This recipe takes a while to execute, so it's reserved for weekends and for company. Start with a turkey breast, about 5 or 6 pounds. You have to remove the skin from the breast. The first time I read this recipe I thought, this turkey is going to be dry and tough if it's cooked with no skin, but it really isn't! The sauce sounds very improbable too:
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup white distilled vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon Creole mustard (this is very hard to find, if you do find it, stock up! Wegmans used to have it, but have apparently stopped carrying it)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
2 teaspoons prepared horseradish
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon black pepper
Whisk that all together and smear about 1/4 cup all over your skinned turkey breast, cover and let marinate for 1 to 2 hours (I told you this was a weekend thing). While the turkey is marinating, soak the wood chips for the grill. We use a good 2 to 3 cups of wood chips for this turkey.
I got some adorable little white creamer potatoes that I cooked whole, steamed in butter, and a cook's best friend, a huge bag of washed kale. I still have to remove the tough stems, but the fact that it's washed makes it easy to eat kale often.
Tony always prepares the grill for this one, it needs lots of coals banked on one side of the grill for a long, indirect smoke. The turkey goes bone side down on the cool side and cooks for 1 to 2 hours, being rotated a quarter turn every 20 minutes (see: not a weekday thing). When the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees, you smear another 1/4 cup of sauce all over it and grill another 5 minutes.
The picture above is the turkey with the sauce all over it for the final stage of grilling. When it's done, it's a beautiful mahogany color.
That turkey, served with the remaining sauce over it, is the best turkey ever. I even served it for Thanksgiving one year!
Alongside it we had the potatoes, sauteed kale, and some red and yellow tomatoes from the garden, sliced and drizzled with a little of the really good expensive balsamic vinegar, the kind you use for a condiment rather than to cook with, and sprinkled with a little salt and pepper. We also had a light Burgundy wine that the wine store assured me would be perfect with a savory white meat. It doesn't get much better than this!
Tony just back from out of town, but before he left we made flank steak kabobs on the grill. I cut the flank steak in strips against the grain and used the red meat marinade I gave the recipe for earlier. The meat was threaded onto the skewers to maximize the surface exposed to the heat. Vegetables went onto separate skewers because the cooking time is different. We skewered eggplant and roma tomatoes from the garden along with some chunks of red onion. The veggies were brushed with olive oil.
I started some baking potatoes in the microwave and we finished them on the grill. Sprinkle some kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper on the veggies as they are almost done, so the pepper doesn't burn.
Pour a glass of red wine and enjoy!
Tony got back late Thursday, so we didn't cook until Friday. After a rough day at work, I wanted something good but didn't want to spend a lot of time and effort. So we made chicken quesadillas.
Normally I would grill the chicken for the quesadillas, but to save time I got a rotisserie chicken from the grocery. They also had ripe avocados, which was a real plus. Ordinarily I have to plan days in advance for avocados. The tomatoes (roma and yellow), poblanos and jalapenos were from our garden.
What with the beastly weather, working some overtime, Tony out of town, etc. etc., there haven't been many culinary adventures lately. In order that my loyal followers don't get bored by the lack of entries, I've decided to post some recipes for my go-to favorites. Spread the love!
The best red meat marinade ever:
3 cloves of garlic, very finely minced
1 tablespoon Montreal steak seasoning blend
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons hot sauce (I know, I know, but trust me: it doesn't taste hot, but adds a very necessary something. I use Tabasco for this recipe.)
1 tablespoon Worchestershire sauce
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/3 to 1/2 cup olive oil
Combine all in a big resealable plastic bag, add the red meat of your choice (we use this for grilled flank steak a lot), squoosh around to thoroughly coat the meat, let marinate for at least a half hour. You can tweak it for chicken, as I detailed in the July 28 blog post.
Panade for juicy grilled burgers (this keeps your grilled burgers juicy and tasty, works just like when you're making meatloaf):
1 large slice white bread, crusts removed
2 tablespoons milk
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon pepper
1 medium garlic clove, pressed
2 teaspoons steak sauce (like A-1)
Tear the bread into small pieces and place in a small bowl. Add the other ingredients and mash together with a fork to make a paste. Add this to a pound or so of ground beef and mix together gently with your hands. Form your patties and grill as desired.
Salmon marinade (this is fantastic on grilled or oven baked salmon, I often double it if the salmon filet is large):
6 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 cup molasses
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
1 teaspoons finely chopped fresh ginger
Combine in a small bowl and whisk to blend. Reserve 1/3 cup for glaze. Pour remainder in a shallow, nonreactive dish, place salmon flesh side down into the marinade, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour but not more than 2 hours. Place reserved marinade in a small heavy saucepan over medium high heat and cook, stirring frequently, until mixture is reduced to a syrupy glaze, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside at room temperature. Grill, broil or bake salmon until done, then brush with glaze before serving.
Buttermilk ranch salad dressing (this is the best creamy salad dressing ever; try this and you'll never go back to the bottle):
3/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons dried parsley
1/2 teaspoon minced dried onion
1 small garlic clove, minced very fine
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup buttermilk
Mix all ingredients except the buttermilk until thoroughly blended. While whisking, slowly blend in the buttermilk. (Here's a variation: double the spices, mix as directed, then add sour cream until thick and spike it with a few dashes of green Tabasco. Fabulous dip for fresh veggies.)
Remoulade sauce (this is wonderful as a condiment on crab cakes or as a dressing for shrimp or crab salad; also as a sandwich spread. It sounds like a lot of horseradish, but the sauce is not hot, only zesty):
2 hard cooked egg yolks, pressed through a fine sieve
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 1/2 tablespoons prepared mustard
1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
1 tablespoon Worchestershire sauce
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1 1/2 tablespoons prepared horseradish
dash Tabasco sauce
1 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
2/3 cup finely minced red bell pepper
1/2 cup finely chopped green onions
Place all ingredients EXCEPT the bell pepper and green onions into a food processor and blend until well blended. Add the red bell pepper and green onion and stir to combine. Chill thoroughly before serving.
Tonight's dinner: grilled chicken on pasta with tomatoes and basil.
Apologies, but the picture I took of the finished dish didn't turn out. I'm going today to get a camera that will take close-up pictures.
I marinated the boneless skinless chicken breasts in a mixture of finely minced garlic, Montreal chicken seasoning, ground coriander, ground cumin, green Tabasco sauce (it's milder than the red), white balsamic vinegar, and extra virgin olive oil. Tony cut the whole breasts into thick strips for grilling.
The pasta was spaghetti rigati. I always prefer the rigati version of long pastas like spaghetti, fettucini, and linguini. Rigati means there are ridges down the length of the pasta instead of a smooth surface. The ridges help the pasta hold onto sauce, and give it a chewier mouth-feel.
Tony made the pan sauce. You can say whatever you want about Rachael Ray, but she taught me a lesson which has served me well: learn a method, not a recipe, and you can adapt it to whatever ingredients you have for an endless variety of dishes limited only by your imagination and your pantry. For this sauce, Tony started with a fat (any kind of oil), in this case he chopped several strips of bacon and browned them in the skillet, then set the cooked bacon aside and used the fat to sweat the aromatics, for this sauce he used chopped shallots, then added the flavorings, tomato paste, chopped fresh tomatoes from our garden, and minced garlic. He browned all that thoroughly until it started to stick to the pan, then added the liquid. I went to get the white wine, but he said no, get the vodka. I've made vodka tomato sauce before, but I've never used vodka in a pan sauce like this, so I said are you sure? He gave me his 'oh, please' look, which I deserve whenever I question his culinary inventiveness, and so the Ketel One went into the pan to deglaze and reduce. Once that was as thick as he wanted it he added a pat or two of butter, a splash of half 'n half, a bit of salt and pepper, and the cooked bacon and heated it through.
Meanwhile the grilled chicken was resting under a foil tent and I boiled the pasta. When the sauce was ready, we spooned up the pasta onto the plate, added some chicken, drizzled the sauce over, and garnished with fresh chopped tomatoes and shredded fresh basil from the herb garden. A side dish of salad from a bag enhanced with some sliced garden cucumbers accompanied, and I truly wish the picture had come out because it was beautiful as well as delicious.
Okay, here we go. This blog will be about the culinary adventures in the Ellis household. That's me, Leslie, and my husband Tony. We both love to cook and we both love to eat and drink. I envision this blog to be a record of what we're cooking, how we cook it and what it ultimately tastes like. I also plan to add pictures and videos so there will be something interesting to look at. I hope my friends and family will find it interesting!
