Kosher Blog

Barbecue brisket from an electric smoker

This was my first attempt at smoking brisket, but for the Kosher Blog’s foundational post on the subject, please see sweinberger’s Adventures in BBQ: Brisket from June 2005.

That’s enough Thanksgiving turkey — let’s talk about beef.

I discovered the Brinkmann electric smoker this summer as my coworkers talked me out of building a smoker from a galvanized trash can. For about the same price as the home-made parts, I walked into a nearby home improvement superstore and bought this guy (and a big bag of hickory chunks) on sale for a cool $60.

It’s construction is pretty simple. There’s a basin at the bottom which you fill with lava rocks, and an electric heating element sits on top of that — a few soaked wood chunks get nestled around the element. Atop the base you place the large metal cylinder which supports a drip basin and two cooking racks. A metal lid tops it off. The racks and basin clean up easily in the dishwasher, and it all comes apart for easy storage or transport.

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The BBQ is over…

The winners of the 2007 ASBEE-Kroger Kosher BBQ Competition were announced at 3:15pm. I didn’t win. I didn’t place. That’s OK, because I had an amazing time. I made many friends - the ASBEE community is comprised of some of the friendliest, most welcoming people I have ever met. This weekend, I discovered that my self-taught, NY-style BBQ is at least as good as BBQ that you’ll find in Memphis, Tennessee - and I tasted lots of that delicious BBQ today. Hopefully, this won’t be the last they hear of me. Incidentally, my team of one was called ‘I flew in from Brooklyn, NY for this BBQ and boy are my arms tired’. We’re looking for recruits for next year. I’ll be back home tomorrow night, and I’ll work on getting some of my photos up as soon as I can.

Live-blogging from Memphis

As I write this, teams around me are preparing their briskets, ribs and beans. Luckily, ASBEE has wireless internet. Last minute adjustments are being made, tasting and seasoning is going on all around. The cooking starts at 6:00am tomorrow - don’t expect any live-blogging tomorrow. My beans are done and in the cooler. My rib-glaze is done and in the cooler. I’m eating some of the left-over ingredients (pineapple), in lieu of dinner. Wish me luck….

Update From Memphis, #3

I have a few hours free before Shabbos, so I’ll tell you a little more about what’s going on here. As a side note, I did what will likely be my last bit of sightseeing in Memphis (The Mississippi River Museum and The Memphis Cotton Museum). I also took a few minutes to stop by the kosher aisles at the local Kroger - the major sponsor of the BBQ.

There were no BBQ related activities today, but I’ll elaborate more on what happened last night. (Again, when I get home, I’ll provide photos to make it all clear.) When registering for the BBQ, everyone had to submit an ingredient list that covered all the ingredients you need, for all your recipes. (The categories to compete in are brisket, ribs and BBQ beans, in case you forgot.) The $125 application fee covered the purchase of all your ingredients - minus the meat. Upon entering the shul social hall, each team’s supplies and ingredients were set out on tables. First order of business was to insure that all your ingredients were present. A community table contains some of the more common ingredients (spices, sauces, juices, etc.) and each team is expected to take from that to fulfill their needs. Any shortages or missing items are reported to a volunteer, and it’s on to meat selection.

Teams can pre-order as many briskets and rib racks as they want when they sign up. On orientation night, a team representative lines up at the outdoor, walk-in cooler, where they will get a chance to choose which briskets or ribs they want. As I said, meat isn’t included in the application fee, so at this point teams pay the shul for the meat they have chosen.

Cooking is not required on orientation night, but many teams do. The most common preparation that takes place is the marinating or dry-rubbing of meat. I threw together my dry-rub, covered my brisket and ribs with it, then sealed them in foil and put them back in the cooler, with a team-name tag.

I wasn’t expecting to do any cooking last night, but I got caught up in the frenzy. Unfortunately, the shul kitchen doesn’t expand when more teams apply to compete - and this year has the largest number of teams, ever. Fortunately, many people are working on tasks that don’t require cooking, so they can work out in the shul social hall. I put together some of the ingredients for my grill-glaze. I’ll combine the components tomorrow night and finish their cooking. Before signing up, I was concerned that I wouldn’t know the right-way to prepare/cook for the competition - not anymore. Every method was represented. Some people were pre-cooking their meat, so they could just put a char on it on the day of the event. Some were slathering meat in marinades or dry-rubbing (I was one of them) and leaving them raw. Whatever preparing was done, at the end of the night every team wrapped their product in foil and put it back in the cooler.

I get a lot of questions about the BBQ-beans category. Each team is given a large can of Bush’s Vegetarian Baked Beans. The trick is to improve the beans by adding things - spices, seasonings, fruits, vegetables, whatever. You’re just trying to offer the judges the best baked-beans they even tasted.

There’s so much more to discuss, but it will have to wait for my next posts. I’ll leave you with a question - I seem to be marking myself as a fanatic, by traveling from NY to Memphis, just to cook in a BBQ competition. Are there more nuts like me out there? Would you come out here to compete? Next year will be the 20th annual BBQ, nudge, nudge. Thanks to all my supporters out there and have a good Shabbos.

Update From Memphis

I wish I could post some pictures for you, but my laptop doesn’t have the software for photo-editing. I’ll work on it when I get home. Sorry.

Anyway, my first full day in Memphis has come to an end. I started my day with some sightseeing (Graceland, The Peabody Ducks, The Rock & Soul Museum and the Belz Museum of Asian & Judaic Art). At 6:00pm, there was a BBQ Orientation, followed by our first cooking session. Before I go on, I need to clarify that I am working this competition alone - unfortunately, Jabbett wasn’t able to make it. Let me also explain that working this competition alone is sheer lunacy. Especially on your first time competing. I am so overwhelmed. As long as we’re all clear on that. (I won’t start whining here - the BBQ staff read this ;-) )

By 9:30pm I had selected my meat, insured that I had all my ingredients, put my dry rub on my meat and stored it in the fridge, and done a small part of my food prep. I still have much work to do. I’ll go into more detail when this weekend is over - right now I need to catch some Z’s.

HOWTO: BBQ for 100

I’ve been involved with my shul’s annual barbecue for about four years now, and this is the first year we ran out of food. I won’t say it was only because of its skilled preparation — the beautiful weather and ideal mid-September scheduling played large parts in drawing out more attendees than we could feed — but a few people asked for recipes, so here goes. (Remember that these are effectively institutional recipes, prepared in a practically unequipped kitchen, so don’t hassle me for using bottled barbecue sauce and dehydrated onions.)

BARBECUE CHICKEN
The quantities on this one aren’t important, just the technique: precook dark-meat chicken in a flavorful, slightly acidic sauce, then finish on the grill for great flavor and crisp skin.

• 1 institutional jug Cattleman’s Smokey barbecue sauce
• 1 smallish bottle apple cider vinegar
• 50 lb. case of chicken legs, preferably Canadian, split into thigh and drumstick portions
• 10 half-size, full-depth aluminum steam pans with lids

Preheat a large convection oven to 300 degrees.

Pour about 1 cup sauce and 1/4 cup vinegar into an aluminum pan and mix. Fill each pan with about 10 pieces of chicken, coat both sides of each piece with sauce as you load the pan. Cover pan tightly, and repeat until all the chicken is used.

Place sealed pans into oven and bake for 40 minutes. Remove from oven. If not cooking immediately, refrigerate until ready to use.

Prepare six-foot grill with one bag of lump hardwood charcoal. When hot, remove cooked chicken pieces from sauce and place on grill. Give the chicken a little char (about five minutes on each side) and serve.

KUFTA
Adapted from epicurious.com. Using dehydrated onion instead of fresh actually makes forming the kufta a heck of a lot easier, since there’s less moisture to contend with, and the little shortcut didn’t detract from the finished product’s flavor.

• 20 lb. ground beef
• 1 1/2 cups dehydrated minced onion
• 2 cups dried parsley flakes
• 2 Tbsp. ground cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp. ground coriander
• 1-2 Tbsp. cayenne powder (your preference)
• 2 Tbsp. powdered ginger
• 2 Tbsp. cumin

• Extra virgin olive oil
• Lemon juice

Reconstitute dehydrated onion with warm water just to cover; let sit for five minutes.

Mix rehydrated onions, beef, parsley, and spices thoroughly.

Form small handfuls of meat into sausage shapes (about 5″ long, 1″ diameter) and refrigerate or freeze in foil trays until ready to cook.

Prepare six-foot grill with one bag of lump hardwood charcoal. When hot, cook kufta until lightly charred on all sides and internal temperature reaches 160 degrees.

Splash cooked kufta with a bit of olive oil and lemon juice. Serve.

The Best Kosher Steaks for Grilling

Neighbor and Kosher Blog reader Ari hosted a steak tasting at his home a couple weeks back. Here is his report.

We recently held a taste-testing of 4 high-end, USDA Prime kosher steaks available from Gordon & Alperin in Newton, MA. Unfortunately, Filet Mignon and other cuts from the rear of the cow are not available kosher in the United States (due to the difficulty of removing certain parts of the cow found in the hindquarters), so we tasted Center-Cut Ribeye steak ($32.99/lb., also called “eye of the prime,” the king of kosher steaks, available at a very royal price), Ribeye Cap steak ($19.99/lb., also known as the “tail of the prime”), Hangar steak ($19.99/lb., also known as “hanging tenderloin”), and filleted Blade steak ($16.99/lb.).

(I wanted to roll and tie individual portions of ribeye cap to make rolled ribeye cap steaks, but the quantity of meat we received wouldn’t allow it once cut into 14 pieces. Thus, instead we grilled the RC flat on the grill, and served it sliced.)

All meat was lightly seasoned with a pinch of salt and pepper on both sides. The seasoning was prepared by mixing 3 tablespoons of kosher salt with half a teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper. All meat was cooked to medium (about 150 degrees F), although the thinly cut blade steaks may have been accidentally ventured towards medium-well or well-done (one thin piece registered at 172 degrees F).

Taste-testing forms were provided to each guest, and 13 forms were received back. Participants were asked to rate each of the steaks from 1-5 in the following categories: tenderness, beefiness, saltiness, and appearance. Participants were also asked to provide an overall score for each steak on a scale of 0-10. Results are summarized below. Mean scores are reported first, followed by standard deviations.

TENDERNESS
Hangar: 4.08 / 0.49
RC: 3.69 / 0.75
Blade: 3.46 / 0.66
CCR: 3.85 / 0.90

BEEFINESS
Hangar: 3.69 / 0.75
RC: 3.23 / 0.83
Blade: 3.85 / 0.90
CCR: 4.76 / 0.43

SALTINESS
Hangar: 4.85 / 0.37
RC: 3.38 / 0.87
Blade: 2.31 / 0.63
CCR: 2.54 / 0.78

APPEARANCE
Hangar: 3.92 / 0.75
RC: 3.00 / 1.08
Blade: 4.31 / 0.48
CCR: 4.46 / 0.52

OVERALL
Hangar: 8.08 / 1.12
RC: 6.77 / 1.17
Blade: 6.92 / 1.44
CCR: 8.54 / 1.39

A few results stand out. The Hangar steak was universally regarded as the saltiest steak by far. This is probably due to the fact that it has many surface openings (due to a widely spaced grain) into which the salt used in the kashering process likely entered but did not exit. Thus, kosher Hangar steak should probably be cooked without any added salt. The remaining steaks had much more reasonable saltiness scores, more in-line with what a typical person would consider desirable.

Also, the CCR had the highest beefiness score by far (with high agreement). This is not surprising, given that the rib section typically produces the “beefiest” cuts. The other three cuts provided roughly similar beefiness scores as each other, well below the CCR. Surprisingly, the RC, which is also from the rib section, had the lowest beefiness score.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Hangar steak had a higher tenderness score than the pricey CCR (although the small difference might not be statistically significant, especially given the high deviation in the CCR tenderness score). Also surprising was the fact that the Blade steak had the lowest tenderness score, contrary to its official description. This may be due to the fact the Blade steak was overcooked a bit. In my previous experience, Blade steak has generally been recognized as extremely beefy and tender by my guests, so it is very important not to overcook it!

People seemed to prefer the appearance of the CCR and Blade steaks. I thought this category would provide very divergent resluts because appearance is such a subjective category, but with the exception of the RC, the standard deviations were on the low side.

Overall, people preferred the pricey CCR, followed by the Hangar steak. A signifcant drop before the 3rd place Blade steak and then the 4th place RC. However, the data was divergent. It should be noted that 5 of the 13 testers rated the CCR as a perfect 10, while another 5 testers gave it only a 7. However, only 1 tester gave the Hangar steak a perfect 10, while only 4 testers rated it as a 6 or 7.

The big surprise in this test was the relatively cheap yet highly-regarded Hangar steak. The similarly-priced RC did not fare nearly as well (although perhaps it would have come out better rolled). The cheaper Blade steak had moderate scores, but this may be due to overcooking. While the CCR scored the best, this was to be expected from the king of kosher steaks, and its exorbitant price will make it suitable for only the most special occasions.

Flexitarian Shabbat

More from Rabbi Avi Finegold. Cross-posted at jcarrot.org.

For many of you, having guests at a Shabbat meal means often juggling various dietary restrictions preferences that guests may bring to the table. Michael Pollan makes the interesting point that the French consider it improper to impose your diet onto your host, and yet how many of you can recall meals in which you were left with virtually nothing to eat as a result of your kashrut/vege- pesce- ovo- lacto- tarianism/ or any possible allergies. Peter Berley’s The Flexitarian Table may hopefully solve at least some of the issues.

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New kosher grass-fed cheeses, and a pasta in which to appreciate them

This has been a busy summer in the kosher cheese world — or, at least, in my kosher cheese world — as I’ve discovered two new brands of high-end cheese — Mainland and 5 Spoke Creamery.

For no particular reason — the wonderful smells, maybe — I often spend a few minutes dallying through the troves of specialty cheese whenever I get to my local Whole Foods. On one such expedition the most peculiar thing caught my eye — a heksher, and a legitimate one, no less! Of course, on further inspection, the OK heksher was the least extraordinary aspect of the product which caught my eye.

This particular mild cheddar was organic, made of milk culled from grass-fed cows, and imported from New Zealand. The grass-fed milk gives Mainland Organic Cheddar a more complex flavor than any other mild cheese I’ve tried — definitely worth including on your next cheese platter. (The steep price — $7.00 for eight ounces — might preclude you from enjoying it on a more frequent basis.)

Over at my local kosher market, new cheeses also popped up, with equally delightful credentials: these were made of hormone-free raw milk by an Amish farmer. (I can practically hear Garrison Keillor saying “Made by Norwegian bachelor farmers … so you know they’re pure, mostly.”) Well, “5 Spoke Creamery” presents us with three Kof-K certified, artisanal varieties — Red Vine Colby, Redmond Cheddar, and Herbal Jack — all with the complexity of flavor and superb texture one should expect of finer raw-milk cheeses.

They’re also on the pricey side, but I couldn’t help myself from devoting some to a decadent macaroni and cheese. After the jump, enjoy an excellent recipe I’ve adapted from the America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook.

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Ben & Jerry’s Raspberry Ice Cream

Raspberry isn’t the first flavor that comes to mind when I think of Ben & Jerry’s, but it’s listed in the “Greatest Hits” chapter of their recipe book, so I figured I’d give it a whirl. I’m glad I did. This ice cream is delicious, creamy, and very fresh-tasting, with little juicy bits of berry throughout. And the raspberries came from the farmer’s market, so I get to use Blush again!

One thing I should mention about the Ben & Jerry’s book is that the recipes couldn’t be much easier. They’d never ask you do anything as complicated as tempering eggs or seeding berries. I’m okay with a few seeds, but I’m not comfortable feeding my guests raw eggs, so I substituted their egg-free sweet cream base for the one with eggs. If you’re willing to live on the edge, you can add two whole eggs and substitute one cup of milk for the half-and-half. Ice cream with eggs supposedly keeps better long term (not that I would know).

Since my raspberries were pretty mild, I also reduced the sugar from 1 1/2 cups to 1 cup, and I thought it was about right. Use your judgment.

Without further ado:

Raspberry Ice Cream

1 pint fresh raspberries
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 cups heavy or whipping cream
2/3 cup half-and-half

Combine the raspberries, 3/4 cup of the sugar, and the lemon juice in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate 2 hours, stirring every 30 minutes.

Pour the cream into a mixing bowl. Whisk in the remaining sugar, a little at time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute more. Pour in the half-and-half and whisk to blend.

Drain the juice from the raspberries into the cream mixture and blend. Mash the raspberries and stir them into the cream mixture.

Transfer the mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze following the manufacturer’s instructions.

Makes a little over 1 quart.

(Cross-posted to Apikorsus.)