Barbecue Fun

I learned a neat trick from John’s comment at Toolmonger. I won’t rehash the endless and somewhat pointless debate over gas v. charcoal, round 6,043, that prompted the comment. (The answer is, like it is for many supposedly binary options, get both. Different situations require different tools.) Anyhow, if you don’t like to click through links, the trick is to take your chimney, fill it with charcoal, place it on the propane burner, and light the burner. This cuts down tremendously on the time it takes to get the coals good and hot.

So what did I grill with this fine apparatus? Well, some steaks for me on Friday. J wanted chicken wings and I didn’t really feel enthused about the idea. So wings for her and beef for me. Nothing fancy, just salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Saturday we continued our experimentation with the bison available at Wal-mart. We had tried the bison steak and the bison sirloin, which are both tasty, if pricey. Saturday saw us try out the ground bison for burgers. More than you’d pay for ground chuck, but much tastier. I can heartily recommend the bison from Wal-Mart. I’m equally as sure there’s better bison out there, but Wal-Mart is 5 minutes from YPS Manor.

I’m also preparing for next weekend by corning a chuck roast. Submerge chuck roast on brine for 3 days. Flip. Wait three more days. Cook. My brine recipe follows:

1 cup salt
¼ cup sugar
2 tbsp Pickling Spice (try Penzey’s)
1 tbsp minced garlic
½ tsp ground black pepper

Mix above ingredients up with one gallon of high quality H₂O. Simple, huh? You don’t really need the pickling spice according to some sources. I’ll smoke that up on Saturday for J, who likes the corned beef. This is also an exception to my rule about avoiding recipes that require me to start any earlier than the night before. I mean, seriously. You drop the beef in the liquid and walk off for a week. I can handle this level of prep. Larding my pot roast the night before with strips of fat soaked in cognac for 24 hours, as James Beard advises in one recipe that I’ll never get around to making? I’m not up for it.