How To Make Delicious Sandwiches

We all love sandwiches and have them often - why not go all out to make them the
best they can be. Actually that's just sums up the way I feel about cooking in general.
 Every little detail improved upon just helps make something turn out better than just so so or a ho hum kind of meal, even if it's a sandwich. You will find plenty of people that just don't feel that way and any way of making a sandwich works for them as they were really just out to curb their hunger and they don't care if it's exceptional or not.

Pot Roast Re Do

I was trying to think of something different to do with these leftovers and came up with the idea of Hard Toast using some fresh Rye Bread and heated the meat and veggies and a pan with tight fitting lid.  I had plenty of the broth the meat was cooked in and to that added 1/4 cup red wine.  After the broth reduced and flavored the meat and veggies, I minced the meat a little before covering the bread with it and pouring the broth over it.  This was a good idea.

Granny's Sunday Pot Roast

Just about every sunday morning while getting gravy and biscuit with all the trimmings ready my Grandmother would also be getting a Pot Roast in the oven to be ready right after church.  It was always great and I wanted mine to be good as well so here's what I did.  First I got some bacon fat and garlic ready...

The poked holes and stuffed the fat and garlic inside

Next I rubbed with real butter and seasoned with Cavenders and course salt and pepper

I put it on my smoker @ 325 just long enough to get a nice bark and color along with the smoke on the meat

Green beans from our garden and some rolls was all I had planned for sides but I wanted them to be good too, so I sauteed some onion and smoked ham before adding the beans

Next I added the potatoes, onion, and carrots and covered the pan with foil and continued to cook in the oven at 325

Real good meal but probably still came up short of my Grandmothers

Philly Cheese Steak

They are so good just about any old Philly Cheese Steak will do but home made is better.  You get to make adjustments that way, like pile on the veggies or select what kind of cheese goes with it.  I always use the fake processed cheese and just cover the individual portions like you see in the bottom pic with a couple of slices and slide the oven proof pan into the oven till it melts then scoop up the individual portions with the hoagie rolls.  Don't forget that the handle of that pan is HOT.

Reverse Sear

Cooking steaks at a low temp until it is about 10 degrees short of your final internal temp and then finish over very high heat is called the Reverse Sear Method.  It is a really good way to be sure you lock into that internal temp on you finish product.  The only thing I don't like about it is the simple fact it includes an additional step and with my set up that means the use of 2 cookers.  You could also bank your charcoal to one side of any old grill and do the low temp cook on the opposite side and finish directly over the coals.  I don't think this Tri Tip could have been any better but I doubt the Reverse Sear mehod had anything at all to do with it.

BBQ (Butt over Brisket)

I never do one without the other as I like that Pork Fat dripping on my Brisket when I cook one.  This Brisket was cooked using my own Injection of beef brother and other seasonings and my own Rub which was heavy on the black pepper.  It was really tasty.  I have used large disposable pans in cooking both these meats after they have cooked long enough to have a nice color and bark on them and decided that I need to wrap with foil first to get that braising / steaming effect to penetrate into the meat more and I think I will stick with that idea from now on but I have to do a better job on these big Briskets and not loose my broth.  The Pork Butt was not injected and I find them to have a better flavor that way.  I did finally find a Misto Spray container I really like to spritz the meat with (pump it and it sprays a real fine mist).  So our BBQ Stash is now replenished and we are in good shape to barter meat and enjoy sandwiches for awhile.

Flank Steak, Baked Vidalias

Seems you never stop learning and some times it is re-learning as was the case with cooking my Mom's day meal. I knew there was a reason I had stopped buying Flank Steak many years ago and it was simply that, I don't like them. It's a tough piece of beef at best - beefy and tasty for sure, but tough. I know a lot of people like them and even see them used for fajitas a lot and that's even worst as Fajitas and all Authentic Mexican dishes are never good if the meat is rare and you just don't want your Flank Steak to be well done. The leftover steak will be chopped and fried for steak tacos as that is the only use for this meat I can live with. With plenty of time on my hands, I decided to foil bake the potatoes and followed my procedure for that by pricking them with a sharp tined fork all over after scrubbing, then oiled them with evoo and covered them with a couple of tablespoons of kosher salt before wrapping and baking for an hour and fourty minutes in a 350 degree oven. We usually nuke these and it had been so long since baking them properly in the oven we had forgotten how much better they are this way. I started the salad by pulverizing 3 garlic cloves into some salt in the bottom of a wood salad bowl and added 1/4 cup olive oil, tbs of dijon, tbs of wine vinegar, before tossing the mixed greens. The onions were outstanding and we usually wrap them whole with butter in the center and found out that is the wrong way to bake them - they are much better sliced and inch thick and grilled or baked with oil and butter to brush on them as they cook. By cooking them this way rather than in foil you can better judge when they are done. Sour cream yeast rolls were made the day before and baked again and the meal was served with a Shrimp Coctail. Desert was home made Lemon Ice Box Pie Ice Cream that has become our favorite of all Ice Cream.

Grilled / Smoked Chicken

There are 3 types of grilled chicken - VERY GOOD, SO SO, AND BAD. These two whole "all natural" Tyson birds (which I halved) happened to fall into the VERY GOOD category, much to my surprise. I have always believed that it is all the little "extras" you do when cooking anything that makes the difference so I try to always brine my chicken the day before and air dry them in the fridge overnight. This time however due to a busy day working outside, I skipped the brine step. While the smoker / grill was heating up, I mixed several tbs of Five Spice into little room temp butter and let it get hard in the freezer to insert under the skin on the thighs and breast. Seasoned the bird on both sides and popped them into a 325 degree cooker for about 1 hour on the skin side before turning them over to cook another 30 min or so to an internal breast temp of about 165 - 170. I don't think they got much over the 170 while resting with a foil cover in a pan before we made the pictures and they were done to perfection. Which brings to mind another thing I have always believed held true when grilling and even cooking great BBQ, which is that, cooking to the perfect finished temp, is one of the main ingredients.

I thought a few Stuffed and Wrapped Jalapenos and Bacon Wrapped Tater Tots would be good with the chicken and of course they are good with anything or all by themselves. These were mild peppers and they have to be for us to enjoy them even though I consider myself a pepperhead. The Tots are tricky and you have to let them thaw in order to get a toothpick threw them and you also have to make sure the bacon reaches completely around them as the bacon is what holds them together while they cook, the toothpick just holds the bacon.

Muffin Ched'r 1/4lb Burger

I have a thing about English Muffins for Hamburgers - I really like them better than the best rolls or buns you can have for some reason.

Sopes

Sopes, the thick little Tortilla with the pinched up sides that holds all that the imagination can provide in the way of Mexican food along with all those famous condiments, are very popular with about everyone that tries them. Home made is almost always better especially with Tortillas or the Sopes. That great corn flavor comes through triple good when these are home made. Unless you want to grind your own field corn, you will need to start with the Masa Harina which you will find the same as using Corn Meal for Corn Bread. You simply reconstitute it with water to make a dough. That is what was used here and something tells me that the better job you do with kneading the dough the better the result. I have been an avid Mexican food lover for a long time and make it a lot, and this meal was one of the best I have ever made. Of course the sauce was made from scratch, and I had smoked a couple of Chuck Roast a few days earlier so the meat was excellent, so there really were no excuses. All those wonderful condiments like radishes, pico de gallo, pickled and / or roasted Jalapenos, lettuce, and cilantro, etc were missing since it was a weekday work night but what we did have was so good it did not matter. I have to remind my self to always make these Mexican dishes on a weekend.

Garlic Pepper Chuck Roast

I love Chuck Roast for it's beefy flavor - it's one of my favorite cuts of beef. I think of Sunday dinners at my Grandmother everytime I have it. Cooked long enough in some braising liquid and it will get very tender. I wanted this to be like I remembered so I only used slivers of garlic studded into the meat and coarse kosher salt and black pepper. Since one of the roast was nearly separated when I opened the package I tied them both with twine before cooking. Smoke + Meat is always the way to go, so I cooked these right on the grate of the pellet cooker set at 300 cooking temp until the internal meat temp was 165. The meat was transfered to a pan and about one inch of water added before wrapping with foil and into the oven for the rest of the cook. The chuck roast always needs to cook more then you think to reach that falling apart stage and I cook them to at least 205.

Onion Pie w/Chipped Corned Beef

This will surprise you! Most would believe a dish made predominately out of onions would be of a strong onion flavor and that is just not the case. Garlic is the same way - if you bake garlic it will actually become almost sweet and definitely savory. I first made this in 2006 or so and when I made it this time I planned to add crumbled bacon but realized I had just enough left over Corned Beef that I sliced thin, so I chopped it a little and used it instead. I use store bought deep dish pie shells but the recipe indicates you only need one shell and it actually takes two of them but when I buy they come in two packs anyway. If you would like the recipe you can find it here on my website where you might also take a look at some of the best bbq smokers made.

Corned Beef

When it comes to Corned Beef I really do not like a strong flavor and usually soak them at least 24 hours. Even with the long soak and rinsing before the cook, you still get plenty of that Corned Beef flavor. The interesting thing about this deli meat is the comparison with Pastrami and since I smoked this 4 lb roast, some would say that it is now just as much Pastrami as it is Corned Beef. Both are cured but the Corned Beef is brine cured and the Pastrami is dry cured.
The Pastrami is usually smoked then steamed but the Corned Beef is boiled. This was smoked with the cooker temp set at 300 to an internal meat temp of 170 and wrapped in foil with a small amount of water and continued to cook until the meat was 190. I have a electric meat slicer that was about 90 bucks and it was well worth that because deli meat is just better when sliced very thin. You could say this was my practice run for St Patricks Day next weekend where we'll do a much larger Corned Beef and cook in the pot with the traditional carrots and onions then slice thick for the plate.

Beef Stew w/Brisket

Couple of weeks ago (see blog post below) I made Tostadas with some Beef Brisket Burnt Ends and I thought at the time it was the best use of this meat I had found - not so sure now.Last night I made Beef Stew and added the already made Burnt Ends right at the last of the cook and this was some of the best stew I have ever had and I love beef stew. It's just so simple and down home good - all you need is plain loaf bread and a little Tobasco.

Tostasdas Made With Beef Brisket

Let's talk Tostadas. I cook a lot of barbecue and often have some to vacuum seal for later use and brisket, particularly, the point or thick fatty end of a whole one is my favorite leftover bbq for use in all kind of ways. This portion of a brisket is normally cubed and cooked even longer than the rest to give you what we call "Burnt Ends". The best dish I have made with these Burnt Ends of Brisket however is this Tostadas dish. I did a rough dice on the meat and carmelized in a skillet with very little oil - you could say at that point it had been double carmelized. The assembly of the Tostadas consisted of the standard condiments of Refried Beans, Shredded Lettuce, Chopped Tomato and Onion, Cilantro, and Crumbling Cheese. I knew this was going to be a good dish so I made my sauce from scratch using dried Guajillios and Chipotles in Adobo.
The pictures here are terrible and were made with a phone (camera batteries died) but they look better when enlarged by clicking them.