Indirect Heat

06 July 2009

Guacamole

Ho-Lee Crap! Well, I just made the kick-assiest batch of fajitas. And fajitas need a great batch of guacamole to go with. So here's a quick post. I found the best ever recipe for guacamole. (Though the Homesick Texan doesn't call it a recipe, it's her recipe).

Make this. It's great.

2 ripe avocados, peeled and cut in half
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 Serrano pepper, diced
1/2 cup of chopped cilantro
Juice from 1/2 a lime
Salt to taste

Chop. Crush. And mix. Let sit in the fridge for a couple hours to allow the flavours to meld.

Serve as a chip dip, or with fajitas. It'll be a hit, I promise. Several folks who claimed they "don't generally like guacamole" loved it.

04 July 2009

A lazy Saturday calls for...

smoked lemonade. I've seen variations of this in several places, most recently on Slashfood. I've modified their version slightly, and given a few more details.

Last weekend, while I was smoking a brisket, I decided to finally try making smoked lemonade. So I sliced up some lemons, and put them on the grill next to the brisket, using indirect heat at about 225 F. I had wet mesquite wood chips providing smoke.

I smoked them for about an hour, until they looked like this:

They were positively ready to explode, so I took them off the grill to juice them.

Juicing these is not like juicing raw lemons. With only a tiny bit of pressure they nearly ruptured. Juice and pulpy mess came squeeging out of the lemons. And unlike the usual blast of citrus smell, this was a notably smokey citrus smell. Yum!

The basic proportions:

10 lemons
1 1/2 cups agave syrup

Mix the agave syrup and lemon juice. Now you use this syrup as a base for the lemonade, in one of two versions. For the kids:

1/2 lemon/agave syrup
1/2 water

For the adults:

1/2 lemon/agave syrup
1/4 water
1/4 bourbon (I used Maker's Mark)
1/2 + 1/4 water + 1/4 bourbon

Serve with ice. Delicious! The adult version tastes an awful lot like a smokey bourbon sour. And it makes a relaxing weekend of bbq even more relaxing. Yum! Happy long weekend!

03 July 2009

Worst recipe evar.

"Italian salad p50. Sounds just about the most revolting dish ever devised."

You should read it in the original to get the complete context, I merely present it here without comment:

Italian salad

1 pint cold cooked macaroni
½ pint cooked or tinned pears
½ pint grated raw carrot
French dressing to moisten
2 heaped tablespoons minced onion
½ pint cooked or minced string beans

Mix the chopped macaroni and vegetables; moisten with French dressing, ﬂavouring with garlic if liked. Serve on a dish lined with lettuce leaves. Decorate with mayonnaise and minced pimento or chives.

02 July 2009

Champagne mango sorbet

Champagne mangoes are popular in southern California. They're smaller, smoother and sweeter than regular mangoes and bright yellow in colour. They're available in Asian grocery stores and in Costco of all places.

I've started bringing the extra ice cream and sorbet that I've been making in to work. It's largely a way to prevent me from gaining thirty pounds in the next six months. Most recently, one of my co-workers requested that I make a champagne mango sorbet. She even offered to peel the mangoes for me. How could I say no?

So she brought me this bucket o' mangoes:

And I went to work on it. Straight into the food processor, to make a nice purée o' mangoes. So here's the recipe for two quarts of ice cream (modified from Perfect Scoop).

4 champagne mangoes
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup water
4 tsp freshly squeezed lime juice (really, use freshly squeezed - bottled lime juice is the suck)
2 tbsp dark rum
pinch o' salt

I made double this recipe, so I had to pour out the mango purée into a bowl to work with it. Mix it with everything else. Let it sit in the fridge overnight to chill it before running it through your ice cream maker.

Run it through the ice cream maker, as per your ice cream maker's instructions (for the KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment, mix it for about 25 minutes in an ice cream maker that's been in the freezer for the last 24 hours). Then toss it in your freezer to fully harden.