C. sapidus

Bella S.F., that sounds like a wonderful meal. I am so glad (and somewhat relieved) that you liked the salmon. Glad you have your appetite back, too. Happy new year!

Yes, we are very lucky. Enjoy sipping your bourbon! I feel like I have been granted membership in a secret society - one that eats very well indeed! Actually, I was surprised at how little I had to do. I checked the temperature every half-hour or so after it stabilized, and only had to fiddle with the vents once. New Year's Day will be all about butt. Thanks for the advice and the link. I read through "behold my butt" a long time ago, mostly for the puns, so I need to re-read it for practical advice.

Thanks for the quick response Chris. We decided to smoke half of the butt, still a substantial seven pounds, hoping that the smaller quantity of pork will cook more quickly. I am assuming that smoking butt is like making rendang – it is done when it is done. I tied up my butt to make it more shapely, and then rubbed my butt with black pepper, smoked paprika, sugar in the raw, dry mustard, salt, and cayenne. Smoked paprika was not my first choice, but we were out of regular paprika and ancho powder. Must do something about that today. I am not (yet?) a purist like Susan - I do love pork with a spicy bark. The half-butt went in the bullet at 9:30 AM, and we hope to pull the pork before sending the boys to bed. Later today I will smoke an acorn squash and perhaps a few bananas on the lower rack. If I get really inspired, we might have some frijoles to accompany. Thanks again!

Quick newbie question: if I cut my 14-pound boneless butt in half and smoke my two half-butts, does that double the cooking time? I will be cooking my butt(s) on a Weber bullet, so half of my butt would be in the top chamber and half of my butt in the bottom (heh) chamber. Figuring on 1 ½ hours per pound, nine hours in the bullet would get pulled pork on the dinner table, but 21 hours would not. Thanks, and apologies if this has been answered upthread.

Katie, glad you are enjoying the book. We keep one container of fish sauce on hand, and use it for Thai and Vietnamese food. I listed our favorites on the Fish Sauce, Which Brand (merged topic). Three Crabs isn't my first choice, but I have used it and it tastes just fine. In general, Vietnamese brands of fish sauce seem to be a bit mellower than the Thai brands.

Golden Boy and Tra Chang are our favorites. We have used Three Crabs, and it tastes just fine – perhaps more mellow than the others. I will try Tiparos next, because it has far less salt than Golden Boy. Less salt means more funky fermented fish flavor without oversalting.

Jeffry Alford and Naomi Duguid

I would be completely remiss if I did not do everything in my power to ensure that the ribs were properly cooked before serving my family. So, yes - for quality control purposes only, you understand. Apple orchards - great idea, and lucky you. Pork butt is next on the agenda, so I need to read up about smoking butts. We also have some acorn squash and sweet potatoes that I want to try, and perhaps some smoked bananas. *thump thump thump* (sound of me kicking myself). Another great idea – I wonder what smoked chorizo tastes like? duck833, thanks for the tips. Interesting point about marinating overnight and salt – there is a similar discussion somewhere on a brining or pre-salting thread. Presumably, some salt improves flavor, but too much causes a hammy taste. It would be nice to know at what point the transition occurs. I have always wondered – does anyone but the judges get to eat the BBQ at a competition?

Thank you, heidih. I am looking forward to smoking spare ribs (and pork butt, and brisket, and chicken, and fish, and fruit, and . . .). I started with baby backs because I wanted a direct comparison between the smoker and our old smoking-on-the-gas-grill setup. Even with baby backs, the smoker wins hands down.

First meal from the new Weber bullet: baby back ribs rubbed with soy sauce, brown sugar, and five-spice powder. We also made stir-fried green beans with black beans and garlic, garlic English muffins, and a barbecue sauce made from hoisin sauce, rice vinegar, soy sauce, Dijon mustard, ground anise seed, and minced ginger and garlic. No one ate much barbecue sauce - apparently we are a family of dry-rib eaters. More on Ribs – Baby Back and Spare

Mrs. C gave me a Weber Smoky Mountain (a.k.a. Weber bullet) for Xmas. Yup, she’s pretty wonderful. Anyway, we broke it in with West Coast Baby Backs from Smoke & Spice by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison. We removed the membrane from the ribs, sprinkled both sides with soy sauce, rubbed in equal parts five-spice powder and brown sugar, and marinated the ribs overnight. With lots of help from the VirtualWeberBullet, we lit 40 charcoal briquettes with an upside-down chimney starter and fired up the bullet using the Minion method. We added four fist-sized chunks of hickory, rolled the ribs and secured them with bamboo skewers, and then smoked the ribs for almost four hours at 225 - 235F. Despite a light cold rain, the smoker held a remarkably steady temperature. The bullet will never be this clean again. It is sitting on an 18” square concrete paver set on builder’s sand. Mrs. C laid a path of carpet scraps between the smoker and back door. Note dog sniffing at the gate – that is why we set up the smoker outside the fence. Finished - the ribs had an amazing smoky pork flavor. The ends were done just how we like them, but the middles remained a bit chewy. Next time we will smoke the ribs for another hour or so. All considered, very satisfying for a first effort.

Welcome back, PercyN. I see that you are a whiz with the search function. Thanks for posting the link. This morning we conquered Mount Guacamole. I needed something green after gorging on crab dip, bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, and sweets at a party yesterday.

I was salivating reading the Coyote Cafe menu, even before seeing your pictures. I did notice a lot of seafood (crabcakes, scallops, lobster, sea bass) – how well does seafood survive the trip to NM? I am not even going to cut and paste pictures of those cruelly delicious cinnamon rolls, because it will just make me hungry again. I have a particular thing for ultracinnamony cinnamon rolls with not-too-sweet cream cheese icing. I would love to live somewhere with enough rain to garden without irrigation, yet low enough humidity to dry chile ristras outside. Probably no such place on earth, unfortunately. Here, ristras would rot outdoors so we need to dry chiles with a dehydrator. Whoa, now that is what I’m talking about. And that. Yum. Sorry to ask another question way at the end of a long post, but do you cook much New Mexican-style food yourself, or do you usually take advantage of its availability and cook other types of food at home?

Beautiful duck, Ce’nedra, and I appreciate the blow-by-blow description of its preparation. Thanks also for the kind words about the mole. We did use Ibarra Mexican chocolate, about a disk and a half. We are fortunate to have three Latino markets nearby. Clearly, Australia needs to do a better job of encouraging Mexican immigration. By the way, if you are still looking for cookbooks Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet is a wonderful one with recipes from all countries that border the Mekong river, including Cambodia and the Yunnan region of China. Nakji, wow, great spread! I would chow down on that meal in a heartbeat. Shelby, all of your meal looks good to me. Toothpicks, sate, it’s all food on a stick, and justly popular around the globe.

My mother has the ultimate grapefruit spoon – small, silver, with a relatively long bowl and smooth, thin edges. A run-in with the garbage disposal twisted the bowl in just the right shape to remove halved grapefruit segments intact. The spoon is “handed”, so one must remove grapefruit segments in a particular direction (clockwise, if I recall) to take full advantage of the twisted bowl. Truly irreplaceable.

Verjuice, love the kitchen, the books, the ‘shrooms, the house, the pooches, the photography, and the insight into your two homes. But mostly: What she said. I do have to take points off for this disturbing sight I hear wonderful things about New Mexican food, but haven’t experienced it in person. If you are taking requests, please do share some of your favorite New Mexican dishes, whether home-made or not. Otherwise, just keep doing what you are doing.

Homage to PercyN: queso fresco omelet topped with Oaxacan red chicken mole.

Mrs. C gave me a Weber Smoky Mountain (a.k.a. Weber bullet) and chimney starter. I see ribs in our future, and delightfully bad puns about smoked butts.

dockhl, looks delicious - and with pictures! Do tell about the frozen tangerine souffle, it looks amazing. Emily_R, thank you, and enjoy your trip! Mrs. C starts with “maple mustard salmon” from Steven Raichlen’s BBQ USA. I don’t know how much help that will be, though, because Mrs. C is physiologically incapable of following a recipe. And proud of it. I couldn't find the recipe on the web, but I can send it by PM if you wish. I do know that she boils maple syrup, soy sauce, honey, mustard, and grated fresh ginger until the mixture is reduced to a thick syrup. The recipe calls for honey mustard, but she uses more mustard and less honey to control the sweetness. She brushes part of this syrup over the salmon and saves part to serve at the table. I think she also sprinkles salt and sesame oil on the salmon before baking (although the recipe calls for grilling). She baked the salmon until it was less than done, and then let it rest for 10-15 minutes to complete the cooking. Beyond those basics, I am quite certain that she makes it differently every time. Edited to ask about the frozen tangerine souffle.

If you have a dinner party on Christmas Eve and invite guests from Russia, Trinidad, Scotland, and the U.S. south, what do you serve? Mexican food, of course. Five guests couldn’t make it, but two showed up unexpectedly so it all worked out. Guests brought blini and Russian salads, the boys made sweet potatoes, Mrs. C handled salmon, salad, and logistics, and I cooked the Mexican food. Appetizers: Home-made blini and peach preserves (courtesy of our guests). Don’t stand between da boyz and blini. Soup and sopa secas: Sopa Tarrasca (tortilla soup) Arroz verde (green rice) Arroz blanco (white rice) Vegetables: Mrs. C’s Asian salad Green salad with roasted garlic dressing Salad Olivier, a.k.a. Russian salad (brought by our guests) Rajas de chile Poblano and roasted red bell peppers Mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallows (courtesy of the boys) Salsas: Chipotle-tomatillo salsa Guacamole Mains: Baked salmon with maple-soy-mustard-ginger glaze Tinga Poblana (pork and potatoes with chipotle-tomato sauce) Chicken in mole coloradito Oaxaqueno Dessert: Russian chocolates Coffee and tea Hits: Mrs. C’s salmon was amazing. You know how Food Network hosts simulate ecstasy when they take a bite of food? People were doing this for real. “I don’t really like salmon. Oh, maybe a little bit. *eyes roll back, toes curl, shudder* Can I have a cigarette now?” People enjoyed assembling the tortilla soup – adding queso fresco cubes and fried tortilla strips to the bowl, ladling in the soup, and then topping it with fried chile pasilla crumbles and a squeeze of lime. For the soup stock, we used extra caldo pollo from making the mole (5 pounds of chicken, clove-studded onions, garlic, celery, carrots, bay leaf, peppercorns, allspice, fresh thyme, and dried chile – lotsa flavor in that stock). Tinga Poblana was very popular even though I forgot the avocado and queso fresco garnish. Chorizo, roasted tomatoes, and Mexican oregano melded into a lovely sauce, followed by a sneaky chipotle kick. The tender chunks of meat were an eye-opener for guests who had never enjoyed slow-cooked pork butt before. Tinga Poblana Green rice disappeared quickly, even among the obligate carnivores. This surprised me, since the blended broth included a roasted chile Poblano and whole bunches of cilantro, flat-leaf parsley, and spinach. The Preethi blender provided two flawless days of yeoman service, grinding up tomatoes, garlic, onions, herbs and vegetables, fried bread and plantains, nuts and seeds, and multiple batches of reconstituted chiles. Misses: The salsa, guacamole, and rajas went mostly untouched – probably a matter of too much food and not enough digestive system capacity. Oh, well. Mole coloradito Oaxaqueno tasted amazing, but the flavors were outside most guest’s comfort zones. This was not a surprise – few people expect to see Mexican chocolate; ancho and guajillo chiles; garlic and onions; oregano, cloves, allspice, and cinnamon; plantains and raisins; almonds, sesame seeds, and French bread together in the same dish. More about preparing mole on Making Mexican at home (click). Mole coloradito Oaxaqueno

First of all, thanks to heidih and Stephanie for your kind comments. We cooked several Mexican dishes for a Christmas Eve dinner party. Details on Dinner! (click). Tinga Poblana Mole coloradito Oaxaqueno Making the mole involved repeated stages of preparing ingredients, pureeing them in the blender, and cooking everything down to concentrate the flavors. I took a few pictures early in the process. Cooked-down chile puree: Adding the tomato mixture . . . . . . and cooking it all down. Repeat and repeat again. Edited to fix link.

Recent meals, part one. Reading a new batch of Mexican cookbooks (and revisiting my old chile-stained friends Rick and Diana) triggered a binge of Mexican cooking at our house. Here are the results, which will be nothing new for anyone who follows the dinner thread. The first is probably my favorite so far. Pipian rojo, roasted chayote: Pescado a la Veracruzana (Rick Bayless); mushroom soup with pasilla chiles: Garlicky stir-fried shrimp (camarones al ajillo): Pollo con naranja, mushrooms in herbed vinaigrette Chipotle-baked fish, turned into tacos with chipotle mayo and lime-cilantro vinaigrette. Zarela’s shrimp; fried plantains with Mexican crema. Pollo con oregano, from Diana Kennedy: Swordfish and avocado ceviche (this was really good): And one of my favorite meals from my bachelor days: chayote al vapor:

Aww, thanks Ce’nedra, I love to trigger a hankering. I have a pile of Mexican cookbooks, but you are probably referring to Rick Bayless’ Mexican Everyday (clicky), which focuses on quick weeknight dinners. Most recipes are simple and include well-thought-out shortcuts to reduce preparation time without sacrificing flavor. Further discussion of Mexican cookbooks (click). Most Mexican ingredients are readily available here, but I have heard that finding dried ancho, guajillo, and pasilla chiles can be difficult in Australia. I am also not sure whether you have access to epazote, tomatillos, chipotle chiles in adobo, or fresh Poblano chiles. Fortunately, many Mexican dishes (especially those from Veracruz) call for more readily available ingredients like fresh jalapeno or serrano chiles, garlic, olives, capers, flat-leaf parsley, olive oil, etc. You do need to have a source of excellent ripe tomatoes or good-quality canned tomatoes.

Jicama, watercress, and avocado salad with roasted garlic and balsamic vinegar dressing. Crock pot cochinita pibil, cooked in banana leaves and served with pickled red onions and corn tortillas. More about our "tortilla press" on Making Mexican at home (clicky).

Janeer, fun taquitos, looking forward to more from you! Susan, here is our “tortilla press” – a bread cutting board with four felt pads on the bottom corners. The felt pads serve as spacers, and by sheer good fortune happen to yield tortillas with about the right thickness. Place the dough on a Ziploc bag with three sides cut off, press lightly to flatten . . . . . . fold over the Ziploc bag, and use the cutting board (felt pads down) to flatten the dough. Peel off the dough and place on a medium skillet for 30 seconds. Flip onto a medium-high skillet for 30 seconds. Flip again, press lightly on the tortilla to get it to puff up, and cook for another 30 seconds. Works like a charm.