Firing things up again

[Jonas-Switzerland]

I'm so happy to see you!


I found some time to fire up my grills this week. I had a cheap aldi picanha in the freezer and took the opportunity to cook some red meat for my wife.

Simple salt'n pepper rub.



Setup my WSM with two charcoal baskets, and gave the picanha a pre-smoke without a waterpan.



I was running low on time, so I increased the temps and also started the reverse sear on the WSM.

Pulled at 130F internal. Top side:


Fat side
I underestimated the IR heat from the WSM. The fat side was already crisp, and the meat cooked significantly from the fat side up. I cut the Picanha up, moved the charcoal baskets to the kettle, and gave everything a sear. I forgot to take pictures.

But these are the seared pieces



And then the plate



Ended up in the well-done area of doneness. But it was still a surprisingly good steak. We liked the taste we got from the pre-smoke. I got almost like a proto-bark on the outside of the picanha. Certainly gonna revisit a pre-smoke when I have proper time for a pre-smoke.

 

[Tim Campbell]

I love picanha and your looks delicious, Jonas. Awesome cook.

 

[Jonas-Switzerland]

New use case for an instant read thermometer: Checking milk temperatures



I tried out Kenji's chicken breast recipe. Whacked chicken breasts like they owed me money, mixed left over thai curry paste and mayonnaise and marinated overnight.


Next day onto the kettle



And onto the plate. The green curry paste was OK, but not stellar. The masaman curry paste was pretty good base. It was missing a bit of extra something, like soy sauce or maybe a touch of vinegar to balance out the sweetness of the curry.

Definitely going to do that cook again.