infernooo

Here are my observations based on lots of Indian tandoor chicken attempts: Get your oven SPANKING hot, set it as high as it will go (500F) with the broiler element on. It will splatter your oven, it won't be pretty but it will work and taste fantastic. Preheat it for 30 mins - 1 hour. Put the chicken on a wire rack (cake rack) suspended above a baking dish lined with foil (so the burnt bits don't stick to your baking dish). Put the chicken in under the broiler and cook it until the top has started to turn black at the edges and is nice and crispy and coloured. Then turn it and repeat on the other side. By the time the second side is nice and coloured and crispy, it should be ready to remove from the oven and cover with foil to let it finish cooking through (let it rest for 10 minutes). All up it should be in the oven for maybe 10-15 minutes for chicken thighs. Other pointers: * Use oil or ghee in the marinade * Serve with wedges of lemon * DON'T use lowfat yogurt

Wow, that is kinda scary... looks like candied cucumber/gherkin/pickles!

OK, while I'm still waiting for my Weber smoker to get here, I have been tinkering around more with my oven-bbq-ribs technique and have had some good results. I have found the following works much better than the method reported before: 1.) Trim excess fat (only extremely excess, they were still pretty fatty) and remove membrane 2.) Rubbed liberally with rub. 3.) Covered in cling film and refrigerated overnight (did this just because I was having them the day after I bought the ribs) 4.) Pre-heated oven to 225F on conventional oven setting (not fan forced) 5.) Cooked them at 225F for 3 hours on CONVENTIONAL oven setting - NOT FAN FORCED 6.) Removed, brushed with sauce, put back in oven at about 250F and left for 30 mins, turning up the heat with the broiler right at the end to caramelise the sauce slightly and get the crispy edges.

Anyone got pics of bone marrow? I'm ashamed to say that I don't really know what it looks like... I made some pork ribs last night and the end of the bones were slightly soft and chewy so I hate the end 1/4 half of the bones... but the stuff inside definitely wasn't scoopable, it was more brown and grainy like soft brown bone or something....

Wow, I'm surprised no-one has mentioned Foul Medammas... I'm not sure how well it would work with fresh beans, but it works so well with dry ones, why not give it a try? Here's how to make it (it's VERY simple): Shell & simmer beans gently in lots of salted water until VERY tender and starting to break down. Drain and toss with crushed garlic, salt, lemon juice, olive oil and some parsley. If you like you can put in a touch of smoked paprika or cumin if you feel it needs some spice.

Success! I made a dipping sauce as follows: 2 TB Gochujang 2 TB rice vinegar 1/4 ts sesame oil 1/2 clove garlic crushed I used it with white-cut chicken (steamed chicken cut in a Chinese style with skin still intact) - it was brilliant! Thanks again everyone :-)

Here you go.... This is the cut we call Backstraps/Loin fillets/Eye of Loin: This is the cut we call Fillets:

Thanks ! Might try it out tonight - will report back :-).

Thank you Peter!!! (and everyone else too!) So the garlic in this dipping sauce is finely crushed and raw? Also, what type of vinegar is recommended or most often used? Rice-wine vinegar I am assuming? Thanks again! :-)

Hi snowangel! Thanks for the advice... unfortunately the libraries here stock very little internationally produced cookbooks, and I have never seen a Barbecue book (barbecue in the USA sense of the word, not the AU sense). However, I have been looking through Amazon where you can look inside some books, but there are still so many of them :-). p.s. yes have read all of those threads and bookmarked specific posts - I'm the kind of person where I can never have too much information on a topic :-). Thanks again!

No-one ? :-)

Wow, they are so dark it's like looking into a chocolatey abyss

It happens... doesn't really matter what kind of oil you use. - just make sure it has a high smoking point and is fairly low in saturated fats (canola, "vegetable", corn, peanut, safflower, sunflower) Here is how I do it for brand new woks: Heat wok till SMOKING (burn off oil/protective layer) Rub with oil (use tongs and paper towel) Let cook in Put in sink and pour in room temperature water... scrub out Put back on heat till smoking Rub with oil (use tongs and paper towel) Let cook in Cool Rub out with paper towel Put back on heat till smoking Rub with oil (use tongs and paper towel) Let cook in Remove from heat and let cool Rub with small amount of oil Store in cupboard. Sounds long but only takes 10 minutes and works every time.

I think the most important thing with this method is to make sure you are putting the flavour lost from boiling back into the meat somehow.. e.g. if you boil the meat, cook down the liquid to a glaze and baste the meat with it during the final stages when crisping/grilling it.

Thanks! Lilija: I forgot to mention in my original post, I've got the following books already: How to Grill: The Complete Illustrated Book of Barbecue Techniques by Steven Raichlen (Good) Barbecue! Bible : by Steven Raichlen (Good) Dr. BBQ's Barbecue All Year Long! Cookbook - by Ray Lampe aka Dr. BBQ (Not very good).

So, what about Weber Smokey Mountains? Seems to be a pretty big/friendly community...

If you want a laugh: http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?hl=en&la.../2/nitamago.htm

Wow, that's like the food nerds version of a computer nerds modified case :-)

Hi everyone! Well I have had a LONG look through amazon, and there seem to be lots of recommended and not-recommended books on barbecuing.... I understand that many pit masters and champions keep secrets to themselves, but I assume there must still be some good books out there on the subject. I am looking for a highly recommended book listing barbecuing procedures and great recipes (the recipes are primarily the focal point). I am mainly interested in: * Brisket * Pulled Pork * Ribs * Baked Beans I also understand there are numerous styles of barbecue (sweet, tomatoey, mustardey, vinegarey, ketchupey), but I like them all, so it doesn't matter which style the book is based on or if it covers multiple styles. I already have the following books: How to Grill: The Complete Illustrated Book of Barbecue Techniques by Steven Raichlen (Good) Barbecue! Bible : by Steven Raichlen (Good) Dr. BBQ's Barbecue All Year Long! Cookbook - by Ray Lampe aka Dr. BBQ (Not very good). Thanks!

Hi everyone! After reading through the Korean Kitchen essentials and Korean home cooking threads, I went out and bought a whole stack of Korean foodstuffs including: gochujang - the chili bean paste dwenjang/toenjang/twenjang/tenjang - bean paste ???jang - black bean paste I already have sesame seeds and oil... Could someone please suggest some Korean recipes I can use these pastes/sauces in? I don't mind if it is simple like a dipping sauce or a soup or a main dish or a stew/braise or a stirfry... anything you've got that is tried and tested :-). Thanks!

They probably merged the threads... is it this one? http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=8864

I don't brine mine - they taste great straight from the butcher/market ! So much nicer than "normal" chicken... (unfortunately Kosher is quite expensive so "normal" chicken makes up 90% of the chicken consumed at our house :-( ).

Hi folks, I was going to start a new thread discussing my results, but I figured I may as well add it in here as a sort of central repository for all rib related goodness. Basically, I have never owned a smoker, but have just purchased one which is currently being shipped to me from the US (I live in Australia). I purchased a Weber Smokey Mountain primarily due to the fact that the virtualweberbullet.com is such a great site, there is a great support community for this smoker, and also a lot of barbecuers seem to use them. I won't go into depth as to why I didn't get a Big Green Egg (Komodo) or an offset style smoker (not readily available here in AU). Anyways, the smoker is on it's way, so I thought I would prepare myself by getting my rub and sauce and general rib-maintenance technique down (everything but the actual smoking). To start off, I bought this slab of ribs, which here are just called "Pork Ribs": I then proceeded as follows: 0.) Trim excess fat (only extremely excess, they were still pretty fatty) and remove membrane 1.) Brined for one hour in a "light" brine 2.) Rinsed off brine and patted dry 3.) Rubbed liberally with rub. 4.) Covered in cling film and refrigerated overnight 5.) Pre-heated oven to 225F on fan forced mode and put in a tray of boiling water in the bottom of the oven 6.) Put ribs in standing up: 7.) Cooked them at 225F for 3 hours at which stage they looked like this: 8.) Put into foil and poured over apple juice: 9.) Put into oven for 45 minutes. 10.) Took out and sauced: 11.) Put into oven for another hour, then removed: OK, So that is what happened... now I have a few questions for those who are knowledgeable on the subject :-) 1.) My slab of ribs (even before trimming or doing any other prep work or cooking) don't look nearly as thick as these "Spare ribs" (photo from Virtualweberbullet.com): What's up with that? 2.) As you can see in the end, there wasn't a lot of meat... and if I had taken a photo of a single rib that I had cut when finished cooking, and layed it down sideways, it sure as hell wouldn't be thick enough to be able to show a smoke ring (if I were smoking that is). 3.) The meat is seriously pulling away from the bones as you can see... overcooked? They weren't mushy but not chewy either. 4.) Seeing as a smoker operates extremely similar to how I cooked them (indirect heat, hot air circulating, moisture from water pan), why would mine be so different to a set of smoked ribs when it is common to smoke spare ribs for 5-6 hours at 225? Thanks in advance everyone! p.s. they tasted great, even if there wasn't a lot of meat - had the slab all to myself :-). However I still want to improve them so they look intact and not all gnarled and scary at the end!

What do you folks say about the "texas crutch" method of cooking ribs? It seems that all the big name competition chefs cook ribs in roughly the following way: 1.) Brine em for an hour 2.) Rub them and leave them wrapped in clingfilm overnight 3.) Put them in a 225-250 smoker for 3 hours 4.) Remove and put in a foil pouch, pour over apple juice and seal tight 5.) Return to cooker for about 1 hour 6.) Remove from foil, return to cooker for 1 hour, brushing with BBQ sauce in the last 30 minutes. ?

It's great as a mashed potato substitute too... mash it with milk/cream and lots of butter and salt + pepper. It is slightly sweet but works really well with roast pork.