Tag Archives: grilling recipes
Recipe: How to Roast a Pig
Last Saturday we had the pleasure of heading out to Brooklyn for my friend Matt Gross‘s annual pig roast. As you might imagine, roasting a pig is no small endeavor. But if you have the right equipment, it can be done – and chances are you will have many friends willing to help you cook it and eat it. (more…)
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The Copycat Chef: Garlic and Rosemary Lamb Chops
In springtime I always start craving lamb with garlic and rosemary. But if you don’t have eight or more people to feed and several hours to spare, there’s not much reason to roast a whole leg of lamb. The solution: lamb chops for two, marinated and grilled for a short amount of time with the same intense flavor. This recipe is just as good for a casual weeknight meal as it is for a special occasion like Easter.
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Recipe: Special Sauce
One of the best things about going to Burger King as a kid – other than those gold paper crowns – was the “special sauce” on the burgers. It probably wasn’t anything more special than a mixture of mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard, but it was still more exotic than what Mom made.
At a recent barbecue, we decided to make Pat La Frieda burgers more special with our own grown-up version of special sauce, a chipotle mayonnaise recipe cobbled together from several similar ones. But this version includes all the key secret ingredients – chipotle, adobo, lime and garlic – in particularly spicy, smoky proportions. It’s ridiculously easy to make and adds an extra layer of deliciousness to burgers, veggie burgers, hot dogs or grilled fish. Added bonus: the resulting sauce has the same peculiar orange color as your childhood favorite “special sauce.” (more…)
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The Copycat Chef: Rosemary Beef Kebabs With Greenmarket Vegetables
The death of The Silver Palate‘s Shelly Lukins marks the end of an era: she and her partner Julee Rosso taught so many of us how to cook. They developed simple but sophisticated recipes for entertaining and introduced American cooks to bright Mediterranean flavors. Before the Silver Palate, garlic was considered exotic, and you couldn’t find fresh herbs at fancy supermarkets; now both are readily available nearly everywhere.
It was with their recipe for rosemary beef skewers in mind that I started working on this recipe several weeks ago. The marinade has been toned down – no more Asian influences of soy sauce and sesame oil – and the focus is on the herbs and greenmarket vegetables. If it hadn’t been for The Silver Palate, who knows if food would have evolved the way it has. (more…)
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Summer Entertaining: Grilled Pepper Steak With Salad
Everybody needs a few go-to recipes for summer entertaining. We adapted this one for Pepper Steak with Salad from Bon Appetit to make it super simple for a casual dinner with friends.
Perfect for summer house guests wanting to repay their hosts, it’s low impact on the kitchen, requires little equipment other than a grill, and calls for ingredients available nearly everywhere. Most importantly, the recipe has been tweaked so that all the prep work can be done well in advance – allowing plenty of time for cocktail hour.
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More Burger Tips
The Resto Burger
As we head into the holiday weekend, the Times Dining section has a handy article on how to grill burgers. Some of the pointers, from 30 chefs with major burger cred, echo the ones in this earlier Gastro Chic article on what not to do when grilling burgers. Some are good new tips.
The final burger recipe is pretty unrealistic for a home chef, however, since it involves searing the burgers on a grill then finishing them in the oven. Most people’s outdoor grill is nowhere near their indoor oven. Also, I’ve noticed that guests tend to freak out if you abscond with a whole tray full of burgers. (more…)
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Grilling Burgers: What Not to Do
The Minetta Tavern Burger - Do Not Attempt!
This hilarious bad review of RF O’Sullivan’s in Boston by A Hamburger Today reminded me: there are so many people that don’t know how to cook a burger. Why? Because it’s not as easy as it seems. Once you clear away several widely-held misconceptions, however, it gets a lot easier.
- Do not use any kind of “lean” ground beef. “Lean” ground chuck is to meat what Snackwells are to cookies: blasphemy. There’s no need to be afraid of the fat in regular ground chuck. When you are cooking the meat, the fat heats up and liquifies, running out of the burger and leaving a much airier texture behind. Lean meat, on the other hand, results in dense, less flavorful burgers. Remember: fat is the conduit of flavor.*
- Don’t buy gourmet buns. Gourmet rolls, as mentioned in this review, tend to be too crusty and hard for a sandwich. The bun should meld to the burger. You’re better off with regular old sesame seed buns. (more…)
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Tagged American recipes, beef, burgers, entree recipes, grilling recipes, the copycat chef
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