Tag Archives: summer

How To Make Beef Brisket Pastrami At Home

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: September 9, 2011

Slicing Hot Pastrami/photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman

I've written about pastrami short ribs, and love them because they've got the perfect meat-to-fat ratio. But ever since the arrival of a Big Green Egg (planning a review soon), I've wanted to do a proper pastrami, which is essentially a corned beef brisket, coated with pepper and coriander and smoked (the result above was perfect—look at that awesome fat). While I've published the corned beef recipe from my book Charcuterie, I haven't really talked about smoking strategies at home. I recommend two different methods: stove top and in a kettle grill. Stove-top smoking is easy with an inexpensive ($43) Cameron smoker. I bought one a few years ago and it works great for bacon and would work great for this brisket. Briskets require long low ...

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Posted in Beef, Brines, Butchery, Charcutepalooza, Charcuterie, grilling, Main Courses, outdoor cooking, Recipes, Technique | Also tagged , | Comments closed

Grilled Asparagus with Garlic

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: September 2, 2011

Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman

I've been finding amazing garlic at our farmer's market, the skin thin and tight around the cloves, the cloves clustering around the hard core. (Why is only soft core garlic available in grocery stores?)  Garlic that is visibly juicy when you cut into it.  Garlic whose germ is small and white.  When I find garlic like this, I like to feature it, whether in tomato water pasta (this is a fabulous technique if you've got tons of tomatoes), plentiful and barely cooked; in a Caesar dressing, cooked only by the lemon juice; or minced and tossed with asparagus and olive oil then grilled. We did this last night at a friend's, a boy's night out, overlooking the Chragrin River Valley, humid-hazy as the sun set, playing with fire.  And a dinner ...

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Friday Grilling: Radicchio

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: August 26, 2011

Grilled Radiccio/photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman

Just about anything can be grilled that won't slip through the grate or grilling basket. You can't grill batter, you can't grill soup (though you could keep it hot on a grill). I don't know that I'd grill a tough vegetable, like cabbage or kale, but you could try. One of my favorite vegetables to grill is radicchio.  Its natural bitter notes take on the smokey charred flavors of hot open flames deliciously. And when paired with the acidic sweetness of balasamic vinegar, it's a great side dish. I'd like to underscore the importance of balsamic vinegar here. Its intense sweet acidity offsets the natural (pleasing) bitterness all foods grilled over high heat pick up. I love a product called Crema di Balsamico, which is basically pre-reduced balsamic. Just a few ...

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Posted in Appetizers, grilling, outdoor cooking, Recipes, sidedishes, Vegetables | Also tagged , | Comments closed

Tomatoes

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: August 22, 2011

Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman

It's one of my enduring childhood memories, a gift from my mom.  I was seven or eight, my mom in her early thirties, late morning, august sun, we stared at the six full tomato plants we grew behind our garage.  I don't know if she actually spoke but her urgent and determined movements said, "Let's do this." She wrenched two ripe tomatoes from the vine. I followed her to the kitchen. She rinsed both tomatoes briefly under cool water but they stayed hot the sun.  She gave one to me.  She shook salt on the one she held, and it stuck to what water remained.  Something was going on, but I didn't know what.  Then she bit into the tomato as if it were an apple, closed her ...

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Corn Recipes

By emilia | Published: August 22, 2011

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Pasta Creations

By emilia | Published: August 15, 2011

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How To Prepare a Simple Crab Boil

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: August 11, 2011

Crabs, kielbasa, corn, potatoes/Photos by Donna Turner Ruhlman

By far the best meal of the summer was our crab boil during our week in Ocracoke.  And like many “best” meals, it was unplanned, a surprise, a gift we were smart enough to take advantage of.  Donna has pals from her native Port Washington, NY, who have houses here, one of whom owns a popular restaurant on this lovely barrier island off the coast of North Carolina (a ferry-ride away from Cape Hatteras). So she found us a swank house on the water where we and friends and Donna's sister and nieces could frolic. In the grass beside the house was an old crab pot. In the house was my sun-averse pal Lester. In the fridge, was a beef heart. As the sun set, Lester lowered the ...

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Friday Grilling: Easy Bearnaise Sauce

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: August 5, 2011

Photo by Donna/Video by James

One of the conundrum of grilling meat is that the process of cooking doesn’t start a sauce for you, as a roast chicken does, as pan roasting a pork loin does, as all braises do. What then to sauce the meat with?  An emulsified butter sauce is the perfect answer.  And there is no better emulsified butter sauce than the Béarnaise.  This French classic was a childhood staple, a symbol for me of plenty, and also of the security my mom and dad gave me.  I wrote about it for Parade Magazine many years ago. My mom made it the old fashioned way: a reduction of shallot, tarragon, tarragon vinegar, and egg yolks in a double boiler.  She used the recipe from James Beard’s Menus For Entertaining.  (It's also in ...

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How To Grill Corn

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: July 29, 2011

photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman

Corn is in and with the hot weather, there's no better way to cook corn than to grill it. People have asked me what's the best way to do it? There are two basic ways, depending on what you're after. Corn today is so sweet and tender, it only needs to be heated through, so your decision is really one about types of heat to use, high direct heat, which will brown the corn giving it a grilled flavor, or low temperature, steamed within its wet husk. I like both and the above corn which we ate after a day at the beach (sigh), used a little of both. I love the appearance because it tells you how it was cooked.  If I want a really smoke roasted caramelized flavor, I'd shuck the ...

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Beaching It

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: July 15, 2011

Taking a breather and have have been eating load upon load of NC clams. So good and so delicious.  

The Perfect Way To Cook Clams

Use the little guys, little necks or cherrystones. Saute some garlic in a big pot in some butter or oil. Add a cup of white wine and a cup of water (all depends on your pot, you want plenty of steam). Throw in some fresh thyme, dump in your clams, cover and cook on medium high or high. Melt some butter. When the clams open they're done. If you have a lot, take out the open ones so they don't over cook. Eat them standing up, dipping clams ...

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Posted in Appetizers, aromatics, Food Adventure, Recipes, Seafood | Also tagged , | Comments closed

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