St. Francis 2011 & Bobby's Dry-Rub and BBQ Sauce

This is Bobby Flay's Dry-Rubbed Rib-Eye Steak with Mesa Grill Barbecue Sauce (page 141 of Boy Meets Grill). That is also Mesa Grill Potato Salad (page 225 of the same book) and grilled red peppers. In addition this is my photo entry to the 2011 St. Francis Turn Up The Heat Contest: http://www.stfrancissavortheflavor.com/index.php?p=contest You can see the entry photo at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/66627556@N03/6066373321/in/photostream
Last year I entered the contest with a video, that you can still see through this website and 
http://www.youtube.com/user/StFrancisContest#p/a/f/1/Gr1Y4MUFX_U 
But last year I learned that residents of Tennessee are not eligible for the contest! My video had more plays than did the contest's eventual winner - but I did not win as I was never eligible in the first place. The good folks at St. Francis contacted me again this year and asked if I would enter this year's contest. I reminded them that I still live in Tennessee and therefore ineligible. They suggested I make a "faux entry" anyway and mention the contest here at Bobby Flay Everyday. So I did. And again, there is no question that this would have been the winner if I lived somewhere else!


I first made the Barbecue Sauce - the recipe is on page 29 of Boy Meets Grill. Guys you must start making your own sauce. If you do you will not go back to bottled sauce again. With bottled sauce you can almost taste the bottle instead of great flavor. You first chop garlic and red onion and throw it into a sizzling hot cast iron skillet over the grill. Use canola oil instead of olive oil because canola oil won't burn and can stand up to the heat better that olive oil. Next throw in chopped tomatoes.

Let all this simmer about 15 minutes then toss in a mixture of red wine vinegar, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, molasses, Dijon mustard, honey, smoked paprika, ancho chili power and cayenne. Let all that simmer together for another 20 minutes.

Take it off the grill and allow to cool. It all goes in the processor to become smooth...

You can keep the sauce in the fridge for up to a week - but I don't think you will have it that long!


Next is the dry-rub for the rib-eye steaks. Many of the same flavors and spices are in the rub as went into the sauce: smoked paprika, cayenne and ancho, but also cumin, coriander, dry mustard and oregano. The  paprika in this case was special. My brother and sister-in-law brought me a canister of Spanish Paprika back from their recent trip to Spain! Thanks Jeanne and Phillip!

After allowing the steaks to get to room temperature, apply the dry rub and really rub it in with the back of a spoon. Then on to the grill...

The rub goes on only one side of the steaks and the rub side goes down on the grill first. Of course the answer to the age-old question, "How many times do you turn a steak on the grill?" is "only once!" When the steaks turned you can see that the dry-rub formed a terrific crust on the outside of the steak that had unbelievable flavor. I used lump coal for the heat, but I added oak wood for the smoke...

The Big Green Egg was in mid-season form. Take a look at that flavorful smoke pouring out of the stack! I used oak wood chips partly to help the steak pair well with the wine. The wine was St. Francis Old Vine Zinfandel which itself is aged in oak. This wine was a great pairing. There is no way a Pinot Noir, or even a Cab could have stood up to the flavors in this dry-rub and barbecue sauce. It had to be a big, bold, spicy wine just to appear in the same photo with this steak. The St. Francis Old Vine Zin was up to the challenge! 


Even the side dishes were big and spicy. The Mesa Grill Potato Salad has jalapeno, green onion, Dijon, red onion, cilantro, garlic, lime juice and cayenne. I found some extra tall red peppers at the store so I cut them into long strips, let them sit in olive oil for about an hour with Kosher salt, ground black pepper and oregano then into the grill basket...

Okay so I won't be named Grill Master of Sonoma County. I won't win the trip to California. But take one look at those steaks and it is clear who should really hold the title! Try these three Bobby Flay recipes and open a bottle of St. Francis and you will be the winner! 

Remember - every season is grilling season! PCraig

The Big Green Egg

For the first 100 consecutive days of 2010, I grilled a different Bobby Flay recipe and reported on the results here on BobbyFlayEveryday (you can view all 100 days and more in the Blog Archive of this blog which is located on the right side of the screen). On January 7, 2010, I grilled Bobby's Rib-Eye with Balsamic-Rosemary Butter (page 26 of Grill It!). On Father's Day 2011, I recreated this great steak recipe - but this time I grilled the steaks, sausage and twice-baked potatoes on my Father's Day present!

Dorothy surprised me with The Big Green Egg! I always wanted one because its a grill but its also a smoker. My original grill, seen in the photo, is a gas grill with a direct gas line hook-up - there are no canisters to continuously change out. I probably would never have made it 100 consecutive days of grilling last year if it were not for the convenience of the fast gas grill start. So now the debate can start in ernest - which is better grilling with gas or over coal. My father had a charcoal grill as I was growing up and he was an expert. He would grill both beef and chicken for the same meal and called it "Hoof & Feather." I must admit that nothing really ever beats a steak over coal. Bobby Flay's opinion, from several of his books, is that you can add flavor to the food that is cooked over gas so that in the end you have the flavor that you would have gotten with charcoal. I think that is true to a point - but nothing really ever beats a steak over coal.

Here is the inaugural lighting of the new Big Green Egg. The Egg weighs a ton. Its is completely ceramic. The airflow vent in the bottom is strategically placed under the fire box where the coal is placed. And this is not just any charcoal - its lump hardwood with no fillers like sawdust. Under no circumstances are you to use lighter fluid to start a charcoal fire. Lighter fluid is toxic and will make the smoke you produce and the food you grill take on a petroleum smell - you don't want that so use fire starters as shown here.

The advantage of gas over coal is the start up time - but let me tell you the Egg was up to hot temperature in no time and the coals were glowing red within less than 10 minutes. That is a little slower but not that much. I added wood chips that had been soaking about one hour. I found what I wanted: Wood Chips from old Jack Daniels whisky barrels! You can use wood chips on a gas grill if you use a smoker box. I think that is probably more trouble than its worth - but these chips in the hardwood coal were terrific!

The Egg got up and smoking within seconds of adding the Wood Chips.

 Then in went two Rib-Eyes, a New York Strip, some summer sausage and the twice-baked potatoes.

I also fired up the original gas grill (didn't want it to fell left out) and used it to prepare some fresh spinach and green beans...

The first taste of a high quality steak, grilled over whisky infused wood chips and hardwood coal brought back so many memories.

I will grill steak again over gas some day - but not for a while. Tonight, I am going to use the Big Green Egg's ceramic interior plate and smoke some Baby Back Ribs! This could be serious. If you don't hear from me for a while, please send in a rescue team.


Remember that grilling is more than preparing food. Its relaxing, its time with family, its your heritage and childhood memories. So as Bobby would say - Go Grill It! Paul

Chefmakers at Sea

The dish in the front is Spring Onion and Herb Orzo, then clockwise you see Chicken Cordon Bleu with ham, Chicken Cordon Bleu without ham, Mahogany Chicken Wings and Mustard Basted Chicken with Rosemary Lemon Chicken thighs. That is a lot of chicken! Its all from a class called "All About Chicken" from Chefmakers Cooking Academy. Oh yes, there is one more unique thing you should know. All these Chicken meals were prepared on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas sailing in the Atlantic ocean somewhere between Port Canaveral and the Virgin Islands.

Royal Caribbean Cruises are known for there excellent dining, so why would we be cooking ourselves? Well it was very informative and a lot of fun. We ended up taking three different classes at sea from Chefmakers, but specifically from Drew Closs.

This was as far away from grilling as you can get. Not only were we 2,000 miles from my home grill, the ship does not allow any open flame. So no charcoal and no gas grilling allowed. Nevertheless, some of the tricks and techniques we learned will be get back on the grill!

These chicken wings were baked in one of the industrial convection ovens of the Chops Grille onboard the ship - but the same process can be used with indirect heat on the grill.

On another day, in another class we made Manicotti. We cooked the pasta in saute pans instead of boiling. They did not all make it to the table when we started practicing tossing and flipping the pasta in the pans

On another day we made vegetable soup - but it was really a Knife Skills class. We just made lunch from all we learned to cut (planks to strips, strips to dice). 

You should check out the Chefmakers website at www.chefmakeratsea.com and think about taking a class the next time you can't see land in any direction!