BBQ Cooking - Week 6: Slow Cooked Beef Chuck Ribs+Roasted Whole Piglet-Chinese Wedding Style!

This was the last class for the BBQ cooking course. We made Slow Cooked Beef Chuck Ribs, Grilled Back Ribs with Tunnel Style Sweet and Hot Sauce, Grilled Hot Banana Peppers. My group job was to remove the seeds from a couple hundred banana peppers and then stuff them with rice. My poor bare hands were coated with capsaicin and I could still feel the burning sensations even 3 days after the exposure. Believe me, I tried everything I can to remove those bugger capsaicin molecules, including washing my hands with olive oil and even a small amount of acetone from the lab. Nothing worked. So if you ever have to do the same task, make sure that you wear a pair of gloves! Over all, this is a great course and I enjoyed it a lot! I learned exactly what I came here for, new cooking techniques that involve a BBQ. 

As it was the final class, our chef also showed us something extra -- a crispy baby pig that is commonly served at Cantonese Chinese weddings. 

For the baby pig, the chef first roasted it slowly in the oven at 300F. Once it's fully cooked after about 3hr, he put it on the rack over a large wok, and poured really hot oil all over its body. Literally, the pig was burned and the skin just popped open to become crispy. (sorry about the graphic description)

Slow Cooked Beef Chuck Ribs

Ingredients

4 bone rack beef chuck ribs (chuck ribs are the first 4 ribs of the animal)

1 onion, chopped

12 shallots, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 celery stalk, chopped

6 garlic

500 mL red wine

1 L beef stock

1 L chicken stock

200 mL crushed tomatoes

1 bay leaf

Methods

1. rub chuck ribs with general some rub mixture (basically you can make a dry rub using whatever spices you want, i.e. chilli powder, garlic powder, curry powder, peppercorn, etc)

2. in a pan, heat some oil to brown the ribs

3. add onion/celery/carrot/shallot/garlic

4. add red wine and stock, simmer for a few minutes

5. add crushed tomatoes, bring the braising pan to the oven

6. slow cook the meat at 325F for about 2 hrs, take the meat out to rest, keep cooking the liquid to reduce it to a thick sauce

BBQ Cooking - Week 5: Chinese BBQ pork!

I have been waiting for this week's class since the beginning of the course, and finally, I got to learn how to make Cha Shao (Mandarin), or Char Siu (Cantonese), or you may know it as the Chinese BBQ pork-the China town style! At first I was pretty sceptical about learning how to make a traditional Chinese dish from my Canadian chef. It would be like learning pop culture from your parents. But then I had to bite my tongue really hard after I tried his cha shao, which is the most amazing cha shao that I've ever had in my 20 some-odd years of existence! The key to success lies in the marinade. I have tried to replicate the marinade at home, compared to the chef's gold standard, and I can say this with confidence: if you follow the recipe below, you will get the BEST cha shao ever!

Ingredients

3 lb pork shoulder (or sometimes it's called the pork butt, same thing)

Marinade

300 mL hoisin sauce

200 mL oyster sauce

100 mL honey

50 mL light soy  sauce

30 mL Chinese cooking wine/brandy

5 g ground cinnamon

5 g ground Sichuan peppercorn

5 g ground star anise

3 cloves of whole garlic

We hang the meat in this industrial oven in class, but you can also cook it in your own oven in a roasting pan. 

Methods

1. Mix everything together and marinade the pork overnight

2. Take a deep roasting pan with a rack in it. Add about 1 cm of water to the tray. Put the pork on top of the rack. (I don't have a baking rack, so I just rolled some aluminium foil into rods with a diameter of about 2 cm. I raised my pork above the water using the rods). The water in the pan will create some steam in your oven to tenderize the meat, as well as to collect the drippings from the marinade. The flavourful liquid will eventually become the sauce that you can serve with the meat and rice. 

3. Bake the meat at 300F for 1.5hr, basting the surface of the meat repeatedly every 15min or so. After 1.5 hr, increase the temperature to 450F and bake another 10 min. During the final high-temperature stage, the sugar coated on the pork surface will caramelize and give you a natural red colour (unlike the red food colouring used in many restaurants). 

4. Let the meat rest for a few minutes and slice thinly. 

If you ever try this recipe at home, let me know how it turns out. Really excited to hear about your experience with this recipe! 

BBQ Cooking - Week 4: it's all about chicken!

Just like last week's fish-themed class, this week's class was all about chicken! The two main courses were: Roasted BBQ Chicken with Sichuan Peppercorn Rub, and Jerk Chicken Legs. During the same week, I also made Tandoori Chicken in my Indian class. So basically, I was eating chicken for a week straight. I was chicken-saturated as much as a brine solution, but thankfully, each chicken dish was good in its own way, and distinct enough from the others.

Roasted BBQ Chicken with Sichuan Peppercorn Rub

Ingredients

Dry rub mix

30 g Sichuan peppercorns

30 g dried orange peel

Stock ale BBQ sauce

300 mL Millstreet stock or Tankhouse ale

750 mL ketchup

100 mL dijon mustard

5 cloves of garlic

1/2 onion, diced

20 g prepared horse radish

50 mL malt vinegar

10 g chili powder

5 g cayenne pepper

salt, pepper, brown sugar to taste

Butterflied whole chickens that look like being hit by a bus

                       

Methods

1. Cut the whole chicken into halves from the back side, leave the chest side attached

2. Season the chicken with salt/pepper, and rub its surface with olive oil

3. Use a food processor to grind the Sichuan peppercorns and the dried orange peel. Rub the chicken surface with the Dry rub mix

4. To make the BBQ sauce, heat some oil in a pan and sweat the onion and garlic. Add all the other ingredients, stir and reduce to a desired consistency. 

5. Grill the chicken at medium heat for about 15min until it's 80% done. Then brush the chicken surface with the Ale BBQ sauce. Grill each side for a few minutes while repeatedly basting the chicken with the BBQ sauce. 

BBQ chicken with roasted finger potatoes and grilled veggies

Jerk Chicken Legs

Ingredients

 4 large chicken legs

1 can of coconut milk

Marinade

2 bunches of green onions, chopped coarsely

1 bunch of picked thyme

1 large piece of ginger, chopped

3 scotch bonnet peppers (with seeds), halved

20 g crushed black peppercorns

30 mL white vinegar

10 g allspice

5 g ground cinnamon

30 mL molasses

water, used in dilute to get the desired consistency

Methods

1. Mix everything in the marinade together and purée them in a food processor

2. Take some of the mixture to marinade the chicken, at least for a few hours, and save some of the marinade for basting later.

3. Cook the legs slowly on the grill at low heat, baste them with the uncontaminated marinade repeatedly. 

4. During the last ten minutes, brush the legs with coconut milk

I know they look the same, but this is the Jerk. You will just have to take my word for it. 

BBQ Cooking - Week 3: Fish on the grill!

In this week's class, we tried two ways to cook fish on the BBQ. We grilled Whole Striped Bass Stuffed with Lemon/Thyme/Ginger, and Miso Honey Glazed Atlantic Salmon. For the sides, we made Grilled Acorn Squash which I really liked, as well as Candied Sweet Potatoes that I didn't try due to my severe allergy. 

Whole Striped Bass Stuffed with Lemon/Thyme/Ginger

Ingredients

1 whole striped bass

a large piece of ginger, chopped

1/2 bunch thyme

1 lemon, sliced

olive oil, salt/pepper to taste

Methods

1. Clean the fish, cut off the fins 

2. Rub the inside of the fish with olive oil, salt and pepper

3. Stuff the cavity with ginger, thyme, and lemon slices

4. Use a skewer to go through the fish and secure the stuffing 

5. Make a few cuts on the fish, to expose more surface area, grill on the BBQ

* Each side takes about ~10min to cook, but it depends on the heat of your BBQ. To check if the fish is done, poke it with a toothpick/skewer, if the stick comes in without any resistance and comes out clear (no meat attached), the fish is ready. 

Miso Honey Glazed Atlantic Salmon

Ingredients

4 6oz salmon fillets

* We had to fillet the whole salmons ourselves. Maybe when I get some free time, I will do a sketch on how to fillet round fish. For now, just look at the whole fish photo below, and picture nicely cleaned fillet portions. 

Glaze

20g miso paste

40 mL rice wine mirin

20 mL honey

salt/white pepper to taste

Methods

1. Mix the ingredients in the glaze in a bowl, whisk everything to a homogeneous mixture

2. Marinade the fillets in the glaze mixture for a couple hours, or you can leave it overnight. Save some uncontaminated glaze for basting later.

3. Grill the fillets on the BBQ, at 45 degrees angle to the grill bars for 3min, then move them 90 degrees (perpendicular to the initial position) for another 3min. This is how you get good looking crossed grill marks on the fish. Baste the fillets with the saved glaze from time to time. 

4. Turn the fish to the other side, grill the same way for about 6min.

Grilled Acorn Squash

This is a very tasty and easy side dish to make. Basically, you just cut some squash slices. Then take a bowl to melt some butter, stir in brown sugar, ground cinnamon, and salt/pepper to taste. Pour the butter sauce over the squash wedges, coat them well, and grill them on the BBQ! It takes ~10-15min to cook them until they become soft. 

BBQ Cooking - Week 2: Pulled Pork Burgers!

Our BBQ class got postponed for 2 weeks because of the Victoria Day long weekend and  Memorial Day (our chef went to visit families in the States). The long wait was highly anticipated and it was totally worth it! Despite the labour intensive cooking session, it was a fruitful class that generated many meals for the following week and many happy stomachs. 

To assemble the perfect pulled pork burgers, we prepared Slow cooked BBQ pork butts with Sweet chili and smoked paprika rub,  Bourbon BBQ sauce, Blue cheese coleslaw, Caramelized onions, and calabrese buns. 

Ingredients

Rub (for 10 lb pork butt):

1 cup smoked paprika
1/4 sweet dried ground chili
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 kosher salt
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp garlic powder 
1 tbsp onion powder

BBQ sauce:

2 cups Heinz chili sauce
1 cup ketchup
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 perpared mustard
1/4 cup cider vinegar
90 mL Bourbon 
4 crushed garlic cloves
1 small onion, diced
1 red pepper, diced
2 dried red chilies
1pc star anise
30 mL vegetable oil
salt to taste

Methods

1. Mix all the ingredients for the rub, coat the pork butt with the dry rub

2. Place the meat in the smoker for about 1hr, then transfer the meat to the oven to continue  

    roasting at 300F for another 2 hrs. 

 * you can slow cook the meat in the oven the whole time if you don't have a smoker

3. For the sauce, in a large pan, sweat the onion, red pepper and chilies until soft

4. Add Bourbon or whiskey and reduce the volume by half

5. Add sugar, stir and wait until it's dissolved. Add remaining ingredients and simmer until    

    desired consistency

6. Use a food processor to purée the sauce

For the Blue cheese coleslaw:

Ingredients for the dressing

100 g blue cheese

1/4cup cider vinegar

1/2 sour cream

1/2 bunch chives, chopped

salt/pepper to taste

Methods

1. Mix all the dressing ingredients together for the coleslaw. 

Voilà, the best pulled pork burger that I've  ever had! 

BBQ-Week 1: Korean Ribs and Grilled Asparagus!

Summer is finally here! And you know what that means, time to light the BBQ! To me, grilling chunks of meat in front of a BBQ has always seemed like a guy's job. But after hearing many good things about this particular BBQ cooking class, I decided to give a try. I had no prior experience of BBQ cooking besides grilling a couple burgers and buns for a quick dinner, so a lot of new techniques are ahead of me to learn! Unlike all my other classes, students work in teams in this one and we are working in a special lab, equipped with industrial food prep tools and gadgets. In this first class, we made Grilled China Town Style Beef Short Ribs (really, it's more Korean than Chinese) and Balsamic Grilled Asparagus. 

Ingredients

1.5 lb cross cut short ribs, quarter inch thick

salt/pepper to taste

Marinade: 

1 cup pineapple juice

60 g ginger grated

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 Thai chili

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup hoisin sauce

1 tsp seasame oil

Methods

1. combine all the marinade ingredients in a bowl and whisk

2. save 1/4 of the marinade for basting later

3. marinade the ribs for about 3hr

4. grill on medium heat, and use the 1/4 marinade to baste

* to get nice grilling marks on the meat, grill them 45 degrees to the grill mark first, then turn the rib 90 degrees (perpendicular to the initial direction)

* if you don't have a BBQ, you can just cook the ribs in a non-stick pan or in the oven using broiling for a few minutes