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Another Approach to Tri-Tip – with Romesco Sauce

Our ‘Lazy-S’ Easy Oven-Roasted Tri-Tip recipe is among the most viewed recipes here in Scott’s Kitchen. Tri-tip makes a great meal (and wonderful leftovers for use over salad, on sandwiches, etc.) Depending on the time of year, you can easily oven-roast them or, when it’s BBQ season, cook them on the Weber. Either way, they turn out great!

Here’s a different approach to tri-tip (with a romesco sauce addition) by Mark Bittman who writes The Minimalist column for the New York Times. Bittman’s technique involves pan searing the tri-tip (along with the ingredients for the romesco sauce) in a cast-iron skillet followed by finishing the tri-tip in a 500 degree oven. Here’s his column about tri-tips, his recipe, and a 5-minute video showing him preparing it.

Bittman says that it can be hard to find tri-tips in New York – a problem we certainly don’t have out here in California – where the tri-tip is a very popular cut of beef!

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New Year’s Eve Pasta – 2009 Edition

My wife made a wonderful pasta dish for tonight’s New Year’s Eve supper. She made it up as she went along – something she likes to do and is very good at! I tried to capture the process in real-time!

Here’s the gist:

  • Bring 6 qts water to a boil over high heat, add 2 Tbsp salt, add 1 lb fettucine. Cook al dente and drain pasta.
  • While waiting for the pasta water to boil, heat 3 Tbsp olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat.
  • Add 3 diced shallots and 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes and saute quickly.
  • Add 8-10 oz sliced cremini mushrooms, season with salt and pepper. Saute the mushrooms until softened, about 5 min.
  • Add 1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth, 5 cut-up pieces of cooked bacon, 1/2 lb thin, sliced asparagus and 6 Roma sliced tomatoes (peeled or peel after cooking a bit).
  • Cook stirring gently for 2 minutes. Stir in 3/4 cup heavy cream (or 1/2 cup cream and 1/4 cup red wine). Immediately reduce heat and cook until thickened.

That’s it – a very tasty pasta dish for New Year’s Eve. Serve with a special red wine (we served ours with a wonderful Copain Anderson Valley Pinot Noir that was a Christmas gift from good friends)

Happy New Year! Best wishes for a wonderful 2010!

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Christmas Dinner: A Dry-Brined and High-Heat Upside Down Turkey

Merry Christmas!

Today, for our Christmas dinner 2009, we’ll be cooking a 14-lb Diestel turkey that we’ve dry-brined this week using this recipe from an article in the Los Angeles Times. Dry brining requires thinking ahead – like three days ahead when the turkey needs to be salted and tucked away in the back of the refrigerator.

We’ll be cooking the bird today using our high-heat upside down roast turkey recipe, a family favorite that produces wonderful results.

Friends are bringing a couple of side dishes to have along with the stuffing we’ll be making. Yum! – getting hungry already!

Update: Just a quick note to report that the Christmas turkey turned out to be excellent – moist white meat, great flavor! Our little experiment in dry-brining the holiday bird was a big success! Thanks to Russ Parsons for his article and recipe!

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Some Tips on Pinot Noir for Thanksgiving Dinner

Last week, the Wall St. Journal’s Tastings column by Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher features a list of pinot noirs they recommend for Thanksgiving dinner.

While they personally say they prefer a great aged Cabernet Sauvignon with their turkey, many folks prefer the lighter Pinot Noir. They note that “Pinot Noir, at its best, has elegant, sometimes earthy tastes that would pair well with Thanksgiving dinner without adding yet another big, challenging taste to the table.”

What’s on their list? (Click here for the complete article):

We’re also partial to the Navarro Pinot Noir Méthode à l’Ancienne from the Anderson Valley in Mendocino county. Navarro is one of our favorite wineries and their Pinot is a delight! Enjoy!

Are you doing the cooking the turkey this Thanksgiving and looking for a great recipe? Be sure to checkout our all-time most popular recipe: Scott’s High Heat Upside-Down Roast Turkey Recipe!

Looking for something other than turkey? Here’s another all-time favorite: Scott’s ‘Lazy-S’ Easy Oven-Roasted Tri-Tips!

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Scott’s Perfect Charcoal BBQ Thick Cut Pork Chops

We love our Weber – an early model of the Performa. A while back we had this fancy indirect heating gas grill – but it just didn’t provide much flavor for BBQing so we gave it away and bought the Weber over 10 years ago. It’s been our regular fire ever since – IMHO nothing beats a hot charcoal fire for the best flavor.

On one of our morning walks last week, Chris Gulker started talking about his new Weber Performa BBQ and how he had cooked a pair of very tasty thick cut pork chops on it last weekend. Naturally, my ears perked up – pork chops are an old favorite but mostly pan fried with some sauerkraut, not BBQed.

Taking Chris’ excellent results to heart, we tried our own version on the Weber tonight. The result was superb – just great – and simple. I was cooking two thick cut chops – about 1.7 lbs of meat that we had picked up at a local butcher yesterday (priced at $5.99-$6.29 a pound in our neighborhood).

About 45 minutes before my intended cooking start time, I coated the chops with Penzey’s Galena Street Rub. This is a delightfully spicy rub that every Penzey’s fan seems to know about – we used it for the first time a few weeks back on our “ultra lazy” baby back ribs recipe.

I lit the charcoal with some newspapers in a chimney – we’ve been using a new Trader Joe’s hardwood charcoal that is a high heat version and very flavorful. After about 20 minutes in the chimney, it was ready to spead across half of the bottom of our Weber. I let it sit for another 10-15 minutes – and it gets very hot – almost full scale (>550 degrees) on the Performa’s built-in thermometer. Then, it’s time to sear the chops.

I seared them about 2 minutes on each side directly over the hottest part of the fire. After that, I moved them over to the indirect heat side of the Weber and cooked them for another 6 minutes without turning. By that time, the internal temperature was about 135 degrees. I removed them from the fire, covered them with foil and let them sit another 6-8 minutes during which the internal temperature continued to rise to over 145 degrees. At that point, they were ready to serve.

We cooked some sauerkraut with bacon and BBQ sauce in a skillet on the stove and served that with the chops along with some more of that tasty BBQ sauce. What a treat! – a very nice and relatively low cost Sunday BBQ. Served with a little summer rose wine, it was just delicious!

Scott's Perfect Charcoal BBQ Thick Cut Pork Chops

  • Servings: 2-4
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Perfect grilled thick-cut pork chops on the Weber BBQ.


Credit: scottskitchen.com

Ingredients

  • Thick cut bone-in pork chops (two to four chops)
  • salt
  • pepper
  • Penzey’s Galena Street Rub

Directions

  1. In a medium bowl, toss together tomatoes, garlic, basil, mint, salt and black pepper.
  2. Cook and drain pasta.
  3. Mix together.

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Scott’s Ultra Lazy Baby Back Ribs

We’ve got a wonderful local Penzey’s Spices store here in Menlo Park that opened about six months ago. Yesterday afternoon, while the rest of the family was shopping nearby, I browsed Penzey’s – with nothing particular in mind.

While looking around, I picked up one of their Early Summer 2009 catalogs and noticed the rib recipe inside the back cover. While I love to eat ribs, I’ve never really made them – for some unknown reason! I guess my perception was that they took a long time to cook and, in particular, on a BBQ you always had to worry about overcooking them, etc. Too much hassle.

The Penzey’s recipe, Teddi’s Grandpop’s Ribs, looked super simple to prepare – right up their with my other super simple recipe for slow roasted pork shoulder. Both of these recipes involve just seasoning the pork and putting it into the oven – for several hours. No fussing around worrying about how they’re doing, etc.

For the ribs, I used Penzey’s Galena Street Rib and Chicken Rub (great stuff!) and seasoned thoroughly one rack of baby back ribs from Trader Joe’s with the rub. Put the rack into a pre-heated oven at 220 degrees and you’re basically done. I did turn them twice – once at the two hour point and again at the three hour point. The rack was ready to eat at the four and a half hour point – and the ribs were delicious. A little BBQ sauce on the side and you’re good to go!

To accompany the ribs, I made Ridge Ever’s recipe for Bacon and Corn Chowder – a much more involved recipe but with a very delicious result! This wasn’t the best meal for a diet – but it sure was good!

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Grilling Tri-Tip on the Weber Charcoal BBQ

Scott’s Lazy-S Oven Roasted Tri-Tip

Yesterday, we had a big family get together at our house – and grilled three tri-tip roasts on our Weber BBQ as one of the main courses. Roasting tri-tip in the oven is super easy – see my Lazy-S Oven Roasted Tri-Tip recipe) but it was a beautiful late Spring day and just called out for firing up the Weber and grilling instead.

For the meat, I picked up two plain tri-tips from our local meat market (Bianchini’s Market in Portola Valley) along with one of their dark, marinated versions (they sell four different tri-tip marinated versions – tough choice!) In total there was about 6 lbs of tri-tip.

For the fire, I used the local Lazzari Mesquite Charcoal – not the usual briquettes. The Lazzari is very chunky stuff – with pieces of charcoal of all sizes – and it adds great smoky flavor to the meats! I used the chimney starter to get it going and then added a couple of large chunks to the fire once I had emptied it out of the chimney starter.

The key to grilling tri-tip on the Weber is to have the coals only on one side of the grill – with the other side completely devoid of any coals. This provides a super-hot source of direct heat for searing the tri-tips and then a large area of indirect heat for finishing the grilling.

Once you’ve spread the charcoal over half of the grill, sear the roasts about 5-7 minutes on both sides. Then move them to the indirect heat area and let them cook over the indirect heat with the Weber top closed for another 20 or so minutes. Then, check the meat temperature with a meat thermometer – I removed ours yesterday at about 130 degrees – turned out just perfect for medium rare beef.

Importantly, wrap the tri-tips in foil and let them sit for another 15 minutes to allow the meat juices to reintegrate into the roast. Then slice thinly, across the grain, and serve. We had small buns for yesterday’s event – allowing mini sandwiches to be made – or not if you just wanted to taste the tri-tip by itself!

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Scott’s Saturday Ground Turkey and Veggies Supper

A couple of weeks ago, I came across Elise Bauer’s recipe for “Mom’s Ground Turkey and Peppers” on her outstanding Simply Recipes web site. We made the recipe and enjoyed it very much.

This afternoon, with family company coming, we needed to put something quick together for Saturday supper – and, as it turned out, we had a package of ground turkey in the fridge.

We also had a package of Trader Joe’s “Fire Roasted Vegetables with Balsamic Butter Sauce” in the freezer. (These veggies are also our favorite as a base for a quick chicken and rice stir-fry!)

So, we tried a new variation on Elise’s Mom’s ground turkey recipe – using these ingredients we had on hand – along with an 8 oz can of Muir Glen Tomato Sauce that was in our pantry. The result was great – in about 20 mins – with a bit more liquid/sauce than in Elise’s original recipe. We served it over a package of Trader Joe’s brown rice – so easy to cook in 3 mins in the microwave. Very tasty indeed!

Ingredients

  • Olive oil
  • 1 package Trader Joe’s Fire Roasted Vegetables with Balsamic Butter Sauce
  • 1 tsp minced garlic
  • 1 package ground turkey (we used 1.25 lb Foster Farms from Safeway)
  • 1 tsp chipotle chili pepper
  • 1 Tbsp dried Italian parsley
  • 1 Tbsp dried cilantro
  • 1 8 oz can of Muir Glen tomato sauce
  • 1 packet Trader Joe’s Microwave Brown Rice

Directions

  1. Heat 2 Tbsp olive oil in a large skillet on medium high heat. Add the Fire Roasted Vegetables and cook until softened – about 5 minutes.
  2. Add the minced garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.
  3. Add the ground turkey to the skillet in small “chunks”, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and chipotle chili powder. Add the Italian parsley and cilantro.
  4. Cook the ground turkey until it is browned on one side, then turn over to cook on the other side. Add the tomato sauce.
  5. When the turkey is cooked through (3-4 minutes), add back the vegetables and warm mixture. If serving with rice, cook the rice in the microwave for 3 mins.
  6. To serve, spoon the rice into bowls and cover with the turkey/vegetable mixture.

[First posted: June 6, 2009]

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Barley Soup With Mushrooms and Microgreens

Out of a can, a couple of my favorite soups are barley-based – either chicken or beef with barley, I’m not picky! Good flavor, good fiber – and there’s something about barley that “beefs” up a soup in terms of chunkiness and flavor.

Recently, I came across this recipe in the New York Times for Barley Soup With Mushrooms and Kale – which I made in a modified form for dinner Monday evening last week – it was delicious!

Kale wasn’t easy to find – and being a regular Trader Joe’s shopper I had noticed they carry a small box of “microgreens” – so I substituted those for the kale.

Trader Joe’s also sells a dried mushroom medley (which includes some porcini mushrooms) which I used to replace the dried porchini’s ($1.99 for the medley vs $5.99 for the pure dried porcinis!) I also had a cup of beef broth left over so it went into the soup along with a quart of chicken broth instead of just chicken broth. Otherwise, I pretty much followed the rest of the recipe.

Ingredients

  • 1 package Trader Joe’s Dried Mushroom Medley (0.88 oz package)
  • 2 cups boiling water
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, as needed
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 1 package Trader Joe’s sliced cremini mushrooms
  • 2 tsp Trader Joes’ crushed garlic
  • Kosher salt, to taste
  • 3/4 cup pearl barley
  • 1 1/2 quarts organic chicken stock
  • A bouquet garni made with a few sprigs each thyme and parsley, and a bay leaf and a Parmesan rind
  • 1 package Trader Joe’s Microgreens
  • Freshly ground pepper to taste

Directions

  1. Place the dried mushrooms in a Pyrex measuring cup. Pour on two cups boiling water. Let sit for 20-30 minutes. Strain the water and the mushrooms out of the bowl.
  2. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy soup pot over medium heat and add the onion. Cook, stirring often, until just tender, about five minutes, then add the sliced cremini mushrooms. Cook, stirring, until the mushrooms are beginning to soften, about three minutes. Add the garlic and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Continue to cook for about five minutes, until the mixture is juicy and fragrant.
  3. Add the reconstituted dried mushrooms, the barley, the mushroom soaking liquid, and the stock or water. Salt to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 45 minutes.
  4. Add the microgreens into the soup and continue to simmer for another 15 to 20 minutes. The barley should be tender and the broth aromatic. Remove the bouquet garni, taste and adjust salt, add a generous amount of freshly ground pepper and serve.

[First posted: March 22, 2009]