Yes I make all of this.

• 1 3lb eye of round beef roast

• Extra virgin olive oil (I suggest Georgia Olive Farms)

• 1 head of garlic

• Fresh thyme

• Kosher salt

• Fresh cracked pepper

• 8 cups beef stock

• 1 onion

• 6 hoagie rolls

Pre ingredients.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Smash and mince 6 cloves of garlic. Next, strip the leaves off of 4-6 thyme sprigs and finely chop.

Season meat and let rest at room temperature.

Coat meat with a few tablespoons of olive oil. Next, add minced garlic and thyme, followed by a liberal sprinkling of kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper. Keep the meat out of the fridge! You want it to be at room temperature to create a nice sear and so it will cook evenly.

Start Au Jus.

Bring 8 cups of beef stock, remaining garlic, onion (chopped in half), and 4 sprigs of thyme to a slow simmer over medium heat.

Prep pan to sear meat.

Pre-heat a seasoned cast iron skillet over medium-high heat on the stovetop for 1 minute. It’s a good idea to open a window or turn the vent fan on at this point.

Sear meat.

Add meat to pan and sear on all four sides, about 2-3 minutes per side. Do not poke or prod the meat during this process. Allow it to maintain contact with the pan to develop a nice sear – this creates flavor.

Roast meat in oven.

Once the meat is seared, place it in the preheated oven and cook for 45-55 minutes, or until internal temperature reaches 125 degrees F for rare/medium rare.

Rest Meat.

Once desired temperature is reached, remove meat from oven and place on a plate, tented with foil. This ‘resting’ process will allow the juices to redistribute into the meat – it will also keep cooking, raising the temperature, on average, by 5 degrees. Allow to rest for 10 minutes.

Reduce Au Jus.

Use a skimmer or colander to strain ingredients from the au jus. Add any drippings from the meat into this pot.

Strain Au Jus.

Place the strained pot of liquid back on the stove over medium-high heat, allowing the mixture to reach a boil in order to reduce by at least half – you should have about 2-3 cups of liquid remaining. Remove from heat, cover, and keep warm for service.

Cut meat,

Other than my fine assortment of Wusthof knives, my most manly kitchen tool is my meat slicer. Over the top? Perhaps. Awesome? Most definitely. I realize it’s highly unlikely that you will have one of these in your kitchen, so take your best knife and slice the meat as thin as possible against the grain and on the bias (angle).

Warm the bread.

I prefer my hoagies soft and not toasted, so I like to cut them open lengthwise, wrap in foil, and warm in an oven.

Remove warmed bread from oven and pile high with roast beef. Serve alongside warmed au jus for dipping.

Side notes.

All-in-all, this sandwich is a home run. For added flavor and flair, whip up some horseradish mayo (8 parts mayo to 1 part prepared horseradish) and serve as a condiment. You can also add in slices of Gouda or provolone cheese, sautéed peppers and onions, or sliced dill pickles – whatever you fancy. Truthfully, I love the simplicity of the perfectly cooked meat, served with the savory dipping jus. Pair with a cold Yazoo Pale Ale and life is pretty darn good.

Sorry it’s been awhile here are some lamb chops.

1 whole chicken

Marinade

1/8 cup ginger paste

1/8 cup garlic paste

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup yogurt

1/2 Tbsp chilli powder (adjust to taste, as is will give low/medium heat)

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

Wood for smoking (I also used some whole spices: cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom)

BBQ Sauce

1 shallot

5 cloves garlic

1 inch ginger

4 dried chilis

1 Tbsp mustard seeds (black)

1 cup orange juice

3 Tbsp tamarind paste

1/4 cup cilantro leaves

1/4 cup cashews

1 Tbsp brown sugar

1 Tbsp honey

1/4-1/2 cup ketchup

1 Tbsp tomato paste

1 Tbsp worchestershire sauce

ground cinnamon

ground cardamom

black pepper

fennel seeds

ground coriander

ground thyme

pinch of dried methi/fenugreek

Begin by cleaning and halving the bird. Remove the gizzards and save for another day.

Then, prepare the marinade (simply mix all of the ingredients together), rub it all over the bird, and seal it tightly before setting in the fridge over night to marinate.

The next day, remove the chicken from the fridge and wipe off any excess marinade. Let it rest at room temperature for about an hour to lose the chill before you start cooking.

Then, get the smoker going and up to temperature (200-225 °F) before you put the chicken halves, skin side up. Leave this closed and check back in roughly an hour to see the internal temperature on the bird–you’re done around 165°F.

While you wait on the bird, work on the sauce. Finely mince the shallot, garlic, and ginger. Sauté the shallot in olive oil for about 7 minutes before adding the garlic, ginger, mustard seeds, and dried chilis. Continue to sauté until the mustard starts popping (like popcorn) and not more than 30 seconds after that or the mustard seeds will burn and you’ll be hacking and coughing (burnt mustard seed vapors should be weaponized–that stuff is awful).

At this point, deglaze with the orange juice (to immediately save the mustard seeds from going any further) and then add in all of the remaining ingredients. Leave this on a medium low simmer for about 30 minutes, at which point, you should blend it to a consistency you’re happy with (or not at all if you like a chunkier style sauce), and then leave it a low simmer for a while more until you’re ready for it.

Once the chicken is done smoking, brush it all over with sauce and crank up the heat on your grill. You want to sear the bird for roughly 5 minutes on both sides to crisp up the skin and to make that sauce nice and tacky.

Finally, get the bird off of the grill and dig in. Enjoy!

In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, sugar, and yeast. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the egg, melted butter, and buttermilk. With the paddle attachment, beat these well. Then, add the contents of the flour bowl and beat just enough to get things mixed (figure 30 seconds). You should have a dough that looks soft and supple.

Now, switch to the dough hook attachment. Knead on medium speed for about 6-8 minutes. Again, the dough should be soft, supple, and tacky, but not sticky. As it nears completion, the dough should pull 

Burger Patties

~1.6 lb ribeye

~0.9 lb chuck top steak

1 shallot

8 cloves garlic

1 poblano

1 Tbsp dijon

1-2 Tbsp worcestershire

dash of bourbon

1 egg

2 chipotle + adobo

1 Tbsp oregano

cayenne

salt

pepper

Toppings

arugula

tomato

rocquefort

Buttermilk Buns

4.25 cups flour

1.5 tsp salt

3 Tbsp sugar

2 tsp instant yeast

1 egg

1/4 cup butter

1.5 cups buttermilk

Garnish

1 egg

1 tsp water

Sesame/poppy seeds

away from sides of the bowl but the bottom might just barely stick to the bottom of the bowl. Once time is up, the dough should pass windowpane test. That is, if you took off a small bit of dough (like the size of a nut), you should be able to roll it thin and pull in all directions until its so thin that you can see through it without tearing it.

Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough to it. Roll it around to coat with oil and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let this sit in a warmish place (but essentially at room temperature) for 1.5-2 hours or til doubled in size to allow it some time to ferment.

With the dough risen, divide it into 12 pieces. Form “tight rounds” from these. If you’re not a bread person, the technique you use to shape your bread is actually quite important. To get the shape we want for a bun, take a piece of dough and hold it in your lightly cupped hand, resting it in your fingers. Firmly press the dough into the counter as if you’re trying to push it through the counter, simultaneously twisting your hand so that you rotate it a circular motion. This should press the dough towards the outer edge of your hand and once you pull away from the counter, you should have a nice, tight round ball that just puts itself right in the palm of your hand. Tada–tight rounds!

Now, mist the rounds with oil and cover loosely with either a towel or plastic wrap and let these rest for 20 minutes. Then, gently press down on them with the palm of your hand to flatten slightly so that they’re shaped more like a hamburger bun rather than a dinner roll. Transfer these to lined sheet pans.

Loosely cover these again and let them proof for another 60-90 minutes at room temperature or until roughly doubled in size.

Once they are, prepare the egg wash by beating the egg and water in a bowl until frothy. If you want to score the buns, slash them in the center and then lightly brush with egg wash. Finally, sprinkle on a handful of seeds.

Making the burger patties is a pretty simple endeavor if you have a meat grinder (so you can make your own ground meat rather than buying ground beef).

Cut the beef into long, thin strips that can feed into your grinder. Do not discard excess fat. Do the same for the shallot and pepper and strip the paper off of the garlic. Put all of this in the freezer for roughly 30 minutes–it makes for a better grind and it helps to ensure that the fat doesn’t melt out during the grinding process.

With the meat and veg chilled, process this through the meat grinder. Mix in all of the remaining components gently with your hands, working it only as much as is necessary. Form this meat into burger patties of whatever size appeals to you. Chill them in the fridge until you’re ready to cook (or freeze extras for another day).

Assembly

Finally, fire up your grill and get it nice and hot. Grill the burgers to your desired level of doneness, which I would speculate means 3-5 minutes per side. And yes, that means you only flip the burgers once. Don’t beat the meat.

I like to grill my bun for about a minute while I melt the cheese on the burgers (I used rocquefort which I think pairs amazingly well). Get this on your plate and pile on the toppings (arugula and tomato for me), squirt on some ketchup, grab a beer, and enjoy!

Roasted Pork Bell with Gravy

• ~4 lb pork belly
• Spice rub
  • Yellow mustard
  • Hoisin
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
  • 1/4 tsp whole cumin seeds
  • 5 juniper berries
  • 5-7 whole cloves
  • 3 whole star anise
  • 3 green cardamom pods
  • 1-2 dried chilis
  • 3/4 tsp brown sugar
  • 1/4 tsp fennel seeds
  • 1/4 tsp celery seeds
  • 1/4 cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 tsp annato seeds
• Garlicky Thyme and Dijon Gravy
  • 1/3 cup flour
  • 1/3 cup drippings
  • 1 shallot
  • 6 cloves garlic
  • big handful fresh thyme
  • 2.5 cups chicken stock
  • 1/2 cup white wine
  • salt
  • pepper
  • 2 tsp dijon

 Begin by cleaning the pork belly. You may find hair and the like, so slice/singe it if you do. Running your knife across the skin like a straight razor can be helpful here.

Then, score the skin deeply with your knife in a cross-hatch pattern. This is a necessity for the skin to cook properly and to help render some of the fat.

Grind all of the dry spices for the spice rub coarsely. Rub the belly all over with a small dab of mustard and hoisin. While this adds a small amount of flavor, it will help hold the spice rub. Speaking of which, rub the spices all over the belly (more on the fleshy side than the skin side).

Let this sit to marinate in the fridge for a minimum of 8 hours.

Remove the belly from the fridge for an hour so it can come to room temperature. Then, on a rack in a roasting pan, roast it skin side up in a 450°F oven for 10 minutes. After that, drop the temperature to 325°F for 3 hours more. If at the end of that, the skin isn’t blistered, bubbly, and crispy looking, give the belly roughly 5 minutes under the broiler (on the highest setting). Keep a close watch during this time as the belly can very quickly go from crisp to burnt.

Remove the belly from the oven and give it some time to cool a bit. While you wait, prepare the gravy.

In a saucepan, warm 1/3 cup of the drippings from the roast over medium heat before you add the flour and very finely minced shallot. Whisk for roughly 5 minutes to form a slightly tan roux. Throw the garlic in for a minute and then beat in the white wine, stock, salt, pepper, thyme, and dijon, continuing to cook for roughly 5-10 minutes more until nicely thickened.

Finally, time to serve. Cut yourself a slightly smaller portion of belly than you would typically of other meats–you’ll find yourself overwhelmed by the richness. Enjoy!

Teriyaki Chicken Burgers

• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup mirin
• 1 Tbsp hoisin
• 1 Tbsp honey
• 1 Tbsp sambal oelek
• ~2 lbs chicken thighs
• 2 green onions
• 2 jalapeño / fresno peppers
• 4 cloves garlic
• handful cilantro, leaves & stems
• handful of tarragon leaves
• 1 egg
• 2/3-1 cup panko bread crumbs
• vegetable oil
• Toppings
  • Ginger Mayonnaise
    • 1/2 cup mayonnaise
    • 2 cloves garlic
    • 1-2 inch knob of ginger
    • juice of 1 lime
    • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • Pineapple
  • Cucumber

  • In a pot over medium heat, warm up the soy sauce, mirin, hoisin, and honey for 5 minutes and stir periodically to dissolve the honey and hoisin. This should thicken a bit. Its not quite 100% teriyaki, but take a taste–its pretty darn good. Cool this down for a few minutes and mix in the sambal oelek.

    While you wait for the sauce to cool down, trim any very excessive fat off of the chicken thighs and cut into long, thin strips. Do the same for the green onions, peppers, and garlic. Set the vegetables aside and marinate the chicken in the teriyaki for at least 30 minutes.

    Push the chicken, herbs, and vegetables through the meat grinder. Don’t pour any excess marinade through since that probably won’t yield great results. In a separate bowl, beat the marinade and egg. Work this gently into the ground chicken mixture.

    Lastly, work the bread crumbs into the ground chicken gently. Coat your hands liberally with vegetable oil (the chicken mixture is surprisingly tacky/sticky and it will be difficult for you to work with) and form burger patties. Rub those with a bit of oil on all sides. Chill these in the fridge while you fire up your grill and get all your other elements ready for your meal.

    So now, prepare the toppings. The mayo is an easy one: peel the garlic and ginger, juice the lime, and throw that along with the mayo and salt into a blender/food processor and whiz away–done!

    Cut thin slices of cucumber and set them aside.

    If you have a fancy schmancy pineapple corer, use it. I don’t though and did just fine–cut off the peel/eyes, slice out the core, and cut even thickness rounds. Set this aside.

    Finally, time to put it all together. Grill the chicken burgers for 10 minutes, flipping once. Be careful that you don’t scorch these since the sugar content (in the teriyaki marinade) means your prone to burning. If things do start to look a little more charred than they should, move the burgers over to indirect heat on your grill (roughly 400°F would be good) so that they cook all the way through. You might not need to, but just keep an eye on it.

    Cook the pineapple on the grill for roughly 2 minutes per side. Finally, pile it all on: bun, burger, mayo, cucumber, and pineapple. Enjoy!

IT’s could so warm up.

Chipotle, Cheddar, and Chorizo Corn Chowder

• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 vidalia onion
• 2 stalks celery
• 6 serrano peppers
• 2 green plantains
• 6-8 cloves garlic
• 1 Tbsp corn meal
• juice of 1/2 lime
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 5 ears corn
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• pepper
• cumin
• coriander
• 5-6 chipotles in adobo sauce
• 4 cups milk
• 1/2 lb grated cheddar
• 1/8-1/4 cup fresh cilantro
• ~1 lb chorizo

Gather all of the vegetables. Husk and clean the corn, chopping the kernels off and reserving the cob. Dice the onion, celery, garlic, pepper, and peeled plantains.

Melt down the butter and sauté the vidalia and celery for 5 minutes. Then, add the serranos and plantains for 5 minutes more, finally, adding the garlic for a minute further.

Sprinkle the corn meal over the sautéed vegetables, toss things around for a moment to coat, and then pour in the vegetable broth and lime juice. Scrape all the brown bits off of the bottom of the pot and add the corn cobs (not the corn kernels), diced chipotle and adobo, salt, pepper, cumin, and coriander. Raise this to an active boil. If the pot looks crowded and it looks like you’re short on liquid, add some of the milk now so that you reasonably submerge the corn cobs. I added 2 cups at this point.

During all of this, in another pot, remove the chorizo from its casings and brown in a pot, crumbling up finely and cooking until totally cooked through. Drain off excess grease and set this aside for now.

Once the corn pot reaches an active boil, drop the heat to a low-medium simmer and add the corn kernels to the pot. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

When time is up, remove the cobs, add the cilantro and puree what remains in a blender (or with an immersion blender–how did I ever live without this?). Drop the heat to low and add the remaining milk and grated cheddar. Give things a stir, add the chorizo, cover the pot, and leave it be for 5-10 minutes.

Finally, its time to eat. A lively looking garnish is a good way to dress this soup up, so I opted for a quick “salsa”–diced tomato, serrano, and some corn kernels. I also used some cheddar and chorizo just as a nod to what else is in the soup. Fried tortilla or baked cheddar “crisps” would also work wonderfully. Whatever you decide–get a bowl and enjoy!

• Raspberry Ice Cream12 oz raspberries
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 5 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 Tbsp Chambord (or some other raspberry liqueur)
• Chocolate shell~6 oz bitter/semi-sweet chocolate
• 6 Tbsp butter
• 4 tsp dark corn syrup

Begin by pureeing the raspberries in a food processor or blender. Then, to remove the seeds (since those would be awfully annoying in an ice cream), strain the puree into a bowl along with the lemon juice.

Meanwhile, in the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the egg yolks and add in the sugar, continuing to beat until the color lightens. Take this time to set the heavy cream in a bowl over an ice bath.

In a saucepan, scald the milk, taking care not to boil. Once sufficiently hot, temper the yolks with a bit of the hot milk and then mix all of the yolk mixture into the milk pan, stirring constantly over medium heat, scraping the bottom and sides of the pan to avoid any eggs from scrambling.

Once the custard is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon (figure around 5-10 minutes), pour the custard through a strainer into the heavy cream bowl. Whisk the contents of the bowl and add in the vanilla extract and Chambord. Finally, add in the acidified raspberry puree from earlier and stir it well.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, pressing it right against the custard to prevent a skin from forming. Transfer this to the fridge.

After about 4-6 hours, you should be ready to advance to the next step: churning the ice cream custard. So per the directions on your ice cream maker, churn the custard for 20 minutes and then transfer this to an airtight container and freeze over night to give the ice cream a chance to ripen.

Now that the ice cream has chilled a good bit, line two large plates with parchment paper and chill them in the freezer for at least an hour. Remove one of the plates and the ice cream from the freezer. At this point, you need to move quickly since time and temperature are working against you.

Using an ice cream scoop (or a big spoon), scoop golf ball sized scoops of the raspberry ice cream. Using either spoons or your hands, tighten the balls up a bit so that they’re compact and have no stray dangling pieces. Set these down on the chilled plate as you go. As soon as you’re done forming the scoops, get the plate back into the freezer for at least two hours (or more) so that they can firm up a bit more after all of that handling. You might very well have ice cream leftover (not formed into balls) at this point. I’m sure you’re really broken up about that.  You can always make more tartuffi from this later if you so desire, or just enjoy a bowl of raspberry ice cream.

Once you’re ready for the final step, set up a double boiler (a bowl suspended over but not touching simmering water). In this, melt the chocolate, corn syrup, and butter, stirring until silky smooth. Once entirely melted, remove the bowl from the heat (you don’t want the chocolate to overheat).

At this point, get your chilled plate out of the freezer along with the raspberry ice cream balls. Now, working very quickly with two spoons, take an ice cream ball, cover it with melted chocolate, and toss and turn this with the spoons so as to drip off any excess. As you finish each ball, transfer it to the clean chilled plate.

If you move too slowly, you’ll have a number of problems, one of them being that the ice cream will melt in the heat of the chocolate. The opposing problem: the chocolate will chill and harden quickly. If you don’t adequately coat the ice cream ball with chocolate, as you toss and turn, portions of the chocolate shell will harden while others don’t and it will chip off, making a mess and ultimately not coating your ice cream with chocolate. Ideally, you will coat the ice cream ball with chocolate all over almost all at the same time so that it all chills and hardens simultaneously.

Once you’re done coating the ice cream with chocolate, let this rest in the freezer for several hours, preferably overnight so that the ice cream can firm up again and the chocolate can adequately harden. And now, hide this from any freezer passer-bys or they’ll be gone in an instant. Enjoy!

The base mint ice cream was derived from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop. This is also one of my entries in You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream for Frozen Desserts, an event focused on the cold desserts that we all flock to during the summer. While the deadline is near, its still not too late to join in the fun, so any slow pokes out there, hurry up and get churning!

• 1 cup whole milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups heavy cream
• pinch salt
• 2 cups mint leaves
• 5 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup bourbon

Begin by warming the milk, sugar, and 1 cup of cream in a saucepan. Add all of the mint leaves and lightly crush them so as to help their oils to diffuse into the liquid. Press them in so that they stay submerged, cover the pan, and remove from the heat so that this mixture can steep for about an hour.

Once time is up, as soon as you take the lid off of that saucepan, you should be hit with this fantastic, sweet, minty aroma. I was amazed at the powerful flavor this took on, even at this step. Just sample the liquid to see what I mean. Anyways, once you’re done fawning over this, strain the mixture to remove the mint leaves (and squeeze them to get every last drop out of them) and get the liquid back in a saucepan.

Set a bowl up in an ice bath, pour in the remaining 1 cup of cream, and set a strainer over it. Meanwhile, rewarm the minty milk and in the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the egg yolks until the color lightens.

Temper the eggs with a bit of the hot milk and then pour the yolk mixture into the hot, mint-infused milk. Stir constantly over medium heat until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon, figure around 5-10 minutes. Once sufficiently cooked, pour this through the strainer into the cream, and whisk it well. After a moment, pour in the bourbon (any earlier, and you’d cook off the alcohol and where’s the fun in that?!). Whisk to incorporate and cover the bowl with plastic wrap pressed right against the surface and transfer this to the fridge for 4-6 hours.

Once time is up, get your ice cream maker ready according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Churn the custard for about 20 minutes and then transfer it to an airtight container in the freezer overnight to give the gelato time to firm up a bit (it will need it!).

When you finally do dig in, consider not plating in a way that looks as silly as this, lol (and you have no idea…the mess that ensued…). But more importantly, enjoy!