One Hundred

Wow! What do you think about the glaze on this salmon? This is Red Chili-Honey Glazed Salmon with Black Bean Sauce. The recipe can be found on page 116 of Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook. The preparation of a smoked salmon always starts for me at Tag'z Five Star Meats. Mike and Trisha Taglio run the best butcher shop anywhere and their products have been the star of the show here on Bobby Flay Everyday since day one! Please check out their new website at http://www.tagz5starmeats.com/

When I got home with the salmon, I started by soaking a cedar plank and making the Black Bean sauce. It is sort of like refried beans - but so much more. You put it together in a processor. The ingredients are black beans, onion, garlic, adobo sauce, ground cumin, olive oil and Kosher salt. The processor whips the mix into a paste, which I set aside, but later I baked with Monterey Jack cheese melting over the top. The salmon glaze came next. It was honey, ancho chili powder, Dijon mustard, Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. I whipped all that together in a small pan and took it out to the grill. When we were ready to light the fire, I scored the top of the salmon in a diagonal pattern so that the glaze could get right down in every groove. I brought the cedar plank out of the water and put it right on the grill. The key here is to let the plank heat up to the point that it is smoking and popping, then flip it over. Put the salmon, skin side down, on the smoking plank and let the grill and the smoke go to work. I closed the grill hood so that the smoke could build up inside. I opened the hood only to brush on more glaze and to get a temperature reading. I like the salmon to reach an internal temperature of 130. This gives you a medium level of doneness - well done is just too done for salmon. It will dry out and even change from that classic orange color to gray if you over cook it - so don't get too far from the grill when the salmon is on the plank. The salmon will reach 130 in about 10 to 15 minutes. When the salmon is right, take a grill spatula and just slide the fish off the plank. The skin will stay on the plank, leaving you with the perfectly grilled salmon filet ready for the plate. We added the Black Bean sauce and some brown rice and we were ready for a feast. You must try this cedar plank method of smoking a salmon. The cost of wild salmon has shot through the roof, but don't let that stop you from trying this. You can save money buying farm raised salmon. Wild salmon is much better than farm raised, but even if you use farm raised salmon, this recipe and plank technique is well worth it!

Well this completes 100 consecutive days of Bobby Flay Everyday and its going to be the last. I kept the grill fires burning through the dead of winter into what most people consider grill season. My coldest grill night was 9 degrees and as you can see from some of the videos that snow and thunderstorms did not stop me. Along the way we learned a whole lot of new grill techniques, new flavors and new spices. We paired up some great wines, listened to an eclectic mix of music and watched the college bowls, the Saints become champions, Duke win the Final Four and we threw out the first pitch of spring training - all from over the grill. Now its your turn. Take these recipes, tips and wisdoms of the grill and put them to your own test. I will keep grilling too. I plan to go back and grill again some of my favorites from the past 100 days on the grill. Plus there are dozens of great Bobby Flay grill recipes that we never even got to - you can find them all in Bobby's great books. Hopefully this summer, Dorothy and I will make a trip to New York and if we do you can bet I'm going to eat at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill - the home of so many great grill memories. So as Bobby says at the end of his show - "Just Grill It!" 

Thanks, Paul

Spicy Quesadillas

Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook (page 82) brings us Spicy Chicken with Caramelized Onion  Quesadillas with Mixed Tomato Salsa. This was quick and easy. Great for a weeknight after work. The chicken was grilled over direct heat, but at a low setting. The onions, also over direct heat. The salsa was just chopped tomatoes, lime juice, garlic, chopped jalapeno chilies, cilantro, salt and pepper. When the chicken was done I sliced both the chicken and onions into strips. With everything ready, I assembled everything together in a whole wheat tortilla and added shredded Monterey Jack cheese. It was not too spicy, but the quesadillas did have a kick. The whole meal took less that 20 minutes to prepare - so like I said a great, fast weeknight grill.

Weather Report. Pollen. Where we are the tree pollen is everywhere. I heard that the especially cold and wet winter we had has made the kick-off of allergy season worse. Thunderstorms rolled through the other night and cleared the air some - but that yellow pollen didn't wash all away completely - instead it piled up between the bricks in the courtyard. The storms did bring cooler weather - great grilling weather! Paul 

California Burger

The California Burger! from Bobby Flay's Burgers, Fries & Shakes, page 34. Check out that avocados relish on top of this burger. It was made with Haas Avocados, onion, lime juice, and cilantro. The burger was grilled the Bobby Flay way with canola oil, coarse Kosher salt and ground black pepper over the outside and nothing but beef on the inside. I used the basting pan method to melt the cheese. The basting method is really the only way to get the cheese perfectly melted. After the burger turns (and you only turn a burger once), lay the cheese over the burger top and cover the burger with a pan. The pan has to be tall enough so that it does not actually touch any part of the burger, but the grill heat gets trapped in the pan. This delivers equal heat on all sides of the burger and completely melts the cheess. In this case the cheese was a Colby-Jack.

It was a great coincidence that while I was preparing the California Burgers that a delivery from California was made to our house. It was this month's package from the Wine of the Month Club!

Our friend Paul Kalemkiarian, of the Original Wine of the Month Club, in Monrovia, California makes some terrific selections every month. And look, this month he also sent along a Wine of the Month Club binder so I can keep all his newsletters handy. Where I live in Tennessee, we just don't have access to as many different wines and the rest of the country, so Paul's Wine of the Month Club is double great for us. We get to try wines that we otherwise would never be able to get. Go to their website and check them out: http://www.wineofthemonthclub.com/
You really should consider joining this club - even if you are not in Tennessee, but especially if you are!  

The arrival of this month's Wine of the Month Club package was cause for celebration. I mentioned this on a previous blog, but I believe I am growing the world's smallest vineyard - three plants. Here it is last January and here it is today. The leaves have just appeared this week.

This is the third year of these vines. This is the year they are supposed to produce grapes - but we will see if they actually do. They are Sangiovese, the grape that makes Chainti. If we do get grapes, I am not really sure what to do with them!

I think I will stick to grilling, not wine making! Paul

Cuban-Style Pork

Direct from Bobby Flay's television show Grill It! (Sunday mornings on the Food Network) this is Cuban-Style Pork with Grilled Roma Tomato and Basil Pesto. This was an excellent blend of flavors! I bought some butterfly cut, bonelss pork chops and when I got them home I pounded them. Using a mallet and with the chops under wax paper, I pounded until the chops flattened out to about 1/4 inch thick. I took careful notes while watching the TV show and put together a marinade of lime juice, orange juice, garlic and oregano. The thin chops were in the marinade a little over an hour. When we were ready for the grill, I layered in swiss cheese, black forest ham, and kosher dill pickles. That's right pickle went right into the chops before going to the grill. Because the chops were butterfly cut and flattened out they folded over easily around the stuffing. I brushed the outside of the chops with canola oil and they went right on the grill. Also from my notes, I cut two roma tomatoes in half longways and scooped out the inside. With the inside scooped out the long tomatoes looked like canoes. I filled the canoe with chopped basil, olive oil, garlic, parsansean cheese and mozzarella cheese. After the chops turned on the grill the tomatoes went on an upper grill rack - the romas got tender and all the cheese melted - it was a great side dish. When the pork was done (I wanted an internal temperature of about 160) I took them off and sliced the pork into strips. You can see the ham, pickles and swiss cheese oozing from this pork sandwich with no bread. I topped it all off with some cilantro, lime and orange juice, olive oil, Kosher salt and ground pepper. 


What to Drink? A cool afternoon, under the gazebo sipping wine. It was a Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio blend from Tuscany - The Banfi LeRime. It was unseasonably warm, so this really was special. Usually a blend like this would have a distinct citrus flavor. Since the Cuban pork was marinated in citrus juices, I thought it would go together well - and it would have if any of the wine had been left when dinner was served! 

Afternoon sipping wine and evening grill fires - the perfect pairing. Paul

Championship Chicken

Grilled Chicken Burgers with Green Onion Mayo direct from Bobby Flay's Grilling for Life page 114. This is a great twist on the traditional burger. It was light, but had great flavor. Lets face it chicken by itself is pretty boring - you gotta jazz it up some. The jazz in this case was a marinade of Dijon mustard, canola oil, chipotle, lime juice, honey, chopped green onions and cilantro. I cut some chicken breast thin and into sections that would fit on a bun. The chicken sat in the marinade for about an hour. I did not rinse off the marinade when it was time to go to the grill, but let it stay on thick. I used indirect heat, by placing the chicken on foil over the grill. The marinade cooked right in as the chicken grilled. It didn't take long since I had cut the chicken thin - about 5 minutes on each side. I got some green onions at the store - the kind that are white at the end and green through the stem. The recipe called for both white and green parts, so I chopped up several stems for both the marinade and the Mayo. I mixed the chopped green onion parts with regular mayo, but added garlic, lime juice, Kosher salt and ground pepper. You really can't see the green onions in the mayo in the photo above, but trust me this was mayo with a tangy kick. I assembled the Chicken Burgers on grill-toasted whole wheat buns, with two chicken pieces, a slice of swiss cheese, lettuce and the Green Onion Mayo. It was a quick grill-meal that turned out to be great game food.

National Championship. This was probably the best final game in years. I went in pulling for Duke - they were the only team that I picked for the Final Four that actually made it to the final game. But I must admit, if Gordon Heywood would have hit that last half-court shot to win the championship, it would have been terrific. It just bounce away. But the reason it was such a great game was that every player left everything they had on the floor and it was not decided by a silly mistake. Remember when Georgetown lost when Fred Brown accidently threw the ball to James Worthy (North Carolina) denying a winning shot opportunity. Michael Jordan hit the shot that put the Tarheels up by one before that last infamous play. And Remember when Chris Webber called a Michigan timeout in the last seconds of the championship game against (again) North Carolina. The problem was that Michigan had used up all their timeouts. The mistake was a technical foul that lead to Tarheel free throws and possesion of the ball - sealing the victory. So, its great that the game last night will be remembered for great team play and heart, not a silly mistake. I didn't try it but I bet that if you Google Fred Brown, that pass will come up. He made thousands of passes and great plays before, but he will always be remembered for that one silly mistake. The stakes are high when history is on the line. If you don't think one second in the title game can change a life, just Google Lorenzo Charles and see what comes up - "the dunk heard round the world." I still think Whittenburg was taking a shot - not making a pass. But whatever his true intent, it became the greatest pass and dunk play in history. NC State. Coach Jimmy V. Immortal. If Heywood's half-court shot had fallen threw the net last night - it would have topped them all. I am happy Coach K got #4 - but one shot for immortality? That would have meant more.

Go out and grill like a champion! Paul

BBQ Ribs

Try not to drool on your computer over these Espresso-Rubbed BBQ Ribs with Mustard-Vinegar Basting Sauce - from Bobby Flay's Grilling for Life page 151. BBQ Ribs are tough to beat normally, but this rub and sauce made them truely unbeatable. The dry rub was made with ground espresso beans, ancho chili powder, paprika, dark brown sugar, dry mustard, ground cumin, dried oregano, ginger, cayenne, Kosher salt and ground black pepper. I brushed the ribs with olive oil first then spread on the rub - using the back of a spoon to really work it in. I set the grill on low heat and placed the ribs on foil to provide indirect heat. I closed the grill hood and walked away - for about a hour. The key to great ribs is to go "low and slow." Low heat for a long time. During that first hour I made the sauce: grilled onion, garlic, red wine vinegar, sugar, Dijon mustard, coriander seeds and Worcestershire sauce. Those ingredients went into the small sauce pan one at a time over the grill. After the first hour, I started brushing on the sauce about every 15 minutes. The ribs were on the grill a total of 2 hours and 15 minutes. The photo was taken, with the sauce still in the pan, at about 2 hours in. While I was slaving over the ribs (actually I had my feet up with a drink in hand), Dorothy pulled out a Bobby Flay recipe for coleslaw from Grill It!  The hot spicy ribs and the cool coleslaw were a perfect match! I can't make ribs all that often, just because of the time it takes, but when you can plan the time, these are well worth the wait!

Play ball! Major League Baseball started yesterday, with most of the opening day games today. I always pull for the Atlanta Braves and have for decades. I actually used to listen to the games on WSM radio when Hank Aaron was playing. I don't admit that much because it is starting to sound a little like saying "I walked to school, three miles in the snow, uphill both ways!" But I listened on the radio and kept a score card long before Aaron (the only true homerun king) hit #715. Then TBS put all the Braves games on cable TV and they because "Americas Team" in the 1980s since they (and the Cubs) were the only teams seen every night coast to coast. Then came the great pitchers - Glavin, Avery, Smoltz and later Maddox. Its a shame they only won one title with that crew. Now they are not on TV all the time and they are on different networks, so they are harder to follow. I will still keep an eye on them and hopefully catch a game or two in ATL this summer. 

Congratulations to the Nashville Predators for making the NHL playoffs! Today it hit 80 degrees for the first time! Drop the puck, play ball and light the grill - its officially spring! Paul 

Twice Grilled Peppers

These look great and tastes better! From Bobby Flay's Grilling for Life, page 54, this is Twice-Grilled Peppers with Buffalo Mozzarella and Caper-Basil Vinaigrette. We were going out, so we used this great recipe as a pre-concert appetizer. The key was the twice-grilled technique. I got one yellow, one orange and two red bell peppers. I removed one grill grate and lit the fire. With one of the two grill grates gone, the direct flame was exposed. I placed the peppers right down in the flame. On a previous blog, I showed the step-by-step method for roasting perfect bell peppers (complete with photos) - but here it is again: The peppers go right into the flame. Turn them several times so that all sides of the pepper become black with char. Bring them off the flame and immediately into a plastic sealable bag. Let them sit in the bag and cool - condensation will form on the inside of the bag. In about 15 minutes the peppers will have cooled enough to handle them. Take them out and slide your thumbs across the charred surface - the char and the outside skin will just slide off leaving the original color underneath. In this case, I sliced the peppers into strips and took out the seeds. This is a roasted pepper and they taste great just like this - but the twice-grilled recipe called for the peppers to crisp up a bit, so back to the grill they went. This time I used the grill grate on the other side, laying out the pepper strips until they went from tender to slightly crispy. This was best of both worlds - roasted and grilled. Meanwhile I made the vinaigrette. It was red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, garlic, Kosher salt, ground pepper, olive oil, a few capers and basil leaves. I added fresh (not from a shrink wrap package) Buffalo Mozzarella to the peppers and spooned on the vinaigrette - perfect!


The Concert? Train at the Ryman. The group Train is from San Francisco and their music is the kind that you instantly recognize when you hear it, even if you didn't know it was from Train. Their music is on television (CSI New York) and in commercials. It was a great show. Go to their website and listen - you will recognize most of what you hear - even if you don't know the song's name or even who Train is. 
http://www.trainline.com/us/home


The concert was at the historic Ryman Auditorium. If you are not familiar, the Ryman was the long-time home of the Grand Ole Opery. The Opery still performs there in the winter months. The Ryman was built in 1892. Now here is the thing. When you go to the Ryman you need to get caught up in the history of the place. You need to keep in mind that every country music legend and a surprising number of non-country legends have played there for over a 100 years. You must keep all this in mind to take your mind off the fact that its really not a very good venue. The stage is on the side of the room, not at one end, so unless you are sitting right in front of the stage, you will never see the drummer in the back. Once we say the Los Lonely Boys at the Ryman - another great concert. Mid-way through the lead signer said, "It is our great privilege to welcome a special unexpected guest to the stage - Ronnie Milsap!" We never saw him. He never came forward on the stage and we were sitting on the side. I don't know for sure if he was really there. You should try to get seats in the balcony, because the main floor is mostly flat and the overhanging balcony makes it seem that you are watching the stage through a slit. There are no individual chairs - its all church pews. Part of the reason its called the "mother church." I guess people in the 1800s were shorter than we are today, because the pews are too close together for any comfort. I am just under six feet tall. After a Ryman concert I have a red mark across my knees from the pew just in front. All that being said, you still should make a show at the Ryman once in your life. The room is small, compared to arena shows, so you really do get to see the artists up close (at least when they come to the front of the stage!). I have never passed on a show that I really wanted to see because it was at the Ryman - so I guess the limited view and limited space is a small price to pay. Check it out at http://www.ryman.com/


Plenty of space for more grilling! Paul

Blue Cheese Burger

Direct from Bobby Flay's Grill It! (page 50) this is a Blue Cheese Sirloin Burger! You can get more fancy on the grill, but you can't get much better than a burger from the grill. I used the Bobby Flay burger technique for the perfect burger - No fillers. Nothing is mixed into the meat. No tomatoes. No bread crumbs, no onion, nothing. When you do that eventually (according to Bobby) "you are just making meat loaf." Instead you get some quality ground beef, in this case ground sirloin, and add only canola oil, kosher salt and ground pepper to the outside of the burger patty. Make a crater in one side of the patty. This is Bobby's technique for preventing the burger to bulge in the middle. As we have said several times here at Bobby Flay Everyday, there is actually no problem with a bulging burger - its just the juices inside - but some people cannot resist the temptation to press the burger bulge down flat with a spatula. If you do that all those great juices just go to waste and you end up with a dry burger. That is why under no circumstances do you press down on a burger - its just not done. In this case, the burger was topped with blue cheese that I sliced off a wedge and melted over the burger. Terrific! We also prepared a cobb salad since it also has blue cheese. This was a great, light, early spring meal off the grill. 


The final four is set. Duke and Butler. Butler is a great story - small school (4,200 students), playing for the championship in their hometown, a coach that looks like a grad assistant - but I will still pull for Duke. I don't really understand why Duke is the school that everyone loves to hate. Yes, in order to attend Duke you must either have a better than 75% 3-point jumpshot or a trust fund. But Coach K always puts a team on the court that plays with great fundamentals, stays out of jail, and more often than not graduates. I can't hate a team that works hard, takes a charge, runs actual plays on the court and has a coach that wants to be there. Coach K could have been an NBA coach years ago (remember when we was courted by the Lakers! That would have been a match made in hell). Coach K make more than $4 million a year, but he didn't start that way. He started like the Butler coach (his name is Brad Stevens by the way) at a school that nobody thought of as a basketball school, and worked his way up. If Butler's coach, stays at Butler after the championship game, then I will be his biggest fan and hope he can do there what Coach K has done at Duke.


It will be a great finish and a great story no matter which team wins. Its not like that every year, so we celebrate on the grill. Blue Cheese is not actually blue - but  blue is the team color of both Butler and Duke - maybe we call these Championship Blue Cheese Burgers!
Paul

Filet Mignon Nirvana

Grill Nirvana: Defined as reaching perfection with the grill; being one with the grill; finding inner peace via the grill. Grill Nirvana is achieved only after the griller has gained the wisdom of perfect grill clarity. This highest level of spiritual attainment can be reached with Bobby Flay's Black Pepper and Molasses-Glazed Filet Mignon (Boy Meets Grill, page 150). This must be in the top five Bobby Flay recipes that I have grilled to date. Just take a look at that perfect crust and that perfect glaze. This Filet Mignon was cuttable with a fork. I started by brushing olive oil on the filets and dusted them with Kosher salt and ground black peppercorns. When the filets hit the grill, I had the heat up high to sear the meat and get that pepper-crush started. But quickly I lowered the heat and let the filet grill/bake to insure it kept that classic filet tenderness.  When the filets turned, I brushed on the Molasses Glaze (more on that in a moment). The heat was high enough to caramelize the glaze into the meat, but not so high that the glaze would burn. On the other side of the grill I laid asparagus crossways over the grill grates. I used Bobby's asparagus grilling techniques and his recipe that uses ground pepper, olive oil and feta cheese (Grill It! page 12). Filet Mignon is usually a small, but thick cut of meat, so be careful to get it cooked all the way through with prolonged, low heat. I was aiming for an internal temperature of about 140 - just past medium. That temperature proved to be perfect. 


The Glaze. Filet Mignon is known to be very tender, but not always that flavorful, so the glaze made all the difference. I chopped onions, garlic and gingerroot and one-after-the-other let them cook in olive oil in a sauce pan on the grill. Then I added - are you ready - Dark Rum from Barbados. We try to pick up rums from different Caribbean countries when we visit. We have Tortuga from Grand Caymen. We have Appleton from Jamaica. We have Monte Gay from Barbados. We even have some Havana Club from Cuba. For this recipe I used Cockspur from Barbados. The aroma of that rum reducing down with the ginger, garlic and onions was almost as good as the Filet Mignon itself. When the rum had boiled down almost to dry, I added a little orange juice and a lot of molasses. 

The aroma was even better than before! The Molasses-Rum reduced down even further with constant stirring. As I said before, when the filets turned, I brushed this glaze all over them and I must admit that before they were all the way done, I dipped the filets into the sauce pan to soak up all the remaining glaze. None of this could go to waste!

All the grill recipes here on Bobby Flay Everyday come from Bobby's many grill books. I will always give you the book and the page number where you can find - and hopefully duplicate the grill recipes I try here. And remember you can buy the books and DVDs through this website. Check out the lower right side of the page - link to Amazon from here - get some of Bobby's books and then follow along!

I don't know if I can top this grill nirvana experience - but I will keep trying! Paul 

Spanish Spice Steaks

From Grill It! by Bobby Flay (page 34), this is Spanish Spice-Rubbed Steak with Red Wine Vinegar Steak Sauce. There are very few things better in this world than a sizzling New York Strip on the grill! About 15 minutes before grill time, I took the steaks out of the fridge. The steaks came from Tag'z Five Star Meats earlier in the day, so they had not been in the fridge very long, but you still want to bring them to near room temperature before they hit the grill. I put together the Spanish Spice rub with paprika, cumin, dry mustard, ground pepper and just a little olive oil. With the back of a spoon I rubbed the spices into one side of the meat. With spices this big, you shouldn't rub on both sides - one side is plenty - remember it's the steak, not the spices that should be the star of the show. The steak sauce took a little longer, but was well worth the time. I first roasted some red bell peppers, then chopped them up. Into a processor went the red peppers, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, molasses, Worcestershire, Kosher salt and ground pepper. The processor turned all of this into a thin sauce - but I didn't want a thin sauce, so I put it all in a small pan over the grill and let it reduce down until thick. You can see the consistency of the sauce in the photo and also see that red pepper color. It was all excellent together - steak - sauce - rub!

Wisdom of the grill. With a little knowledge and some practice you can get a lot of function out of a grill. It doesn't have to be just meat over flame. A grill can be like an oven, like a fryer, like a toaster and it can also be a steamer. The veggies in the photo were steamed on the grill. Given a choice between veggies and a hunk of meat - I take the meat. I think veggies are just garnish to the real meal. But if you must do veggies, you should at least do them right. I first took green beans, carrots, califlower and brocoli, put some butter spray over them, added salt and ground pepper and tossed them in my open grill skillet. Its an "open" skillet because it has small holes all over the bottom to allow direct heat up through. The veggies stayed in the skillet only a short time. I pulled out two sheets of foil, added more butter spray and then scooped the veggies onto the center of the foil. I added more butter, salt and pepper, then folded the foil over enclosing the veggies in a packet. The packets went right back on the grill. After about two minutes I flipped the packets and poked holes in the top of the foil with a fork. When I did this steam came streaming out of the holes. I left the packets on the grill - steaming - for another five minutes. Be careful when you unfold the foil - the remaining steam will be ready to escape. The veggies went right from foil packets to the plate in one step. We have a regular, in-house, veggie steamer, but when we use it the veggie flavor seems to leave with the steam, and its difficult to season the veggies over boiling water. The on-the-grill foil method traps the flavor and holds the seasoning. Like I said, if you must have veggies, you might as well do it right!

Grilling - its all about doing it right! Paul