Grilled Tri-tip

Even though it's technically fall, the weather here has been hot and that means more grilling! My husband loves to grill up tri-tip. Every time it's on sale, he buys it, slaps on a tasty homemade rub and grills it up to perfection.

I've never posted his tri-tip before because he's never shared with me the secrets of how to make this beautifully cooked hunk o' meat, so I have nothing to share with you today. The only thing I can say is that there's a suspicious amount of brown sugar, paprika, cumin, cayenne, salt and pepper missing from my spice rack, and that the meat thermometer is dirty. But other than that, I'm at a loss ;)

I'm hoping that if I butter him up a bit by posting this tasty picture and singing his praises, he might just cave and teach me, or make more. I'll be happy with either outcome. But on second thought, since he does it so well, there's really no need for me to learn. I should really just sit back, kick up my feet, and enjoy it while I can!

Broccoli Beef

Before I finish posting about our 4th of July BBQ, I wanted to post this so that I can participate in Regional Recipes this month. They're featuring China and it's being hosted by Darlene of Blazing Hot Wok.

Broccoli beef is probably one of the most well-known Chinese stir fry dishes in America and it's also one of the easiest, though all stir fries are pretty easy. It's just a bit of oil, some aromatics, a protein, and vegetables with some sauce.

You can do almost any combo of:

• aromatics - garlic, ginger, scallions, etc
  
• protein - chicken, shrimp, beef, tofu, etc or even skip it altogether if you want
• vegetables - brocolli, carrots, onions, cabbage, pretty much anything you want!
• sauce - soy, oyster, hoisin, hot sauce, pretty much anything you can find in the sauce aisle of your local asian market.

Stir fries are great for cleaning out the fridge!

Ingredients:
- Beef
- Broccoli
- Carrots (I added it for color and to sneak in extra veggies, but it's totally optional and not really "traditional")
- Garlic
- Soy Sauce
- Oyster Sauce
- Corn starch

Directions:
- Slice the beef into thin bite-size pieces. Flank steak is great for this, but any beef will do really, as long as you slice it against the grain to keep it tender. If you have trouble slicing it thinly, either use a sharper knife or put it in the freezer for about 10 minutes.
- Marinate the beef in a few teaspoons of corn starch and soy sauce while you prep the other ingredients. This will keep the beef tender and help thicken the sauce.
- Cut the broccoli florets off into bite-size pieces. You can also peel off the tough skin of the stem, slice it, and add them to the florets.
- Peel and slice the carrots at a bias (if you're using them)
- Finely mince the garlic.
Heat a pan or wok until smoking hot.
- Add a bit of oil to coat the bottom and let that heat up too.
- Add the garlic and stir it quickly for only a few seconds so that they don't burn.
- Add the beef with a bit of extra soy sauce.
- When the beef if about 80% cooked, you can take it out and set it aside. If you're being lazy like me, don't bother with this step :)
- If you're using carrots, add them to the pan. You can also add more oil at any time if things start sticking.
- Add the broccoli to the pan and oyster sauce to taste. If you don't have oyster sauce, more soy is fine too. If you like more sauce, feel free to add a bit of water or chicken stock.
- If you took the beef out earlier, add it back in now. Don't let the broccoli cook too long or it will get mushy. You want it to keep a bit of crispness.
- If you want to thicken the sauce more, mix a bit of corn starch in a bowl with a bit of water until fully dissolved and add the slurry to the pan. It should thicken even more as it cools.
- Serve over rice.

Smoked Brisket

Ok, I think it's about time I posted a new food post, don't you think?

So the hubz and I got a Weber Smokey Mountain Smoker as a wedding gift but never got around to using it because honestly, it seemed like such a hassle. Every time he considered using it (he's the grill master in this house), he opted to use our gas grill instead because it was just so much easier. In addition to our indoor grill, we've got 3 outdoor ones. Yes, probably a little overboard, but we like it :)

Well, he finally broke out the smoker over the 4th of July weekend. We were having 30+ people over for a bbq and didn't want to do burgers and dogs. It was the perfect opportunity to test out the smoker. And you know what? Smoking isn't nearly as difficult or scary as it seems. Sure, it's more work than using the gas grill or your oven or even a normal charcoal grill, but it's definitely worth it for some things, such as smoked brisket. In fact, 2 weeks later, we took out again to smoke a few racks of ribs. And while we both thought the ribs were way too smokey and probably best cooked using other methods, but I'll get around to blogging about that some other time, we both felt that the brisket and the pulled pork were well worth the effort.

I'm not going to post a how-to here because this website is all you need and does a way better job than I ever could. It's a fantastic resource that goes in-depth into everything there is to know about smoking a fabulous hunk o' meat. I will share a couple highlights though...

The hubz bought a big ol' brisket, trimmed the fat cap, and put a homemade rub on overnight. Unfortunately, I don't have a recipe for you because the hubz doesn't really follow recipes, but it always turns out fantastic! He's just talented that way :) What I do know is that it consisted of lots of brown sugar, cayenne, paprika, cumin, salt and freshly ground black pepper and probably some garlic powder and onion powder too.


For the cooking method, he opted to go for the Smoked & Oven Finished method. This yields great smokey flavor and tender juicy meat. But in order to get it done in time, the poor boy had to wake up at 4am to get things started - that's dedication!

Look it's still dark out! It's also a lotta smoke!

The result was fantastic in my opinion. Look at that perfect smoke ring.

And the gorgeous, flavorful bark.
A few tips that he says he's going to use next time is to trim off more of the fat cap as the smoke doesn't penetrate through that thick layer of fat very well. He also put 2 fatty pork butts on the rack above it so that the drippings would "baste" the brisket and keep it from drying out. If you don't want to do that, you can cover it in a layer of bacon instead.

The hubz also highly recommends making your own bbq sauce. It's so much better than anything store bought and you can tailor it to your personal preferences (we like it spicy). For our bbq, he made 2 sauces for a little variety, a sweet bourbon bbq sauce, and a tangy spicy bbq sauce. The base of both were canned tomatoes, fresh onions, brown sugar, vinegar, maple syrup, a touch of ketchup, all cooked down for several hours and then blended smooth. The sweet bourbon sauce had a very healthy dose of jim beam and extra brown sugar while the spicy one had a boatload of cayenne and chili powder for a nice kick and additional vinegar for tang and brightness.

Here it is all cut up and ready to enjoy!

Niu Rou Mien (Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup)

Now that you have amazing handmade noodles, you need something equally amazing to eat those noodles with, right? Enter one of my all time favorites - Niu Rou Mien aka Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup. I love this stuff. One of my coworkers makes us go to the same exact place EVERY week and orders this dish so that he can get his weekly fix, and I more than happily oblige.

Usually, this dish is served with a nice thick layer of spicy red oil on top of the broth, but alas, when I'm cooking at home, I can't bring myself to knowingly eat it that way, so I refrigerate the broth overnight and skim off the solidified fat. It's still yummy, but if you chose not to skim off the fat, it'll only make it better.

Additionally, making a batch of Niu Rou Mien is the perfect opportunity to impart some of these great flavors into a few other otherwise ingredients. Personally, I really like the flavor of carrots that have been stewed in the broth, so I always toss a few of those in. I adore soy sauce eggs and this broth is perfect for making them, so I always make sure to cook up a batch of those too whenever I'm making this dish. Other things typical items that you can toss in there are dou gan (bean curd - kinda like a super firm tofu) and seaweed.

I'm submitting this post to Pasta Presto Nights. Patsy of Family Friends & Food is hosting this week, so check out her blog on May 15th to see everyone else's pasta creations!

Now onto the second most important part - how to make this dish. (The most important part is actually eating it)

Ingredients:
- Handmade noodles (recipe here)
- Beef (traditionally beef shank, but any stew meat will do. I used chuck this time)
- Beef Tendon (totally optional. some people like it, some don't)
- Water or Beef or Chicken or Vegetable Stock
- Soy sauce (to taste)
- Brown sugar (to taste)
- 1-2 sprigs of Green onions
- 3-4 cloves of Garlic
- 3-5 slices of Ginger
- 3-5 Star anise
- Dried chili peppers (to taste)
- Sichuan peppercorns (to taste)
Optional additions that I used:
- Carrots
- Peeled hard-boiled eggs

Directions:
- Put the meat, tendon and carrots if you're using them, ginger, garlic, scallions, spices, etc (basically everything but the eggs) in a pressure cooker or heavy bottomed pot. If you're not using a pressure cooker, go ahead and stick the eggs too. If you are, I don't imagine pressure cooked eggs to be a pretty sight (though I've never tried it), so leave those out for now.
- Fill the pot with the liquid of your choice until the meat is barely covered.
- Add soy sauce and brown sugar to taste. You can always water down the broth later if you add too much, or add more if it's too bland.
- Bring everything to a boil. If you're using a pressure cooker, let it cook at maximum pressure for about 20-30 minutes and let the pressure come down naturally, or until the meat is fall apart tender. If you're using a pot, either simmer it on the stovetop or put it into a 350 degree oven for a few hours until the meat is fall apart tender.
- Take out everything but the spices, ginger, scallion and garlic and set it aside.
- Strain the broth. If you used a pressure cooker and want to make soy sauce eggs, put the eggs in and let it simmer for at least an hour (the longer the better though) so that the color and flavor penetrates the egg.
- If you want, refrigerate the broth overnight to remove the layer of fat on top.
- Now it's time to serve! In a bowl, put some noodles, a bit of the broth (and some water if it's too salty), and a few slices of the beef. Garnish it with some bok choy, carrots, soy sauce egg, pickled cabbage, green onions, parsley, etc.
- Slurp and enjoy!

Guinness Beef Stew

Normally, when I want to cook meat until it's fall apart tender, I reach for my pressure cooker. It does a fabulous job in a fraction of the time, but this time, the pressure cooker just wasn't going to cut it. The problem (and at times, benefit) of the pressure cooker is that there's hardly any evaporation, and if I was going to get the liquid in the stew to cook down into a nice, thick, flavorful sauce, I needed that evaporation.

The other way to cook meat until it's fall apart tender is to braise it in the oven, so that's what I did instead. I grabbed my beloved le creuset and put together this hearty stew which was surprisingly tasty. I say surprisingly because I haven't eaten much stew in my lifetime and never really thought anything of it, but now I definitely know why they call it comfort food. It really does warm you up from the inside out.

Ingredients:
- 1.5 pounds of chuck steak or other stew meat
- 1 potato
- 2 carrots
- 1 box of mushrooms
- 1 tablespoon of tomato paste
- 2 handfuls of pearl onions
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 bottle of guinness
- a bit of water or chicken stock
- a few dashes of worcestire sauce
- salt and pepper to taste
- thyme
- a bit of flour
- a bit of oil

Directions:
- Cut the beef into chunks and lightly dredge it in flour.
- Heat a bit of oil in a heavy bottomed pot and brown the beef. You may have to do this in batches. Don't overcrowd the pan.
- Add just a bit of water or chicken stock to deglaze the pan. I don't use the Guinness for this because it's so dark that it's hard to see if you've really gotten all those great flavorful brown bits off the bottom of the pan.
- Mince the garlic and toss it in.
- Add the Guinness and a few splashes of worcestire sauce. Stir in the tomato paste until melted. I wait on the salt and pepper since it's going to reduce down and might get too salty.
- Toss in the peeled and chopped potatoes and carrots. Toss in the mushrooms and too. I made the mistake of putting the onions in at this point too and they disentigrated by the time the meat was done, so wait on this.
- Put the thyme in and bring everything to a simmer.
- Cover and put it into a 325 degree oven. Let it cook until the meat is fall apart tender. I think it took about an hour, but I'm not really sure. Add the onions in maybe about half way through the cooking.
- When it's done, the potatoes will have disappeared and helped thicken the sauce. Remove the thyme and add some peas and stir to heat through.
- Add salt and pepper if needed.

Steak Sandwich

Remember those gorgeous homemade baguettes that are a constant staple in our house these days? Do you also remember the french onion soup that I made? Well, I had leftovers of both, so I asked my hubz to grill up some steak for steak sandwiches. He always does such a great job of cooking steak to perfection, I guess it's a guy thing because I sure can't do it. And it was so tasty that I requested it again and am thinking about making more soup just so that I can have more steak sandwiches!

And since the secret ingredient for Weekend Wokking this month is beef and steak is about as "beefy" as you can get, I'm submitting this entry. Wandering Chopsticks created this awesome event and Marija of Palachinka is hosting this month. Check out the roundup on April 1 for some beefy goodness!



Ingredients:
- 1 baguette
- 1 steak (we used New York, but anything will do)
- Leftover french onion soup
- Horseradish sauce (I like the creamy variety for this)
- Lettuce (optional)
- Salt and pepper

Directions:
- Ask your husband to salt and pepper the steak and cook it to perfection. Let it rest, then slice it into thin strips.
- Cut the baguette in half and toast it until nice and crispy.
- Spread a generous amount of horseradish across the bread.
- Lay the pieces of steak across the sandwich.
- Spoon the onion soup over the steak.
- Add the lettuce if desired (I found I liked it better without).
- Close the sandwich and dip it in additional onion soup and horseradish as desired and eat.

Carne Asada French Fries

This stuff is heaven on a plate! It's also heart attack on a plate and deserves to be a part of thisiswhyyourefat, but it's totally worth it!

San Diego Mexican food is (in my opinion) some of the best. I mean really, a San Diego carne asada burrito consists of a delicate, perfect tortilla, meat and guacamole. That's it. Don't mess with a good thing. There is no need for silly rice or beans or *gasp* lettuce! Leave it alone dammit!

Carne asada french fries (carne fries for short), are another example of a San Diego Mexican food perfection. Can you tell that I really like San Diego Mexican food? It's one of the things I miss the most. That, the weather, and the beaches. Oh, I suppose my friends and family count too :)

Since I can't seem to find carne fries outside of San Diego, I had to make it myself. It's so simple, yet sooo so sooooooo good. Just take a big fat heaping pile of piping hot french fries, smother it in shredded cheese. Top that with a healthy dose of good old carne asada and finish it off with a bit (LOT) of guacamole. Cover it or stick it in the oven so that the heat of the fries and the meat melt the cheese into a glob of ooey gooey goodness. This is perfect "snack" after a late night of drinking, and great for dinner, lunch, and heck, even breakfast!

And since Blazing Hot Wok is featuring Mexico for this month's Regional Recipes event, I'm submitting this. Check out the roundup which will be hosted by Wandering Chopsticks or submit your own before March 15th.


Ingredients:
- French fries (recipe here)
- Carne asada (recipe below)
- Shredded cheese
- Guacamole

Directions:
- Pile hot french fries on a plate.
- Top with a large mound of shredded cheese.
- Add chopped up carne asada.
- Dollop lots of guacamole on top.
- Cover or pop in the oven until the cheese is melted and delicious.
- Stuff your face.
- Go to the gym.

-Carne Asada-
Ingredients:
- Beef (flank steak is typical, but any cut is fine since we're chopping it into such small pieces)
- Salt
- Pepper
- Garlic powder
- Chili powder
- Paprika
- Cumin
- Soy sauce
- Lime juice

Directions:
- Marinate the beef in all the spices, soy sauce and lime juice.
- Grill until cooked through.
- Chop into small pieces.