BONUS! EVERYONE gets one additional pic. Yup, that's right, pic your best money shot and label it "BONUS PIC." BOOM! This is not being announced in the main post.
sheesh-o-rama! I'm glad that my protein is still brining and all this stuff will be sorted out by 29 hours from now! Glad to hear there's a bonus picture.
I'm doing one protein and 3 tapas. Luckily I have about 40 hours of brining, cooking etc to figure out the pics stuff
Booooo to me. I was 'over served' yesterday. The booze essentially stopped my photo stream after the smoked chorizo and figs with a red wine reduction. Pulled pork and brisket went straight to my BBQ hole and never got photographed.
Phil, I would smack my grandma for a bite of that. Just sayin'. Can't wait to see how this plays out. I know that Joyner and Booma are gonna bring it! I will be slavin' away at work so no entry from me this time.
We'll miss ya, JayT. JHP And Booma are definitely gonna bring it. And SalsaLady is putting it to the test.... her's is gonna take all weekend! Talk about labor of love!
I'm pushing the timeline a bit. Just took the pieces out of the brine and set out to dry. Should be able to start smoking by 3pm at the latest, then 6 hours for smoking. Won't get the actual food made until tomorrow.
Hickory smoked chicken in garlic sauce and other proteins
This chicken in garlic sauce is a spin on Pollo al Ajillo-a common dish in Spain. I made a few substitutions to fit what I had on hand or preferred to use. The chicken was hickory smoked for 2 hours or so prior to spending some time in the oven. After that, the garlic sauce was prepared. Tasted quite good. The egg dish is basically smoked hard boiled eggs, with a tapenade variation. Tapenade (or similar dishes)[olives/capers/oil/anchofvies,] may be popular in France/Italy-but dates back to the Romans and before. This tapenade did not use anchovies. The shrimp dish was from Little Barcelona, also sometimes called Andalucian-style shrimp. Items were smoked on a natural gas grill (no tanks it connects to the house) with a wood/charcoal pie plate smoke creator (see prior to cooking section for more details.) The woods used were hickory and cherry chips. Water pans were used on the deflectors to control heat. Average temperature was around 225F. Initially higher until I figured out how to get the heat where I wanted it to be. Eggs were smoked about 2 hours, as was the chicken-but at different times. Shrimp were briefly smoked in melted butter. Chicken was finished in oven for about 35 minutes on 375.
Ingredient list
garlic oil flour chicken stock paprika fish sauce thyme bay leaf salt black pepper sugar onion fruit juice Peruvian Olives Dijon mustard orange zest sun-dried tomatoes parsley capers eggs diced tomatoes, reduced to a sauce water red pepper shrimp chicken orange juice
*Prior to cooking*: Place aluminum pie plates full of water on deflectors. Turn on one gas grill burner to almost lowest setting. Let heat to around 225 degrees. Start a charcoal fire and begin soaking your wood chips in water. When ready to cook, use tongs to transfer charcoal pieces to a third pie plate on top of the grill grates. Add some soaked wood chips on top of this so that they will release the smoke. Cover grill. Adding the charcoal was a bit more labor intensive than it may sound for me. Due to the lack of space for building an open fire on the property, I had to build a small fire in the front of the house, control it, and then use tongs to walk briquettes one or two at a time to the patio where the grill was. I dropped a few, which my sidewalk and grass probably wasn't thrilled about. Fortunately a garden hose was handy. In addition, due to the length of time I was smoking (I'm glad I wasn't smoking for 10+ hours haha,) wind, and time the charcoal fire kept going out. I had to restart a new batch a few times so I'd have fresh coals to work with.
To make hickory-smoked chicken in garlic sauce
1. Prepare chicken as required. 2. Season chicken with a rub comprised of sea salt, black pepper, sugar, onion powder, garlic powder, and sage. 3. Place chicken in aluminum pan, and let smoke for two hours. I used hickory wood. Preheat oven to 375F. 4. Remove chicken from grill at appropriate internal temperature-I pulled the chicken at 130it. Transfer to oven. cook for about 35 minutes. 5. Make about a cup of chicken stock. Reserve some for use elsewhere. 5. Now that you have your smoked chicken ready, start making the garlic sauce. 6. Remove chicken bones ect, and transfer meat to a sauce pan. Add 1 tablespoon orange juice, 1/2 teaspoon flour, about 1 tablespoon oil, and 4 tablespoons of chicken stock. 7. Let this cook for a few minutes, and be very careful about burning. Use your best judgment on when to proceed to next step. I would say when the mixture looks thicker and bubbles you are getting there. Around this time the pan may start browning-try to stir frequently. When it seems about right, briefly remove from heat. 8. When ready, add a few generous shakes of garlic, a bit of parsley, some red pepper, and some black pepper. Stir into mixture and cook just a bit more time. Remove from heat and serve as desired.
To make Andalucian-style shrimp in tomato sauce
1. Prepare your quantity of shrimp as desired. 2. Add some oil to a bag, and sprinkle in some red pepper. Add the shrimp and shake bag to coat. Let marinate in refrigerator for 2 hours. 3. When ready, melt about 1/4 stick of butter in an aluminum pan on the grill. Keeping the temperature around 225, transfer shrimp to pan and let smoke for about 10-20 minutes. I used hickory wood here also. 4. Remove shrimp from heat and set aside or refrigerate. 5. At this point, you will hopefully already have a chicken stock made. If not, make about a cup and use the rest for another dish. 6. Empty 1 can diced tomatoes into a sauce pan, add some shakes of garlic and reduce to about 1/3 of what it was. You should have a paste like result in the pan. Set this aside for later use. 7. Clean and slice half an onion, and add it to a pan along with some oil. Cook the onions until they are browning and soft. 8. After onions have cooked, stir in 1 teaspoon flour and 1 teaspoon paprika. Add a tiny bit of fish sauce and about 1/8 cup water. and 1/4 cup chicken stock, 1/4 teaspoon thyme, some red pepper, a bay leaf, a bit of parsley, some sea salt, a pinch of sugar, and some black pepper. 9. Cover and cook for 20 minutes on medium I think. 10. If necessary, reheat the shrimp you previously smoked slightly, and then add to previous sauce pan. Cook for 4-5 minutes more. 11. Remove from heat and serve.
To make Cherry-smoked eggs with Tapenade
1. Prepare grill as desired to smoke. 2. In an aluminum pan, add a quantity of eggs in their shell carefully to avoid cracking. 3. Let smoke for about 2 hours. 4. While eggs are smoking, prepare the tapenade. 5. Pit a jar of olives and set aside. 6. Zest an orange and set aside. 7. Slice three sun-dried tomatoes and set aside. 8. chop some garlic and set aside 9. De-stem some parsley leaves and set aside 10. Rinse a quantity of capers and set aside. 11. When ready, combine in a blender 1 jar olives (or 1 1/2 cup), 1/2 zest of orange (maybe half or so again less if I made this in the future,) 3 sun-dried tomato pieces, 1 1/2 teaspoon garlic, 2 1/2 parsley leaves, 2 1/2 teaspoons capers, 2 tablespoons oil, 1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard, and some black pepper. Blend to a lumpy paste or even less depending on your preference. 12. Serve on or beside halved boiled eggs. Garnish with a bit of parsley.
