This past weekend I used a recipe from the book The Asian Grill by Corinne Trang called Spicy Sweet Soy Sauce Marinated Chicken.  This recipe is actually fairly easy to make, even though a few ingredients could be tough to find in a normal grocery store, especially here in Iowa.

Recipe:

• 1/2 C thin Soy Sauce
• 1 T thick Soy Sauce
• 1/4 C Shaoxing Rice Wine or Sake
• 1/3 C Sugar
• 1 T Dark Sesame Seed Oil
• 2 Large Garlic Cloves, finely grated
• 1 scallion, trimmed and minced (white and greet parts)
• 1 to 1/2 T finely grated fresh Ginger
• 1 red Thai Chili, stemmed, seeded, and minced
• 8 whole chicken legs or whole breasts

Instructions:

In a large bowl, whisk together the think and thick soy sauces, rice wine, and sugar until the sugar is completely dissolved.  Add the sesame oil, garlic, scallion, ginger, and chili.  Stir well. Using a skewer, poke holes in the chicken legs or breasts.  Place the chicken and marinade in a resealable gallon plastic bag.  Squeezing out the air, seal the bag.  Holding on to the ends, shake the bag to coat the pieces evenly with the marinade.  Refrigerate for 3 to 4 hours, turning the bag over every 30 minutes or so to redistribute the marinade. Prepare an indirect fire in a charcoal or gas grill.  Grill the chicken breasts or legs until crisp and cook through, turning the meat frequently to prevent burning, 10 to 15 minutes total.  Transfer chicken to service dish.

Results:
I was extremely impressed with this chicken.  The marinade had a lot of flavor to it and was very simple to make.  The toughest part of this recipe is just finding ingredients.  One thing to watch out for is this marinade can cause the outside of the chicken to burn fairly quick, so be sure to flip often and not put over direct fire.  I could not find the Shaoxing rice wine, but was able to pick up some Sake at the local grocery store.  I had to get the thick soy sauce from the local Asian market along with the red Thai chili.  I ended up using a mixture of split chicken breasts, drumsticks, and chicken thighs and doubled up the marinade recipe.  I will definitely do this recipe again in the near future. 

Times have gotten me busy since my last post on a brisket.  However this weekend I have some good bbq planned.  Starting with some more stuffed jalapenos, which is a key appetizer that I make for almost all get gatherings.  Besides the planned BBQing, I am also taking a look at 3 different cookbooks.  First one is called the Asian Grill by Corinne Trang.  The main part of the BBQ this weekend is coming from this book and overall the book looks like it has some very promising recipes from all over Asia.  The book offers a new variety of flavors from the grill and has made me very exciting.  The second book is Steven Raichlen's Healthy Latin Cooking.  Overall Latin food has always been a favorite of mine and I was excited to see this book.  It is more then just food for the grill, but contains a lot of BBQ.  The goal of the book is to take some traditional Latin foods and reduce the fat and calories by substituting different ingredients while keeping the flavors the same.  The third book is Bobby Flay's Boy gets Grill.  Bobby Flay has always had some very good recipes, so I had to give this one a shot.  Just quickly looking over the book though, I have to disagree with some of the material in the book.  For example, a brisket recipe that tells you to cook it until an internal temperature of about 145 degrees, I find this to be on the low side just by a tad.  I always cook my briskets to about 185 to 195 to get them to be as tender as possible.  The fat in the brisket probably hasn't even started rendering out at 145 nor would the brisket be tender.  However his recipe for the Brisket seems to be very promising and I will have to give it a shot someday soon.  Another really cool thing about this book is the last section where he plans out the menu for a day of BBQing with friends and families.  Sometimes getting all the correct food together is the hardest part of BBQing.  I just checked these books out from the local library to give them a shot before I buy them.  Sometimes the recipes from a cookbook look good on the outside, but once they are cooked they don't meet the expectations.  That’s why I decided to just check these out before purchasing them.

I am also adding a couple new tools to my collection.  First one is a tortilla press I picked up for under $10 from a local Mexican Grocery store in town.  I decided to get the tortilla press to make some fresh tortillas from scratch.  We have a local chain Mexican grill restaurant that makes some very good tortillas.  Even though this tortilla press is more for corn tortillas, I am going to give it a shot with some flour tortillas too along with the potential of some flat breads and Asian sesame wraps that are wonderful.  These are usually served with some moo shoo pork (a great Chinese dish). The other two tools I am adding are a Jalapeno Corer and another Jalapeno Grill.  I have been wanting the corer for a while now to make the jalapeno coring much simpler and not have to slice the jalapenos in half in order to remove the seeds and membranes.  This will also allow me to use a lot less bacon since I will not have to wrap the full jalapeno in bacon to keep it together on the jalapeno grill.  Decided to get another Jalapeno Grill because my current one only holds 21 jalapenos and I never seem to make enough for the crowd.  This one is going to hold 36 jalapenos which will allow me to cook 57 jalapenos on the grill; this will hopefully be enough for a larger part of 10 - 12 people.  Unfortunately these to tools will not be here in time for this weekend’s BBQ, but should be here early next week.  This will give me a chance to make even some more stuffed peppers sooner.

J

It is always a great night when you get to go to sleep after throwing a 12 1/2 pound brisket into the smoker.  I definitely will be having some great dreams tonight.  Unfortunately, it is going to end up being a nightmare.  How can smoking a brisket turn into a nightmare?  Simple, you don't get to eat any of it yourself.  That is right, 12 1/2 pound brisket in the smoker, and I won't even be able eat an ounce of it.  After talking up how good I smoke brisket to some co-workers (all 3 of them I did to date), one of my co-workers hit me up to smoke one for him.  He also tried my pastrami I made last weekend and enjoyed it a lot.  Even though I have to give this brisket up, it won't be all that bad.  Part of enjoying great BBQ is sharing it with others, plus I like hearing the compliments. 

For this brisket, I used the only recipe that I have ever used.  It is a wonderful recipe that I came across on the Cookshack Forums.  If you never have been out there, it is a great place to get advice on great BBQ, even if you don't have a Cookshack smoker.  People there are very friendly and share some really great recipes and techniques.  If it wasn't for these folks, I probably would be clueless when it comes to BBQ.  

This recipe was a grand prize winner in 2000-2001 by Aaron Brooks.  No clue who he his, but he definitely knows his brisket.  The recipe starts with a marinade that you start the night before you plan to BBQ.  Then before you put the brisket in the smoker, you drain the marinade and rub it down with a dry rub.  Smoke it at 225 until you reach your desired temperature (I usually go to 190 - 195) and take it out.  Now the original recipe calls for putting a finishing sauce on the brisket, wrapping it up in aluminum foil, and putting back in the smoker with the temperature at about 150 for an hour.  However, I do this slightly different.  I take the brisket out, place the finishing sauce on the brisket and double wrap it in aluminum foil, wrap a towel around it, and place in a dry cooler for an hour before I slice it up.  Using this method, you can keep the brisket warm for about 4 to 6 hours, so it is great when you are having company, you can plan on finishing in plenty of time before people show up, and if is taking longer then planned, you have some spare time to get it done.  This also works well with other large cuts of meat, like Pork Shoulder for pulled pork (which I will be hopefully blogging about soon).   The following is the recipe I used from the Cookshack Forums:

Marinade (I usually double up on this):

1. 1/2 C Orange Juice
2. 1/2 Cup Coke (I use Dr. Pepper, and since I double up, I just dump in a 20 oz bottle of it).
3. 1 1/2 T Freshly Ground Black Pepper
4. 1 1/2 T Celery Salt
5. 1 1/2 T Cinnamon
6. 1 1/2 T Sea Salt
7. 1 1/2 T Garlic Pepper
8. 1 1/2 T Oregano

Rub:

1. 1 1/2 T Freshly Ground Black Pepper
2. 1 1/2 T Celery Salt
3. 1 T Chili Powder
4. 1 1/2 T Sea Salt
5. 1 1/2 T Garlic Pepper
6. 1 1/2 T Oregano

Finishing Sauce (double up on this one too):

1. 1/4  C Brown Sugar
2. 1/8  C honey
3. 1/8 C Orange Juice
4. 1/8 C Ketchup

For all three different recipes, to prepare you just need to mix the ingredients in a bowl and you are ready to go.  Not much work here, especially when using a Cookshack smoker.  Hopefully the brisket turns out, especially since it is for a co-worker.  Maybe he will bring me some of his leftovers (hint) into work on Monday. <!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->

J