Really Big Bosnian Burgers PHOTOS

Here they are in all of their glory. Note the careful brushing of the pita bread.

Really Big Bosnian Burgers

Though Uncle Jack was but days out of surgery, we did not let this slow us down, as we are men of stature and purpose when it comes to grilling.

The burgers were stunning and are highly, highly recommended. We did them just about as it said in the book, and had no real problems. We did use a few less onions, as the amount the recipe called for was out of proportion with the amount of meat. The burgers were too thin to hold the number of onions in the recipe. We also did the pita over indirect instead of direct. The book often calls for bread on direct heat, but I have yet to see a recipe where the bread actually cooks through becore it burns.

Tracy has pictures are will have to upload them for us.

Low and Slow - Beef Brisket on the Egg

I am sure you can do this on the Weber too but the Egg makes it a little easier to cook at a low temp for a LONG time.  I put the 7 lb brisket on the Egg at 6am and it cooked at 225-250 until about 4pm.  The rub was a combination of things that I can't remember exactly but it involved salt, ancho chili pepper, black pepper, cumin, celery seed and dried minced garlic - all ground up in the coffee grinder.  Planet BBQ has a rub (p. 117) with salt, pepper, dry mustard and worcestershire powder (which I have never seen at a store but the guy says you can get online).  I am sure that would work well too.   I rubbed the meat down on both sides with a heavy dose of the rub, wrapped in plastic wrap and put in refrigerator over night. 

The Egg was set up for indirect cooking and I added lots of soaked wood chips in the fire along with some allspice berries for extra rich smoke.  The meat cooked unwrapped for about 6 hours.  Add more coals and woodchips, wrap in aluminum foil and put it back on for another 4 hours.  Internal temp ended up at 195 or so and the meat was so tender you could literally cut it with a fork with no problem.  It broke apart when I tried to pick it up.  The last step was to take it off the fire, add a little (2 or 3 tablespoons) beef broth to the wrapped meat and put the whole thing in a cooler without ice or in the cool oven for the last couple of hours before dinner.  The aluminum foil will keep it nice and warm.

One word of advice, go easy on the salt as it really permeates the meat when it is cooking for that long.  That was the only complaint from the peanut gallery.  Too salty.  I served it with some unsalted grilled potatoes and onions so the mixture was ok but next time I will use less salt.

The potato recipe is worth recording too.  Very simple.  Thin slice as many potatoes as you want to eat, chop up some onions - add chunks of butter and salt/pepper to taste.  Wrap the whole thing up tight in an aluminum foil pouch and cook until the potatoes are tender which depending on how hot the fire is and how many potatoes, will take about 30-45 minutes or so.  Very simple and mmmm good.  Some grillers add some cheddar cheese which is also good.

Burgers!

What are your favorite sauces for burgers? 

Here is one we had tonight - simple but yummy.

saute 3 small yellow onions thin sliced in olive oil on low heat until nice and soft

add a hand full of sliced mushrooms and more oil if needed

add a half cup of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce and simmer

mmmmm with burgers

Mauritius Shrimp Kebabs and Tandoori Kingfish (Salmon) p. 432

Grammy came to visit for a week along with Jonathan Zerbib, the AFS student from The Netherlands who is living with Jack and Julie this year.  Steve and Audrey passed through Milwaukee on their way to and from Cancun so of course we had a grill fest.

The first thing we made was Mauritius Shrimp Kebabs (see earlier post) which were great except the kebab part which made it hard (impossible) to get both the shrimp and the veggies cooked at the same time.  Shrimp cooks much faster than the veggies did. 

We made Tandoori Salmon on Good Friday.  It was very tasty but cooking salmon on skewers was not happening.  In the end, I just took all of the fish off of the skewers and cooked them in the grill basket.  The flavor was wonderful especially with the Green Herb Chutney and Nan Bread.  Next time, I might try cooking it over indirect heat using the aluminum foil boats as in the honey/ginger/mustard salmon recipe in the Wisconsin Grill'n book.  Seems like sacrilege to cook tandoori anything on indirect heat but the skewers really are not an option. 

Saturday evening when Steve and Audrey returned, we had a feast featuring ribeyes out of The Big Green Egg book.  This is a fantastic recipe.  Rubbed with a mix of salt, white pepper, black pepper and cayenne pepper and then grilled over a very hot fire.  3 minutes per side and then back to first side until done.  Medium rare takes about 3 more minutes.  Medium about 5 minutes.  We also had grilled asparagus and Audrey made bread on the grill for bruschetta.  We used the bruschetta recipe out of Wisconsin Grill'n which we had made for Steve and Audrey's rehearsal dinner.  Other than a slight problem with burning the bread, the whole thing was great!  The bread on the grill needs to be cooked on indirect heat.  The fire we had going was pretty hot and we first tried it on direct which was dumb.  It burned within seconds even though the inside was still raw.  In the end we got enough bread and grilled veggies to made some mighty fine bruschetta.

We also TRIED to make grilled ice cream (p. 590).  This seems to be a very bad joke of some kind by chef Mehman Huseynov from Azerbaijan.  You are supposed to make ice cream balls, let them freeze hard and then dip them in egg mixed with vanilla and then dip in coconut and then egg again and then coconut again and then let them freeze again all before you put them on a skewer for cooking.  of course the ball fell right off of the skewer and through the grate into the fire.  And even if it could be done, why would anyone want to have ice cream coated with scrambled egg?  Fortunately we had a backup plan of grilled pineapple.

Easter Sunday was butterflied leg of lamb cooked with the same rub we had used on the steak supplemented by fresh chopped rosemary.  Hefrons joined in the fun and Jayne brought two wonderful quiche.  wow - best I ever had.  Andrea (and Jack) made a great carrot cake and Sophia supplied the cuteness.  Emily and Kathie were not feeling well so that was a bummer, but otherwise a good time was had by all.

Now the house is quiet and so is the grill - for a few days anyway.

Mussels grilled on pine needles (p. 513-14), Indian “puff pastry” (p. 98-100)

Stephanie, Rob, Roy, and I decided to welcome Roy's mom, aunt, and brother home from France with french recipes (and one Indian one) from the Planet Barbecue cookbook. Also, Charlie helped to light the grill wearing Mr. Koczela's hat and apron (because it is not the same without him for the grill :))

Roy and I have been dying to make the "Eclade de moules," since we discovered the recipe in January. However, just could not coordinate schedules well enough and the people (since I do not eat mussels) to eat the creation until now. Flash back to January, Roy can be forgetful at times with plants. Therefore in January, his cute Christmas tree was a fire trap by the time the Christmas season was over and even more by the time I started chopping it into pieces for this project! Therefore, we were totally ready for this opportunity. We used the three pounds that the recipe called for but not the raspberry vinegar. We also were sharing the grill with Bavette avec sauce marchand de vin (wine merchant sauce) (p. 142-44), bacon and potato kebabs (also somewhere in the book), and lacha paratha (Indian puff pastry), so Rob, Stephanie, and Roy decided to grill in the following order: 1. Mussels- 2 batches 2. Kebabs 3. Steak and tomatoes 4. Lacha Paratha

Lacha Paratha- Roy has talked about this bread since I met him two years ago and was ecstatic when it was pointed out to him that it was included in the family project cookbook. However, the time involved made it a no in the go column on most occasions (because we did not plan ahead enough or lacked time). To have the bread ready for the grill, we needed to start 4 hours ahead and rose the dough in a warmed oven that was turned off once warm. To preserve the moisture, it was also loosely covered in plastic wrap. Since this was a joint project with Stephanie and Rob, (which made it more enjoyable) we cannot wait for their blog…. (picture above is the steaks and below the lacha paratha is next to the grill manned by Roy and Rob)

Mauritius Shrimp Kebabs with Ginger Turmeric Glaze - Page 495

Has anyone tried this?  We are going to try it for dinner tonight with Steve and Audrey and J&A and Sophia.  Grammy is here visiting so she will join in the fun too! 

It was good but if I make it again, I'll cut the veggies and pineapple into smaller pieces like the book suggests.  Contrary to what the recipe calls for, I would not use skewers next time.  I cooked about half on skewers and the other half just in the veggie basket.  The basket was better.  It was easier to get the various pieces cooked evenly.  You have to watch it though or the shrimp will get overcooked.  I ended up taking most of the shrimp out of the basket and cooking right on the grill top.   the other thing I would change is I would follow the recipe more closely.  It just didn't seem to have enough flavor and I think that may be because I was careless in measuring the marinade ingredients.

Having said all of that, it was still yummy and everyone ate a lot.

Kansas City style dry rub ribs and cornbread (page 260 something)

Having perfected chicken, we moved on to ribs last night. We had Dorothee and Evan over along with friends / coworkers who live down the street.

We did the 5-4-3-2-1 rub with 3 racks of spare ribs. Next time we are going to try baby backs, but the store had spare ribs, and it is actually what the book recipe is for. After doing the rub, we let them cure in the refrigerator for the recommended 2 hours. Then, on to the grill. With 3 racks, space rapidly became an issue on the grill top. To be honest, there was a moment I wished for the Phoenix, though it would certainly take up most of our front yard.

Two racks of ribs don't really even fit, and end up with half of each still directly over the heat. Not an ideal solution. So I pushed the coals to one side, and made an impromptu rib stand out of a cast iron pan, just until the ribs were firm enough that I could lean them on each other. AND...I used the gas grill for the third rack. Apologies to the purists...it had to be done.

For the sauce, we served Stubbs, added after cooking rather than during. While shopping for the sauce, I was amazed at how hard it is to find a sauce that is more than just high fructose corn syrup, water, and a few flavorings. Sad really.

Audrey made the grilled cornbread from Weber's Art of the Grill, in cast iron, on the grill top. We used bits of grilled red pepper as the filler rather than corn, onions, and the other stuff the book recommends. We also used Jiffy packs of cornbread rather than making it from scratch. It was amazingly delicious and highly recommended. Let it rise for at least 10 minutes, then on indirect heat. We had the ribs keeping warm while the cornbread was cooking...another inconvenience that would not have been necessary if we had the Phoenix.

Jamaican jerk chicken and grilled asparagus

We made JJ Chicken last night with a side of grilled asparagus. Thank you to all for the suggestion on the asparagus, it was great! The only shade of a problem was that the fire was a bit too cool by the time the chicken was almost done. But with a little extra time on the grill and some salt, pepper, and olive oil it was great!

Tonight, we are having a few people over for ribs. Not sure which recipe we are making quite yet.

Local grillin'

So my posting has been delinquent. Mostly because I am still learning to use the grill and didn't want to bore you all with my travails of leathery pork chops and chicken with the skin seared right off the meat.

As of this weekend, however, my grilling rose to a new level of success. Trial and error has finally paid off. Not with anything from the book, just with herbed chicken a-la-Boston. Rather than fooling around spatchcocking the chicken, I just cut it in half and cooked the two halves. Start on indirect heat skin side up, near but not over the fire. Bring it to 165 or 170. Then, 5-7 minutes skin side down over direct to crisp the skin but not burn it. I know the book says you can go 15-20 minutes skin side down over direct heat to start. But that has yet to work out well for me, and I have ruined several good chickens in the process.

So this time, I followed Bay State Grillin technique, as developed by Greg Torres and demonstrated by the master himself at his hideaway in Dartmouth, and voila!

We had friends in from DC who played Mario Kart while I was cooking. Great weekend!

Lechon Manok - Lemongrass Rotisserie Chicken (page 353)

We picked this recipe in honor of Stephanie who is in the Philippines and Lydia who is ... well just check out the sign pictured on page 357 where Raichlen declares Lydia to be "The Barbecue Queen of the Philippines!"  And I thought she was just the tattooed lady.

I made the marinade for this tonight and I'll cook the chicken tomorrow.  Anyone ever use annatto seeds or calamansis?

Em is in New England this weekend with Ellie and Steve and families.  Charlie had a couple of friends over for dinner tonight. We had burgers, grilled asparagus and grilled peaches with ice cream and raspberry sauce which is about as easy as it gets.  One of Charlie's friends said "Mr. Koczela, I hate to admit it but I really like this asparagus."

The chicken was fantastic - a definite must try.  Cook it for longer than the book says.  I had a fairly large roaster and it took 1.5 hours on the rotisserie.  Don't forget the sauces and don't skip the annatto seed oil for basting.  In addition to the two sauces recommended in the book, we had peanut sauce which came in a bottle from Whole Foods.  I could not find calamansis so we used limes which worked great.  I used red jalapenos for the chili peppers.  I took out the seeds and white membrane so that they were not quite as hot as normal.  The flavor was good with the chicken. 

Mauritius Grilled Lamb Chops (Page 293)

We made these last week when Ellie and Lydia were here visiting and Jack, Andrea and Sophia were over for dinner.  We were not able to find any sugarcane juice but other than that, we had everything except the MSG which we were not interested in anyway.  We improvised the sugarcane juice with some honey, lemon juice and parsley which seemed to work fine.  In any event, the lamb chops were very tasty.  We also grilled a pineapple on the spit which was just as juicy and yummy as usual.  Ellie made some couscous with veggies and raisins and some other dish that I can't remember but I am sure was fabulous.   All in all the meal was delicious and the company was even better!