is smoking. After 2 hours i switched the smokepacks, and briefly had the pork shoulder in the oven while i was waiting for the smoke to get going from the new pack so it wouldnt loose too much temperature.

Then my wife and I started to turn the house upside down for the digital thermometer. It was nowhere to be found, so I ran to a store and picked up a cheap one to stick in the meat. Apparently i had forgotten the thermometer at my brothers house some time ago, and he is now in Gran Canaria so I could not get it today!

The meat did not reach its desired temperature until 3:45. I was getting anxious to eat around 2:15, so the wait was awful! The lovely smoke from the BBQ made it endurable.

Took the meat off the grill and wrapped it in foil and let it rest on the counter for 15 mins before i pulled it! It is a lot of fun to pull your first pork!

We ate it in a very simpel fashion, a burger bun, coleslaw, pulled pork, and lots of good Hickory BBQ sauce! It was delicious!

Thank you for the inspiration and recipe Martin!

Rub:

1 T mild paprika

2 t. light brown sugar

1 1/2 t. hot pepper flakes

1/2 t. garlic powder

1/2 t. freshly ground black pepper

1/2 t. onion powder

1/2 t. salt

The rub recipe also calls for 1/2 t. celery seeds, but none could be found so I skipped it.

Creamy coleslaw: (recipe from bbqviking.com)

1 cabbage

2 carrots

1 cup mayo

1/2 cup sour cream

4-6 T clear vinegar

2-3 T sugar

1 clove finely chopped garlic

1 t. cayenne pepper

Then add as much salt and pepper as you want.

For desert we enjoyed some strawberries with  mint, lime and sugar. Perfect summer day!

My new favourite “veggie” side dish!

So since I have just gotten a new BBQ, I spent a few days on the interweb looking for new cool stuff i can make on my BBQ. I found this thing called ABT (Atomic Bomb Turds). Just by looking at it I knew I was gonna love it! I found it on BBQviking.com. Funnily enough, its a norwegian guy who likes to grill and has some very nice stuff posted on his blog.

We did not have any fancy meat to BBQ today, so the ABT´s became the Main attraction on the plate.

Took some decently sized Peppers, sliced and deseeded them. Filled them up with some cream cheese, onions, and topped it up with some grated Parmesan cheese. Wrapped them well in with some bacon strips, secured with toothpicks.

I put some Apple wood chips in for nice smokey flavor. The lid temp was sitting pretty at 130 C for roughly 2 hours with indirect grilling.

When those two hours was up,wifey and I enjoyed the best “veggies” I have ever tasted.

Welcome to Cooked by a Viking!

Welcome to Cooked by a Viking!