The Drunken Gourmet is back in town.

It's not that I was out of town or anywhere in particular.  Not even taking a break from cooking all together, but just incommunicado for awhile.  I still cook almost daily, a guy has to eat. I just lack the ambition to write about it.  My summer was full of grilling, frying and food creations of all kinds.  I even got some photos of some dishes.  The process of getting them to this blog and getting it down on paper, is a whole other deal.

Here are the highlights of the past several months in a few words...  Camp cookery in the Chequamegon National Forest, 16 oz. pork chops back in May.  Wing Night here at home every other Thursday.  Homemade Salsa and my own concoction of wing sauce.  I brined and grilled seven 10  pound boneless pork loins for my friend's wedding. Another camp cookery episode in a different part of the Chequamegon Forest which included brined and grilled grouse and woodcock breasts.  All of these would have been excellent blog choices.  However, here it sat idle.  I digress.

So here I am in the middle of November, no Packers game today.  Cold, rainy,  a great day for a beef stew.  My way, Drunken of coarse.  I'm not drunk, well not today, but the stew is. 

Drunken Beef Stew

·                    1-½ pounds Boneless Beef Short Rib meat or Stew Meat, cubed in ¾” pieces

·                    ½ cup Flour

·                    1 Tbs Salt

·                    1 Tbs Fresh Ground Pepper

·                    1 Tbs Paprika

·                    2-4 Tbs Canola Oil for frying

·                    6 Cloves Garlic, Whole

·                    1 Medium Onion, roughly chopped

·                    1 Bottle of Point Amber Beer

·                    3 Whole Bay Leaves

·                    Few dashes of Worcestershire Sauce

·                    5 Medium Potatoes, peeled and chopped

·                    5 Carrots, chopped

·                    1 Medium Onion, Chopped

·                    Handful Celery Leaves, chopped

·                    1 14 oz. can Diced Tomatoes, with liquid

·                    ½ cup Green Peas, frozen

Preheat oven to 325° F.  In a large cast iron Dutch oven, heat 2-tablespoons oil over high heat.  In a large bowl mix flour, salt and pepper, and paprika together.  Dust beef in flour removing any excess.  Fry the beef on all sides careful not to overcrowd the pan or the meat will not brown properly.  Remove well-browned pieces to a plate and continue with the remaining beef pieces.  Add more oil if necessary.  When all the meat is browned, reduce heat to low and add the garlic and one of the onions.  Sauté for 2- 3 minutes and then add the Point Beer.  Use a wooden spatula to break up any browned bits on the bottom of the pan.  Bring this mixture to a boil; add bay leaves, Worcestershire sauce, cover and place in oven for 1-½ hours.  Check the pan after one hour and add more beer or water if needed.  The meat should be very tender at this point.  Then add potatoes, carrots, the other onion, and the tomatoes to the Dutch.  Mix thoroughly, and season with salt and pepper.  Cover and place back in oven and continue to cook another 1-½ hours or until the carrots are tender.  Then add the peas and heat through.  Serve with fresh bread and a cold Point Amber.

Cubed Beef

Fresh Veggies

Beef Braising Away in the Beer

Stew Served on top Fresh Bread, yummm!

Smoking Good Time

 Last weekend I had the entire Saturday to get some yard work done and lounge around the house.  No sense in just letting the smoker grill just sit there doing nothing, so I put it to work...  Baby Back Ribs.  It was about 2 pm when I put match to paper to light the charcoal.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  

It really started in the morning with putting the rub ingredients together and applying it to the racks.  I like my baby backs with a little zip, but J doesn't like the heat as much so she just salted her rack(the ribs that is).  My rub is a combination of paprika, chili powder, salt, brown sugar, black pepper and cumin.  Her rub was  Penzy's Pork Chop Seasoning.

  The grill was ready for meat around 2:30.  I used my Brinkman smoker grill utilizing the in-direct grilling technique.  Ribs on!!  I employed  a cast iron smoker box and hickory chips for flavor.  I also used a mop consisting of apple cider vinegar and Worcestershire sauce.  I placed this mix into a small spray bottle applying it every 1/2 hour or when I added more wood chips.  I kept the internal grill temp. around 250 degrees F and smoked the ribs until the charcoal went out, about 4 hours. 

Then removed the ribs to a half sheet pan and covered them with aluminum foil.  The ribs are basically ready to eat at this point, but I had to put them in a warm (200 degree) oven for a while due to a couple of friends that stopped by for a few cocktails.  We hardly have cocktail hour here, because its cocktail HOURS.  The beers were flowing earlier in the day while the ribs were on the grill, but its whiskey time. 

J and her friend, lets call her Debbie, started in on the margaritas and Mai Tais well before the ribs were done.  See above, the beer was mine.  Anyway we weren't ready to eat yet, so the ribs kind of hung out in the oven.  This turns out to be the secret of lip smacking smoky fall off the bone goodness.  The moist warm environment under the foil makes the ribs turn out this way.  Eventually I got the ribs out of the oven and then brushed on some homemade jalapeno jelly on them instead of a BBQ sauce.  I brought them down stairs to the bar and J, me and our friends went through them with a couple of more drinks.  I can't wait to do them again.

Wings

I love hot wings... I could eat wings once a week. Last summer J. and I did wings every Thursday night for dinner. We grilled them, fried them and even once, baked them. Grilling was the easiest way to do them. Just fire up the gas grill and toss them on. We also grilled them on a charcoal grill. Those were awesome. Frying the wing turns out to be the best tasting wing. It just takes more time and having to deal with the oil afterward. We played with the sauces. J would make her sauce and I would do mine. I like my sauce to be a bit hotter than she would like. Below are the wings from the last time we did them (a few weeks ago because I was ski-dooing out west). I dusted them in flour and deep fried them, sauced them in my favorite pepper sauce with some butter and sugar. Sorry, no exact quantities on the wing sauce, I'm bound by confidentiality. HA HA.

Drunken Gourmet's Drunken Chicken

Its been a while since my last post, not because I haven't been cooking, but just too busy snowmobiling and working to sit down and blog about it.  The meals that I have been preparing are just not blog worthy as of late.  The weather is starting to come around and warm up.  The days are longer and it just feels about that time... Grilling Time.  I just returned home from a week of snowmobiling in the mountains of Wyoming.  Needless to say I needed to cook something.  So I put together an entire meal all on the grill.  I brined a whole chicken in Alaskan Winter Ale beer and rub with some dry herbs, cut up some red potatoes and wrapped them foil for the grill as well.  Since I had the foil out, I wrapped up some whole garlic bulbs and roasted them. Oh, I didn't forget the salad either, I grilled that too.

Alaskan Winter Ale Brined Grilled Chicken

Brine:

·        2 Bottles of Alaskan Winter Ale

·        6-8 Garlic Cloves, peeled and crushed

·        1/3 cup Kosher Salt

·        1/3 cup White Sugar

·        1 TBS Whole Black Peppercorns

·        1 TBS Whole Allspice Berries

·        1 medium Onion, diced

·        2 cups Ice Cubes

Method:

In a medium saucepan, bring1 bottle of the beer to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until reduced by half.  Add the second bottle followed by the garlic, salt, sugar, peppercorns, allspice, and onions.  Remove from heat and allow to cool for 15-20 minutes.  Add ice to cool.  Put chicken in a zip top bag and add brine.  Refrigerate for 4-12 hours.

Grilling Part:

Remove chicken from brine.  Remove any peppercorns or allspice berries.  Pat dry with paper towels.  Season with salt and pepper and any herb dry rub of your choice.  Prepare hot grill.  Grill using indirect grilling method until internal temp. reaches 175 degrees at the thickest part of the bird.

Grilled Romaine Salad

• 1 Head of Romaine Lettuce
• 1-2 TBS Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper
• 1/ cup Bread Crumbs
• ½ cup Parmesan Cheese
• Vinaigrette Salad Dressing of your choice

Trim the head of lettuce by removing the outer leaves and exposing the lighter “hearts” of the lettuce.  Keep the stems attached.  Cut in halt lengthwise and drizzle lightly with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Grill 1 to 2 minutes or until just wilted and grill marks appear.  Turn over and sprinkle with some breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese, grill another 1-2 minutes.  Remove from heat and serve immediately with the vinaigrette dressing.

Roasted Garlic

·        Whole Garlic Bulbs

·        Olive Oil

·        Salt and Pepper

·        Alum. Foil

Method:

Cut the tops of the garlic bulbs with a knife.  Place the bulbs on a sheet of alum foil and drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Loosely wrap the garlic in the foil, but make sure ends are sealed.  Place on grill along with whatever your grilling.  Roasting time should be about 45 minutes to an hour depending on temp.  The garlic can be roasted in an oven also.  When the garlic is soft and cooked through, carefully using a couple of paper towels, squeeze the cloves out into a small bowl.  Mash with a fork and serve on fresh bread, season with salt. 










Sorry, roasted garlic is not very photogenic.

Did you Moose Me?

Here is my spin on chili. Used some Canadian moose meat I got from one of my trap buddies. I first made this recipe on a camping trip back in October out on the Turtle Flambeau Flowage.

Flambeau Chili

1 lb. Moose meat, cut into ½ inch pieces
1 lb. Ground Moose Meat
5 strips of Bacon
1 large white Onion
5 cloves of Garlic
4 whole Poblano Peppers, diced
1 can dark red Kidney Beans
1 can Pinto Beans
2 cans diced Tomatoes
1 can Tomato Paste
1 bottle Alaskan Winter Ale Beer
1 can Chicken Broth
1 TBS Cumin
1 TBS Coriander
1 TBS Chili Powder
1 tsp ground Mustard Seed
Salt & Pepper to taste

Pre heat large Dutch oven over medium high heat. Add 2 tablespoons of canola oil to the pan and add cubed moose meat. Sear meat on all sides. Do in batches if necessary. Remove meat to a platter. Next, add ground moose to the pan and fry until nicely browned. Remove ground meat to the platter with the cubed meat. Next, add bacon and fry until just crisp. Then add onion and garlic. Sauté, stirring often until soft. Then add tomatoes, tomato paste, beer, chicken broth, and spices. Then return all the meat to the Dutch. Mix gently and bring to a boil, then lower heat, cover and simmer for 1 to 2 hours or until meat is very tender. Add more beer or broth if needed. Add Poblanos and beans and continue to cook for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with shredded cheese and sour cream.

Last Friday Night

We are fortunate enough to have a trout farm about 2 miles from our house. They always have the freshest fish this side of catching them ourselves. Last Friday I bought 2 rainbow trout. They were butterflied and all bones removed, no heads. They are awesome marinated and then grilled. That's what I did. Served them with a baked brown rice and a watercress salad. Perfect. The marinade is from the Alaskan Brewery. I make it often with salmon, but it works also with trout. The recipe goes like this:

Alaskan Amber Marinated Rainbow Trout

·                    ½ cup soy sauce

·                    ½ cup Alaskan Amber Beer

·                    6-8 garlic cloves, minced

·                    ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro

·                    3 Tbs. fresh ginger root, grated

·                    4 Rainbow Trout Fillets (6 oz. each)

Add first 5 ingredients in a bowl, mix well.  Place trout in a resealable plastic bag and add marinade.  Shake bag to distribute.  Place in refrigerator for 2 hours. 

Prepare hot grill.  Grill trout fillets, flesh side down for 5 minutes.  Turn fillets and grill another 4 minutes.  Remove from grill with spatula.



The Watercress Salad

*     1 Bunch of Watercress, washed and spun dry.
*     1/2 of Red Bell Pepper, sliced thin
*     1/2 White Onion, Sliced thin
*     1/3 cup White Vinegar
*     1/3 cup sugar


Combine the vinegar and sugar in an air tight vessel and shake vigorously to dissolve the sugar.  Store in the fridge until dinner.  Place the watercress in a salad bowl and add pepper and onion.  Add the dressing when ready to serve.