Grill Maestro

This weekend my wife and I are going to have a “cooking night,” where we each prepare something special for dinner. My plan for tonight is to make an Irish-inspired stew using beef, instead of lamb, and Guinness stout. With stews, unlike the grill, you can usually go with a tougher cut of beef because the two to three hour cooking process softens up the muscle fibers in the meat. Whereas on the grill you want to go with one of the loins (short loin, sirloin, tenderloin, or top sirloin) if you are thinking steaks, with stews you can go with a leaner cut like the round and shank. You save some money and you don’t “waste” the better cuts in a stew.

The graphic above gives names to the parts of the cow, before it’s turned to beef. The general idea is that the closer the muscle is to “working” areas, like the legs and the butt, the less fat it’ll have. That means the meat will be tougher in those areas. The tenderest cuts are in the loin area, labeled green and dark pink/purple.

The yellow “chuck” area is typically turned into burgers or used in roasts. The rib is naturally turned into short ribs, prime rib, or a nice rib eye steak. The loins are where you get your steaks. Strip steaks come from the short loin while Porterhouse and T-bones are taken from the tenderloin. Also, the New York Strip and filet mignon are also from here, as they are the two sides of a T-bone steak. The round is good for stews as it’s a little too tough for just putting on the grill.

Underneath the cow, you have the brisket (mmmm smoked!), shank (another good stew and soup meat), plus the plate and flank. Flank is very tough but one of the cheapest cuts, for that reason, so it’s good with marinades and cooking styles like braising. It’s also very lean, making it healthier from a fat perspective.

So tonight I’ll be looking for a nice cut from the shank or round for our stew!

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, you’re probably wonder if you can grill your turkey this year. If the weather cooperates, and that’s mostly for personal comfort, you might want to consider putting the bird on the grill. Cooking it in the oven is great but doing it year after year after year can be a little… repetitive. I know that switching to the grill may be a little risky, especially for something that lots of people will be eating (and is the hallmark dish of an evening) but you might want to consider it. The best part about grilling a turkey is that you can get that smokey BBQ flavor you wouldn’t otherwise get in an oven.

Here’s a link to instructions on how to grill your own turkey. Two big tips is to completely thaw your turkey and to remember to rotate and truss the bird before you do it. If you’re reluctant, try it it on a small chicken first.

Good luck!

Shanna Pacifico, the chef de cuisine and butcher at Back Forty, a restaurant in New York City, discusses how they break down the front quarter of a steer. It’s a pretty awesome video and amazing to watch a professional break down a steer:

I think it’s fun to hear her talk about it because she’s so knowledgeable. For example, the cow wasn’t grass fed it’s entire life, it was “grass finished.” It’s interesting to think that you’d have a finish on a cow. It’s like how some scotches are finished in port pipes or sherry oak casks after a life in bourbon oak casks.

It’s also awesome that they use everything. Fat is rendered and used perhaps with vegetables, bones go to make stock, and nothing goes to waste. I wish the video was longer.

It was produced by Liza de Guia for foodcurated.com and I’m going to keep an eye out for more from her.

You know that bar that’s included in your knife set? That’s called a honing steel and it should be the first, or second, item you pull from your knife block every time you turn to it. There are two things you must do to keep your knives as sharp, and as safe, as possible. The first is to regularly hone the blade of the knife before every use. The second is to sharpen them every three months using a whetstone or electric knife sharpener.

Honing Knives

The edge of the blade is made of microscopic cutting teeth that will flatten out over time with continued contact with metals, ceramics, Formica, glass, and other hard surfaces (such as your cutting boards). A honing steel, which is often magnetized, will help restore the edge by smoothing out and aligning the teeth.

To use the honing steel properly, you want to draw the knife in one smooth motion, lightly, at a 20 degree angle five or six times on each side of the blade. You want to keep the number of draws for each side the same. How quickly you do this won’t matter, so you can do it as slowly as you want, but maintain that 20 degree angle. Then wipe the blade. Do this before each use.

Sharpening Knives

Sharpening is something you will do at most four times a year and this is a more hardcore version of honing. You can use a whetstone or an electric knife sharpener, though the electric knife sharpeners have the added benefit of being able to do the job of honing as well. With the whetstone, moisten it with water or oil according to the instructions, and then draw it at a 20 degree angle 6 times on each side. Much like honing, it’s not about speed, it’s about steadiness and evenness. With an electric knife sharpener, just stick it in and it will shave a new edge.

That’s it, honing and sharpening in a nutshell!

If you’ve done any research on cutting boards, you’ve undoubtedly read experts warn against the use of hard cutting boards made of marble, Corian, or glass. Oftentimes this advice is given off-hand, without much context, and as a novice I wanted to find out a little more about why they’re so maligned.

As it turns out, the reason those materials get a bad rap has to do with their hardness. Hard cutting boards will dull knives faster but have the added benefit of being easier to clean and less prone to transferring food-born bacteria. I personally use wood and plastic boards, taking great care to use them specifically for meat or specifically for vegetables.

So far I’ve never had an issue with bacteria getting my family sick and that’s how I’d like to keep it!

If you’ve ever bought a knife, you’ve probably heard that it was a “forged steel” knife. Or the manufacturer may have called it “stamped” knife. So what’s the difference between a forged knife versus a stamped knife? Quite a lot and you’ll understand the price difference after the description of how each is made.

Forged Knife

A forged knife is one that has been made out of a solid steel bar to a very high temperature, then set into a mold and hammered to produce the blade. The high temperature compacted the molecular structure of the steel which “hardens” it. The knife is then tempered, ground, polished, and assembled mostly by hand into the knife itself. The knife will always have a bolster and an integrated tang.

Stamped Knife

A stamped knife is one punched out of a thin sheet of metal, like how you make cookies with a cookie cutter. The blade is then temperated, sharpened, and then finished by machine. The blade is then attached to the handle. The blade will have little or no tang, be thinner than a forged knife, and is more prone to breakage because it’s not one solid piece.

Stamped knives, as you’d imagine, are usually cheaper than forged knives.

(Photo: yashima)

Did you know they make knives with ceramic blades? I had no idea until the other day but ceramic blades are very hard, wear resistant, and chemically inert. The downside is they must be professional sharpened or you risk significant damage (can’t just put it in a blade sharpener designed for metal!!).

Besides ceramic blades, most blades come in steel and you have three main types:

• Carbon steel: Carbon steel has the benefit of being very easy to sharpen because of its high carbon content but it can’t hold its edge as long for the same reason. It also has less chromium, which makes it highly reactive and prone to rust and tarnish if not properly maintained. Knives of this material are less common these days for all those reasons.
• Stainless steel: By far the most common type of knife material, stainless steel has a lot of chromium and nickel which make it durable and rust resistant. The downside is that hardness makes it difficult to maintain a sharp edge.
• High-carbon, no-stain steel: The best of both worlds between carbon steel and stainless steel. The higher carbon makes it easier to sharpen, the hardness resists stains, rust, and breakage. The net effect is one of the most popular knife materials.

If you have a choice, go with high-carbon, no-stain steel for a knife that will last a long time and keep its sharpness with ease.

I received a free sample of Steve’s Margarita, Long Island Ice Tea, and their Bloody Mary “wine cocktail” a few weeks ago and, until recently, hadn’t been able to give them a try. I’m usually a beer drinker but I thought I’d give these new Al-Rite products a try… who can say no to a margarita right?

The first one I tried was Steve’s Long Island Tea, which is their version of the Long Island Iced Tea. At 12% alcohol by volume (all their drinks are 12%), it didn’t taste like 12% alcohol by volume. In fact, I was surprised at how good it tasted because my expectations weren’t very high. A classic Long Island ice tea is equal parts vodka, tequila, rum, gin, and triple sec with a little sweet & sour mix. After college, my ability to drink cheap liquors (we’re talking the $10 a handle variety) was severely diminished so I was worried that more budget liquors were used. If they were, I couldn’t taste it in the drink. In fact, the LI Iced Tea tasted like I ordered it from a bar.

As for the margarita, I have yet to dry it. I’m planning on sticking it in the freezer and “squeezing” it out, as they recommend, to try it frozen. My wife is a huge fan of margaritas so maybe I’ll have her try it out. I’m sure she won’t mind.

Unfortunately for the bloody mary bottle, it burst in shipping so I wasn’t able to try them out.

Overall, I was surprised with how much I liked the LIIT and I’m fairly confident we’ll enjoy the margarita wine cocktail when it’s fully frozen.

You can go out and buy a knife set or you can buy one piece by piece, it’s really up to you. If you buy a set, you get a whole lot of knives that you may or may not need, resulting in added expense for blades you probably will never use except by accident. If you buy one piece by piece, you can save yourself some more and only buy knives you actually need.

But what is the bare minimum set that you’ll want for most applications? They are:

• Paring knife
• Chef’s knife – Either a German-style chef’s knife or a Japanese-style santoku
• Bread knife
• Carving knife
• Shears
• Steel – for sharpening your knives

In addition to the knives, you’ll want a knife-storage unit in the form of a block, knife rack, a magnetic bar, or a knife roll.

That’s it!

(Photo: mullingitover)

A smoker is a pretty simple device and if you wanted to build your own, you might be surprised to learn that all you need is $50 and a little creativity. Fortunately, creativity has been supplied in this episode of Good Eats with Alton Brown. Alton Brown is known for his scientific approach to cooking and his show, Good Eats, is great for explaining how things work in a way that normal people can understand.

Build a BBQ Smoker for Under $50 [Lifehacker]