Rob was in town, the Packers were playing (GO PACK!), it was a long weekend, and it was Dorothee's birthday, so we headed down to Dartmouth for a major grilling extravaganza. The party was Ellie, Jess, Dorothee (not Evan...Abu Dhabi), Brit, Rob, Audrey, Steve, Jack, and Lydia.
Others took pictures, so I will leave it to them to upload.
On the menu on Saturday were Piri-Piri chicken wings in the style of Nando's (p. 20-22). These are delicious and highly recommended, especially for the spice fanatics of the family. We used 7 Scotch Bonnet peppers in the recipe instead of the 3-4 piri-piri chiles the recipe called for. They were not painfully spicy, but did have a significant kick. They are especially tasty when consumed while watching the Packers dominate a favored opponent!
On Sunday, we fired up the grill at 11 in the morning, and kept it going all day. We used entirely chopped wood for cooking on Sunday. Grilling like this left a delicious flavor, but made temperature regulation much more difficult than is the case with charcoal.
1. Armenian Stick Bread (p. 96-97). This was Audrey's creation, and was quite a success. It makes a hearty bread, and is especially delicious when consumed immediately after removing from the grill. There is one trick with cooking this one. When you first put the skewers on the bricks, the dough hangs down off the skewer, which makes the very bottom cook faster than the rest of it. We waited until the bottom had started to brown and thicken, then turned it over, and lightly patted/smushed the part that had been hanging down to make the "stick break" more stick-like once again. The fatter the skewers, the less of a problem this is. After several repetitions of this, we were left with delightfully smoky, substantial, sumptuous loaves, which made a great lunch.
3. KC Style Spare Ribs (p. 227-228). For the rest of the afternoon, we left the fire on the grill, and built a separate one to sit around and drink hot buttered rum. The weather was perfect, the sky was that specific winter blue, and snow had blanketed everything but the partially frozen river. While we sat, the ribs (part of Ellie/Jess' farm pig) roasted on the grill, with the 5-4-3-2-1 rub sinking in slowly. We neglected to baste them with the bourbon/apple cider mixture, which may have made them slightly tougher on the outside than they would otherwise have been. But the taste was fantastic, and they disappeared straight away.
4. Armenian Potato Kabobs (p. 545-6). Rob had made these before, so we did them again. This particular recipe was made more difficult given the logistical challenge of cooking kabobs over a wood fire with many different levels of heat going in different places. So there were some perfectly crisped potatoes with just the right amount of bacon flavor and some barely recognizable lumps of coal. So the moral here is, make a consistent fire that it big enough to put a whole kabob over!
Sadly, we ran out of time before we could grill anything else. But we resolved to come back soon, and keep plowing through the book!
Sounds like a good time was had by all. Sorry about the Pats. Now everyone can climb on the Pack bandwagon!
ReplyDeleteRoy did the lamb chops on a shovel over a wood fire. That really is tricky. Did we tell you that he also did a caveman steak on the same wood fire. I have to say it was not my favorite. Too charcoally for my taste. It may have been the wood fire. We both thought that we should do the lamb chops on a shovel again in Peterborough where we can get a proper fire going.