Coffee Ribeye

Bobby you did it again! I never thought about coffee being a spice - especially on a steak, but this was one of the best steak-flavor combinations ever. From Boy Gets Grill (page 216) this is Coffee Spice-Rubbed Ribeye with Smoky Tomato-Red Chili Salsa. I made the rub during the first playoff game. It is a dry combination of chili powder, paprika, brown sugar, mustard, oregano, coriander, ginger and some of Dorothy's ground expresso-roast coffee from Starbucks. During the second playoff game I made the salsa. I chopped up tomatoes, chipotle, red onion, cilantro, and Serrano chilies and mixed them together with olive oil and red wine vinegar. I lit the grill as usual and used the back of a spoon to rub in the dry ingredients into one side of the ribeye steaks. I first seared the ribeye, rub side down, in the cast iron skillet that had just a covering of canola oil. Once the rub spices were cooked into the meat, I removed the steaks from the skillet, turned them and placed them on the grill grates. I turned down the heat and let the grill do the rest of the work. I grilled some texas toast along side and within about 10 minutes we were ready to go. The rub spice combination was bold, but it did not over power that great 'steak taste' and we really couldn't taste the flavor of coffee itself - it just all worked together.


Wisdom of the Grill. Allowing the steak to rest after it comes off the grill is essential, but I did not always know it was such a big deal. You want to deliver hot food to the table so the temptation is to rush the steak from the grill to the plate. If you do that, the juices inside the steak will not have the chance to spread out. If you cut into the meat to soon, the juices run out leaving you will a dry, less flavorful steak. This is also why you should never cut into the steak while its on the grill to see if its done. This is a real rookie move. First of all, you can't really tell if its done through a little knife slit. Second, all the juices will run out. And third, especially with steak, experienced grillers just know when the steak is ready from practice and instinct. If you cut into the steak, you are only exposing the fact that you don't know any better. The only time it is acceptable to cut into a steak to see if it is grilled to your liking is at a good steak house when the waiter first brings the plates to the table and asks you to do so. Otherwise, blades off the steak, until off the grill and after resting at least five minutes. Tent some foil over the steak to keep it hot while its resting and remember that steak continues to cook after it is removed from the grill so you must also anticipate this for proper doneness. Try to finish preparing one more thing on the grill while the steak is resting. This will give you something to do and help resist the temptation to rush to the plate. For this meal, I finished the texas toast during the rest time.  


What was on? The playoffs. My team is out, so now I have a casual fan's interest in who is playing and who is winning. But the fact that both the Cowboys and Ravens are out and the fact that both were totally embarrassed, is further proof that there is a God.


While we watch football, eat great food, and pretty much go about life untouched, it is hard not to consider what we should also be doing to help the victims in Haiti. Dorothy and I will donate to the relief effort the same amount of money that I spend on a week of Bobby Flay recipes. I urge you to help in whatever way you think is best. Here is a quick way to get started: http://www.redcross.org/
The need in Haiti is urgent and we should respond quickly there, but we should also remember the needs that are local. New Orleans has still not recovered. So, rally around the call to help Haiti, but then resolve to contribute an equal measure of your time and/or money for the needs here at home.


Paul

Tomato Bread & Jazz

We were going out to see the Preservation Hall Jazz Band performing with the Nashville Symphony ourselves on Saturday night. Since we were not going to be home for dinner, I prepared an appetizer on the grill. This is Bobby Flay's Tomato Bread with Prosciutto (page 37 of Boy Gets Grill). This really took only about 15 minutes and we were off to the show. I put three Roma Tomatoes in the processor with some garlic, olive oil, kosher salt, ground black pepper and hit the button. The topping was ready in about 10 seconds. I sliced a loaf of whole grain bread on the bias into one inch thick pieces. With the grill grates already hot, I brushed canola oil on the bread and put them right on the grill. You can see the grill marks on the bread - that took two minutes on each side. Then I put it all together - spooning the tomato topping onto the bread and then placing a piece of rolled up prosciutto on top. Done. I added some slices of genoa salami and provolone just to have a little more to go with the whole thing.

What was on? Check out both the Nashville Symphony and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and here this for yourself. Of course you won't be hearing it inside the Schermerhorn Symphony Center where the acoustics are as famous as the grammy winning orchestra.

http://www.nashvillesymphony.org/main.taf?p=0

http://www.preservationhall.com/band/index.aspx

What to drink? We received a very special FedEx package today. Our first shipment from the Wine of the Month Club. Ziggy gave us this gift for Christmas. We get one red and one white wine each month. Tennessee has some very unusual laws when it comes to wine. Every time you visit an out-of-state winery the folks always offer to ship your wine directly to your home (since you can't carry the wine onboard an airplane anymore) so they ask, "what state are you from?" When you say Tennessee, they get very disappointed. "Sorry we can't ship to Tennessee." One of the laws finally changed this year, but its still not perfect. If a winery goes through a very bureaucratic process to become registered in Tennessee, then they can ship a small quantity of wine as long as some someone over age 18 signs for it. The wines from the Wine of the Month club are some that we can't otherwise get in Tennessee so it is always a great surprise. Paul Kalemkiarian is the president of the Wine of the Month club and you can find out more from their website at

http://www.wineofthemonthclub.com/

Here are our first two arrivals - but they won't be here for very long!

Paul

Louisiana

My parents, Floyd and Anne, plus family friend, Beverly Judge came for dinner! The previous night they had gone to see a performance of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band with the Nashville Symphony - we kept that theme going with Bobby's Louisiana Burgers (page 48 of Bobby Flay's Burgers, Fries and Shakes). Before the guests arrived I prepared the spicy remoulade and burger rub from the recipe. The remoulade was a mixture of mayo, mustard, chopped pickles, onion, parsley and Louisiana Hot Sauce. After mixing, I put the remoulade in the refrigerator so it would be ready when the burgers were. The rub was dry and was a combination of paprika, ground black pepper, kosher salt, thyme, onion power and cayenne. In addition to the spices (especially the hot sauce) taking us to the Crescent City, the grilling technique was all New Orleans as well. We blackened the burgers. Rather than putting the burgers right in the grill grates, I put some Canola Oil in a cast iron skillet and placed the skillet on the grill. I generously applied the spicy rub to the surface of one side of the burgers and put them in the skillet when it got hot enough to simmer the oil. The spices cooked right into the meat forming a crust. I turned the burgers over after about three minutes and reduced the grill heat down. I grilled potato wedges with a spice rub like the one I used for the burgers and toasted some thin wheat buns on the grill allowing colby-jack cheese to melt into the bun. Dorothy made some cole slaw following another Bobby Flay recipe, I spooned the remoulade over the burgers and we were all set.  The blackened burgers were spicy, the cole slaw was cool - we all thought it was a great combination - but we did need to fill the ice water glasses a few times! 


What to drink? This was celebration with family and friends, so we started with Mumm Napa Brut Prestige Sparkling Wine from Rutherford, California with strawberries that my parents brought and chocolates that Beverly brought. With the Louisiana Burgers planned, we knew going in we could not have a wimpy wine. We went back to a wine that always comes through against strong spices - Ancient Vine Zinfandel from Cline Cellars of Sonoma - it was a perfect match!


Weather Report. Compared to recent weeks, it was warm in the courtyard, but still in the 30's. Everyone came outside as I was making final preparations to Grill It, but soon Dorothy was delivering blankets for the ladies. My father said he was going to tough it out in the cold until he could first smell the food. The spices on the Louisiana Burgers hitting the grill (skillet) didn't disappoint and soon I was once again alone in the courtyard - just me and my grill.  


What was on? Conversation. Laughing about good times past, planning for good times to come. Topped off with Dorothy's southern tradition Red Velvet Cake - also a perfect match!


Paul

Skewers

Food grilled on a stick can't be beat. From Boy Meets Grill (page 50) this is Red-Hot Marinated Chicken Skewers with Yogurt-Cilantro Sauce. The Red-Hot marinade had ancho chilies, cayenne, cumin mixed with honey and orange juice. I cut the chicken into chunks - the right size for the skewers - and put them in the marinade for a couple hours. The fun part was just assembling the parts on the skewers. We used the chicken out of the marinade, chunks of onion and three colors of pepper. The skewers get brushed one more time with the marinade before the hit the grill. I put all the extra peppers and onion chunks in a grill basket and let the grill do the rest of the work. When everything was done, we added steamed brown rice and tortillas. I rolled one tortilla with all these ingredients and drizzled over the sauce. Dorothy ate hers open face. It was a hot/cold sensation!


Weather Report. I finally got to grill at a temperature that was above freezing!


What to drink? Big taste like these (with plenty of heat) needs a big spicy wine to stand up to it. We love Zinfindel from "old vines" when we want the big flavor. This time is was Gnarly Head. The vines are 80 years old and at that age become twisted and well, gnarly. The old vines produce small grapes, but that means the flavor is concentrated and that is what produces the big spicy flavor.


What was on? Brad Paisley. He has two songs I really like. The first is great for a blogger. It features the lyrics I'm so much cooler Online. The second is Welcome to the Future. It is a story about how far we have come. His grandfather fought the Japanese in WWI, but now we do video chats with people in Tokyo. When we were kids we wished we could watch TV on long family vacation drives and have a Pac-Man game at home, now we have all that on our phone. A friend on his high school football team had a cross burned on this front lawn for asking out the homecoming queen, now we have a national holiday to celebrate the man with a dream.

Hey, everyday is a revolution

Welcome to the Future

Hey, wake up Martin Luther

Welcome to the Future

Hey, glory, glory, hallelujah

Welcome to the Future

Check it out at http://bradpaisley.musiccitynetworks.com/
It's a great way to kickoff the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend!


Paul

Cedar Salmon

Okay I have been holding out on you. I have been waiting to prepare Salmon for days. I have been grilling Salmon on a Cedar plank for several years, but Bobby (as usual) showed me a new and improved method. This is Cedar Plank - Grilled Salmon with Yellow Pepper Sauce (Boy Meets Grill page 90). If you have never used wood on the grill, you must try it. First start with a cedar plank (Bobby also calls them shingles) - you can buy these at a cooking store, but you would pay too much. I go to the lumber yard or a Home Depot type place and get untreated cedar and have them cut the plank into about six inch sections. Fill your sink with water and submerge the plank for about four hours. I hold the plank underwater by setting a big bottle of olive oil on it.


Now for the salmon. I went to Tag'z to get mine (see previous blog on Tag'z). When I told Mike I wanted salmon he went right to work because he already knows what I want. I want wild salmon, not farm raised. Wild salmon is the real deal - a fish that was caught by fishermen from the ocean. Farm raised salmon is not as healthy for you and often they add fake color to the fish. If you are going to go through the whole deal to smoke a salmon, you gotta have the best stuff. Once I had a salmon filet delivered overnight from Seattle. We ate that salmon in Tennessee less than 24 hours after it had been caught in the Pacific Ocean. It was expensive, but worth it for a special occasion. While cutting the salmon for me, Mike said he knows his product is the highest quality because, "I have been in this business a long time so I know who not to buy from. Some people out there give the business a bad name." This is why it pays to get to know a guy like Mike Taglio.


Once home with the salmon and after the cedar plank has been throughly soaked, it's time to light the fire.  Put the plank on the grill by itself and let it start to smoke and char. It will start to pop and it will fill your grill domain with that unmistakable cedar aroma. Flip the plank over and place the salmon, skin side down on the smoking wood. Now here is the tip I learned from Bobby and used for the first time here. I wrapped the plank and salmon combination in aluminum foil. This trapped the smoke coming off the plank around the salmon. At one point the smoke found an opening and came streaming out - it was like a mini-smoker right in the grill. You pre-soak the plank to prevent it from simply catching fire, but be ready because the ends will go ablaze from time to time - just blow it out and let the smoke keep coming. In my previous salmon plankings the salmon was a little more dried out. This time, with the foil, it was the most tender and smoke-flavorful salmon I ever ate.


The sauce was also a great complement. I first roasted two yellow bell peppers on the grill until charred all over. When completely blackened, I removed the peppers to a gallon size zip-lock bag and waited 15 minutes. The charred skin falls right off when you pull them out. I sliced them up and then took them back to the grill. In a pan a grilled some chopped onions and the roasted pepper slices. I let that simmer about 5 minutes and then poured in some white wine and continued simmering. After another five minutes I took the pan off the grill and poured the onion, pepper, wine mixture into a food processor and whipped it up into a sauce. One more step - I poured the sauce into a new pan, added cream and put it back on the grill to simmer. When the salmon was done, as you can see in the photo, I poured the Yellow Pepper sauce over the salmon and we were ready to go. Fantastic!


What to drink? We used Cline's White Truck blend of California wines in the Yellow Pepper sauce (remember Red Truck from a previous blog), so since the bottle was already open, we drank that wine with the salmon. It was also a great match - but don't get hung up on the white-wine-with-fish rule. Red wines are also great with salmon - its not a white fish anyway. Try a Pinot Noir and ask your sommelier for one with a "smoky" flavor. The smoke in the wine and the smoked salmon from off the cedar plank will be wonderful together. Pinot Noir is sometimes a little thin for our taste, so we also like Zinfindel with salmon. You can get a really good Zin for $10 or $12. A really good Pinot Noir will cost you $20. I would be suspicious of an $8 Pinot!


What was on? 2009 was on. Every year since 2004, my son Ziggy has given me the same Christmas present. He makes a CD of all the songs from the previous year that he likes and that he thinks set the trends that year. He actually started this because when I got my ipod, I loaded it up with only tunes and artists from the '70s. He thought I could use an upgrade. As the salmon smoked and the peppers simmered, we listened to what made 2009 memorable. Here are a few of the selections. If you are a person of a certain age and would like to impress your younger friends or relatives, just download a few of these tunes and the accidently on purpose let them see these on your playlist. You will be instantly, up-to-date, and cool.

Right Round by Flo Rida

Poker Face by Lady GaGa

Single Ladies by Beyonce

Heartless by Kanye West

Fireflies by Owl City

Tik Tok by Ke$ha

I Got a Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas

Some of this stuff is actually pretty good - not 1970's good, but still pretty good.


Paul

Steak Roll

Red Wine Marinated Flank Steak filled with Prosciutto, Fontina and Basil from Grill It! (page 32). This was fun and tasted great. Following Bobby's instructions, I marinated a big piece of flank steak. Mine was a little thick, so I pounded it, but never got it quite as thin as I hoped. After marinating I took the flank steak and covered it with the prosciutto. Dorothy's family calls it "pro-shute" because they shorten everything. Ricotta cheese is "Rigot." They shorten everything except my name. When I cross the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, I become Paulie. Prosciutto, by any name, is from the bacon family and as stated here before - there is no food that is not better after adding bacon. Prosciutto is very thin, so I laid out strips to cover the entire flank steak. Next I sprinkled on the layer of cheese then fresh basil leaves. I then rolled the whole thing up and tied it off so it would stay in a cylinder shape. Here is where having thinner flank steak would have been better because I only got one roll out of it. I placed the flank steak roll on the grill and let the grill do its work. I turned it twice so that all sides could get direct heat and took the internal temperature until it was done. In the photo, I sliced off one piece from the roll so you can see the filling. The recipe also comes with a Cabernet-Shallot Reduction sauce and you can see that drizzled on the steak.


Wisdom of the Grill. This recipe called for red wine in two places: the marinade and the reduction sauce. One of Bobby's strictest rules requires that you cook on the grill with quality wine - at least good enough to drink. You can't use some bottom of the barrel "cooking wine." So when I am cooking with wine, I pour myself a glass from the same bottle and whenever more wine is needed in the recipe, I just pour some out from my glass - the rest I drink. Don't be afraid of the word "reduction." It just means that you simmer away some of the liquid and what is left behind is a thick sauce that still has all the original flavor and then some. A wine reduction is really sort of a wine syrup!


What to drink? For both drinking and cooking we had a quirky red called Mad Housewife Cabernet. It is from St. Helena, California, but we have never visited the Mad Housewife winery. It was pretty good stuff and worked well in the sauces and in the glass.


What was on? I went with Five for Fighting. This music will but you in an introspective mood, but that is good from time to time. During Freedom Never Cries, I could not help but think of the students and former students that Dorothy and I have who are in harms way today. Most never wanted to be a soldier, they just needed money for college. But they do a terrific job for us nevertheless. I just wish that when they got back it was easier for them to receive their benefits. Veterans get so much red tape thrown at them, its hard to believe that its not a preconceived plan to wear them down and ultimately keep them from everything they earned. I called a VA representative once to help a student get his tuition account credited so he could keep the classes he signed up for. I asked the guy why he didn't just write a check to the citizen-soldier turned student so he could pay his tuition directly. He said, "It doesn't work that way, we think if we just give them their money they will squander it on a truck or something." I said, let me get this straight, we trusted him to defend our country, but you don't trust him with the money you promised him in the first place? I think if I guy rips his life apart to spend time in Baghdad and/or Kabul he should be able to spend the money he earned anyway he wants - including buying a truck. The VA guy just said, "It just doesn't work that way."


Check out Five for Fighting at http://www.fiveforfighting.com/


Weather Report. I went out to the marina where the sailboats stay to check on Allegra. Usually the masts are gently swaying back and forth, with the halyards clanking - but not this time. All the masts were standing at attention - motionless - silent - frozen. No, literally frozen.

The forecast is for above freezing temperatures as highs for the rest of the week. Hopefully that will set the sailboats free.


Paulie

Spicy and Smooth

Maybe we were being too optimistic, but we celebrated the temperature rising above freezing with Bobby's Grilled Chicken Cobb Salad with Smoked Chili-Buttermilk Dressing (Boy Meets Grill page 44). The chicken was grilled with constant basting using Mesa Barbecue Sauce (page 29) that contains Worcestershire sauce, red wine vinegar, molasses, brown sugar, honey and cayenne to name a few. The dressing turned out really great as well. It was like a ranch but with a real kick because among other things it contains is chipotle pepper. I would recommend this meal, but I will try it again when the weather gets warm. Salad on a cold night didn't sound right at first - but the Mesa Barbecue Sauce made it a winter treat.


What to drink? We paired the salad with Kendall-Jackson's California Chardonnay. This was the first white wine on the site but it went very well. Some chardonnay's are too tart and citrus, but this one was smooth and buttery. This white wine offset and cooled off the cayenne in the barbecue sauce and the chipotle in the dressing. This may be the first white wine we enjoyed with a Bobby Flay grill recipe, but we are always partial to California no matter which grape we chose.


What was on? John Mayer - the Battle Studies CD. I really like John Mayer, but I will need to listen to this again. I was working on the grill and was not able to study the lyrics. His previous album, Continuum was terrific - as a pilot I understand Gravity. Dorothy and I went to see John Mayer last year in concert and I think we were the oldest people there. I know we were the only ones there who remembers holding up a lit match instead of a cell phone to encourage an encore. Back then 'high tech' meant holding up a cigarette lighter instead of a match. We saw countless examples of the new art form - "Facebook Foto." An FF is where one person holds their digital camera at arms length, aims the lens back at themselves and at least one other person leans in for the shot. Since you can only guess at the frame position, most of the shots have only half of someone's head or just a nose. But this seems to be part of the art. There is even a camera now that has a view screen on both sides so that it is easier to frame up an FF. Whether properly cropped or not these photos appear on Facebook pages before the end of the concert. To these kids, the music was secondary - what was more important was to electronically document that they were there at all. It is just a new social dynamic - but that doesn't mean that its bad. Everyone was having fun and nobody got burned by a cigarette lighter. Check John Mayer out at http://www.johnmayer.com/


Here is to more smooth music, smooth wine and spicy Bobby Flay grill selections!


Paul