Some of you who know me will think I have gone mad.
I had a new grill delivered yesterday. Yes, in addition to the pellet grill and the Weber Kettle.
Tag: bbq
On the way back from Jon Haire’s today, I popped into Morrisons for some groceries. On the fish counter they had some amazing looking cod roe. They normally come in pairs, but I bought just one, as I am not quite sure what I am doing with it.
I used to love cod roe as a child, but have only prepared it myself a couple of times, and then only from ready-cooked roe, pressed and canned. I spoke to the fishmonger and he advised me to boil it for about 15-30 minutes, after which it should be firm enough to to slice and fry.
Met up with some folk yesterday for an (early) birthday meal at Barbecoa, a BBQ restaurant owned by Jamie Oliver and Adam Perry Lang.
I met with my friend S at Peterborough, and we travelled down to London by train. We arrived at 1 New Change early, which gave us time to look around the shops, and then have a wander on the roof terrace. There we met and and two other old friends – a chum from University and his wife. The final two members of our party – again, a uni friend and her husband – were waiting for us at the bar, and we were soon seated.
For anyone who is interested, here are some more pictures of the garden, now that the main features are in place. The seating is a somewhat temporary ragbag, until I buy more furniture, but it is plenty good enough for now. The troughs are still yet to be filled and planted. I plan to do one or two of these this weekend, but leave the others until spring – there is only so much that can be usefully planted at this time of year.
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I had a pork tenderloin in my fridge that needed to be used. I also had a couple of chorizo sausages and a pack of streaky bacon. So I simply cut along the length of the tenderloin, inserted the chorizo, then closed the tenderloin and wrapped it in streaky, before throwing it on the Traeger with some other stuff that needed using up.
Preparation time: less than 10 mins. Smoking time: 3 hours.
Over the past few months, I’ve beem having good fun with my BBQ. Naturally, the more I use it, the more I learn, but for some of the dishes – pulled pork and brisket – you can’t really cook a small piece of meat. As a result, I throw caution to the wind, and cook far more than I can eat. Some of the excess gets frozen for the future, but I’ve also been passing out plastic boxes of meaty goodness to the neighbours.
I’ve got family visiting tomorrow, so I have been smoking a brisket, while trying to tidy the garden. I was taking a break with a cuppa, when there was a knock on my back door. It was a neighbour who had just been shopping. She gave me a carrier bag, with a pork shoulder joint and a beef rib joint, as a thank you for the BBQ (and computer advice) I have been handing out recently.
The Thermapen is a wonderful gadget. A food thermometer that is easy to use, accurate to within 0.4 degrees C in the range -49 to 200, and 1 degree above that (all thermometers come with an individual certificate of calibration). More importantly, their latest probe – the Superfast – is the fastest food probe I know – measuring the temperature in 3-4 seconds. No more standing around watching the reading rise, and rise, and rise….
Anyway, the UK manufacturer is selling a limited number of refurbished (but otherwise fine) Superfast Thermapens at half price (28.80, instead of 56 quid), on eBay, so I thought I would give people a heads up:
The other day, I was in Asda in Peterborough. I don’t normally shop there, but I happened to be parked in their carpark. Anyway, they had some decent joints of pork shoulder. Whereas my local supermarket tends to only have rolled shoulder, these were the whole joint, with the bone still in – perfect for pulled pork.
It was dirt cheap, so I bought two, on the principle that while I had the Traeger going, I may as well fill the shelf.