[phillamb168]

Hurray for daylight savings time! I was able to get up super early to get started on my smoked chili experiment. Here's my "mise en place" - although it's a bit crowded ;-)


That's:

Ostrich sirloin (brown package), duck fat (white package), andouille (the Cajun kind, not the *BLECH* French kind), some onions, a whole lotta chopped tomatoes,  a can of green chiles, some Knob Creek for deglazing, garlic, cumin, chipotles in adobe, Oregano, a home-made chili powder, BACON, diced short ribs, an Irish red ale (for the cook), and some pimenton. Will post pics of the completed chili once it's on the smoker.


And of course, chili requires a bit of RDWHAHB:

[phillamb168]

Also, not pictured, some pulled pork I'll put in with the andouille. Because you can never have enough meat.

[bluesman]

This is sounding good. Are you going to smoke all of the meat and peppers first and then cook the chili?

[capozzoli]

Food looks great.

I really like the SS counters and the back splash. Frow what I can see of them any way.

Are they custom.?

I would love to have ss counters. Im thinking about this for the next house. SS counters in the main kitchen and also in the basement brewery/prep kitchen.

[euge]

Looks great. Phil- you get the same things we can get? I see a little tin of green chiles there. Did it cost a small fortune?

Can't wait to see the finished chili!

[euge]

Did large shrimp and another spatchcocked chicken yesterday. Delish.

Saved the lamb shank for today. Curry powder, salt and pepper and some applewood rub. Wrapped in bacon and in the smoker for 3 hours.

Spicy baked black beans done in the dutch-oven underneath the lamb shank to catch the dripping. Woowee! It all came out smoky, spicy and fantastic!

[bluesman]

Looks marvelous!

I love how the bacon crisps on the outside of the Lamb like that...mmm!

[phillamb168]

This is sounding good. Are you going to smoke all of the meat and peppers first and then cook the chili?

Life got in the way of responding to all these. Basically, I toasted the peppers in a cast iron for a few minutes and then threw them in the food processor with some cumin, smoked paprika and garlic powder and ground them all a bit. Then I sweated the onions, cooked some bacon, and then seared all the meat in batches after cubing it. Then I deglazed with bourbon and threw everything in and simmered for a couple hours. Then I added my green chilis and chipotles and an (8 oz) bottle of coke (beet sugar, not HFCS!) and simmered a bit more, and then took it out to the smoker and let it set there with the smoke until serving time, about 3 hours. Unfortunately, for whatever reason it didn't pick up too much of the smoke but my pot had a -beautiful- color after all was said and done. Here's a pic, and you can see the chili in there too (after everybody ate most of it):





My wife also did up some halloween-y home made oreos with a white chocolate ganache orange-colored filling:

[phillamb168]

Food looks great.

I really like the SS counters and the back splash. Frow what I can see of them any way.

Are they custom.?

I would love to have ss counters. Im thinking about this for the next house. SS counters in the main kitchen and also in the basement brewery/prep kitchen.

Behold the magic of Ikea (I think). My landlord put them in when he redid the house, I dunno if they're custom or not but pretty much the entire kitchen is Ikea.

Re the brewery idea, I couldn't find any SS at the big box hardware shop so I bought aluminum sheeting instead, pretty expensive but I only needed 1m x 2m. I hammered it out onto my entire brewing shelf, as the shelf itself is made out of MDF and, well, not very happy around heat/humidity. Seems to be doing pretty good now though.

[phillamb168]

Looks great. Phil- you get the same things we can get? I see a little tin of green chiles there. Did it cost a small fortune?

Can't wait to see the finished chili!

I can get 'em if I'm clever and/or willing to pay for the privilege. Green chiles I found at the American market in Paris (http://www.thanksgivingparis.com/) and I believe they were €3,50 - about $5 after quantitative easing kicks in ;-) For most of my chile needs I go to Germany, those guys love spicy stuff, and it's not terribly pricey since it's produced in Germany as opposed to wherever La Preferida comes from. Next year I hope to grow my own Habañeros and Poblanos, but I dunno if we've got the soil for it here.

The craziest thing to pay for here, by far, are snacks. Marshmallows, a tiny bag, are €5, and Lucky Charms are €12. That's for the small box. Needless to say I ask my dad to ship me stuff most of the time.

As this is a BBQ topic, I should note that Mesquite cannot be found in Europe, so I am a 100% applewood smoke guy, unless I can get Hickory from the UK. Doesn't have the same taste though.

[euge]

The chili looks like someone made a dent in it...

Is mesquite considered undesirable? Someone could fill up some shipping containers with bags of "Texas Mesquite Chunks" and make a fortune selling them for Euros. It does make a fine grilling wood since it burns hot and quick.

Phil a little can of green chillies like that probably run me $0.79 at the local store! I'm in the wrong business...

Growing the peppers hmmm? It might be a little cool in Paris. A trick is to plant in full sun and cover with black plastic pots for part of the day so it gets real hot. Do this to encourage germination and up till they are about 4-5 inches tall. Until they start sprouting you can leave them covered 100% of the time. Probably take at least 10 days top germinate.

Or you can start inside but it'll need to be in a hot place like a box with a light bulb.

[phillamb168]

Heh, yup. It was a hit, fed about 15 people along with some honey chipotle wings. I'm getting closer to convincing these people that spicy = good.

Mesquite: I think it just won't grow here; I dunno if we could get away with bringing it in, the EU typically doesn't like people planting non-native plant species without permission :-p I've been told by the Germans that I need to stop my complainink unt use gut european vood, ya. But I still got about 10 pounds of mesquite chunks I snuck over with me ;-)

You wanna see some crazy prices, you can check out this site: http://www.myamericanmarket.com/us (in English). The lady who runs it is really nice, but it's pricey because people gotta get their French's Mustard on. €3.79 is for one of those 10-oz sizes, btw.

I grew piment d'esplette without a problem so I was guessing I'd be alright, but those were plants as opposed to the seeds I've got now so I think I'll go with the black pot idea. One of the nice things about this climate, though, is that I'm in prime Hallertauer climate range, though, so this time next year I hope to be posting some pics of my bounty.

[euge]

Oh no not planting! Incredibly invasive. But the wood itself, split and ready to go. I'm partial to pecan, but only because I have a tree that provides a constant supply. They shed like crazy.


I'm interested to know how the euro's like the wings. Is it a novelty to them? Twenty years ago they were just getting popular across the US outside NY state and the east coast. Now they're almost a staple and the damn things cost nearly $4+ a pound. Kinda like skirt steak. Used to cost pennies because no-one knew what to do with it. Blam, fajitas get popular and the meat now costs $7 a pound.

[phillamb168]

I'm interested to know how the euro's like the wings. Is it a novelty to them? Twenty years ago they were just getting popular across the US outside NY state and the east coast. Now they're almost a staple and the damn things cost nearly $4+ a pound. Kinda like skirt steak. Used to cost pennies because no-one knew what to do with it. Blam, fajitas get popular and the meat now costs $7 a pound.

That's how I felt about hanger steak/onglet - they used to be pretty cheap until Food Network showed people what you could do with them.

Wings: They're somewhat popular thanks to places like KFC and Buffalo Grill, but they're really generic and typically not done correctly. Think super sweet "BBQ" sauce and being cooked for wayyy too long.

The people I had over really enjoyed them, and have asked me to cook them again for our next get-together. I'm doing a pretty good job introducing people to the "right" way these sort of things are done. Speaking of introducing, I now have two coworkers who have started brewing their own beer. I hope to have our first "real" event sometime in the next few months, and get things REALLY rolling.

[tschmidlin]

Yeah, I remember when wings were super cheap.  We used to eat them a lot with our modified Frank's hot sauce - delicious.  I had a roommate 15 years ago or so when I was working the late shift, and every couple of weeks when he felt like staying up late he'd make wings and we'd hang out drinking beers and dining in fine style. Good times.   

I like your idea of selling mesquite in Europe euge, it would make an awesome road trip.  Ship them all to Antwerp and then load up a truck and drive around Germany selling them all.  Then load up the truck again and drive around France.  Repeat with different countries until the whole shipping container is gone.  You might not make a ton of money, but maybe it would pay for itself.