Grandma Lu’s is a secret recipe, but the basics are listed on the back: sichuan peppercorns, imported sea salts, cayenne pepper, and other spices. The seasoning has a lemony aroma (from the peppercorns) with a hint of cayenne. I’m not particularly good at scent analysis so I’ll save some of my guesses…

In the shot below you can see some of the sea salt.

Tasting the seasoning by itself is pretty fun – I had a few folks over and everybody enjoyed the experience. The tinging sensation has been described as similar to putting a 9-volt battery to your tongue for a moment. My take: not exactly, but there’s definitely a familiarity there. There’s also a spicy kick that passes pretty quickly.

I’m really looking forward to using this spice in a few new recipes for the grill (thinking flanken short ribs!) but I went a different direction tonight based on some last-minute grocery store inspiration.

Of all things a turkey meatloaf seemed like the right thing for dinner tonight. It was turkey, egg yolks, Grandma Lu’s, a sweet onion, and kosher salt. I roasted some carrots to get a sweet dimension in the meal. The idea behind keeping it basic was to really understand how the seasoning would affect the taste as well as the right amount of seasoning to use. As I play around some more, look out for some tighter recipes.

You can buy Grandma Lu’s on Amazon – I definitely recommend giving it a try!

How to make homemade mayonnaise for all your grilling needs.

I’ve been wanting to experiment with more homemade condiments so I decided to start with this homemade mayo recipe from The Sauce Book. Mayonnaise is one of my favorite condiments. Not only is it a rich and indulgent component in a multitude of daily dishes, it plays an especially pivotal role in a grill master’s repertoire. While store bought mayo is more than adequate for just about any application, if you’re looking to truly impress your guests, making your own definitely buys you credibility and respect.

This can also be a life saving skill to have should you ever run out of mayo; it’s definitely less of a pain to whip up a batch than drive to the store to get some.

Here’s what you need:

• 2 egg yolks (room temperature)
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
• salt and pepper
• 1 cup sunflower oil
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice

Note that various factors including your taste preferences, what the mayonnaise is being paired with, and what you may be adding to the mayo later will affect the amount of lemon juice, salt and pepper you’ll use to season it.

I started by measuring a cup of sunflower oil into a pour-friendly container. This beaker has a rubber stopper and spot paired with it, which made it easier to pour with one hand.

Combine the egg yolk, mustard, and white wine vinegar in the bowl of your choice. Note that my choice was poor here. A smaller bowl would have made it easier to whisk, and would have saved my assistant quite a bit of whisking effort. [Noted for next time, Court!]

Add the oil slowly in a thin stream and whisk constantly. When all the oil is incorporated and the mayonnaise thickens, add lemon juice, salt, and pepper to flavor. You can just see a dish towel in the bottom of the picture above, you can use this or a silicone mat to stabilize the bowl while you’re mixing.

And there you go! Homemade mayonnaise in just a few minutes and relatively fuss free. You should be able to throw it in the fridge for a couple of days, but I wouldn’t keep it much longer than that. This batch went to some bison burgers shortly after it’s inception, but you can also extend the impact of this recipe by using it as a base. Some easy mayonnaise extensions include chipotle, herbs, more dijon, horseradish, dill, sun dried tomato, olive…

Broken or funky tasting mayonnaise? Check out some potential issues and solutions below.

If your mayonnaise broke or never fully emulsified: it’s likely that your ingredients were too cold; be sure to start at room temperature. If everything was at room temperature, you may have added the oil too fast or not mixed it together enough as it was being added. Still not the case? Check your emulsifiers; the egg yolk (were they particularly small?) or the mustard (not enough, or may it have been low quality?)

If your mayonnaise has a funky taste: it’s likely that something is throwing the balance out of whack. I’ve seen this first hand when olive oil was used instead of a neutrally flavored oil. Off eggs are certainly a candidate, as is particularly strong or flavored mustard (pecan Dijon, for instance.)

I was very, very excited when I opened up this curiously heavy gift on Christmas morning…

If you haven’t read about the Lodge Enamel Dutch Ovens yet, know this: people love them. They rave about them. On Amazon for instance, the average rating is 4-5 stars and each version of the dutch oven has hundreds of reviews. Most notable about this line has to be a point highlighted in almost every comment and review; “Le Creuset on a budget!”

Suffice it to say, I was very, very excited when I opened up this curiously heavy gift on Christmas morning. Within minutes I was running through the Epicurious app trying to find a good recipe.

Enamel dutch ovens owe at least some of their popularity to the fact that it is dead easy to make delicious food in them. The coffee-rubbed pork shoulder below has 3 ingredients and took all of 5 minutes of preparation. Here’s what you need:

• 2 packets of Starbucks Via Coffee (I went with a bold flavor)
• kosher salt
• bone-in pork shoulder

If you’re in the market for a new dutch oven, I highly recommend this model from Lodge. The quality is incredible for the price. Plus, the color is pretty cool… it goes perfectly with my solo cups!

Note how fine the grind is on the Via. This is key for coffee rubs, as I’ve found coarse grinds to imbue an overly bitter flavor on the rub-ee, in this case, the pork shoulder. I decided not to use a traditional rub ratio in this dish as a bit of an experiment; I wanted to see if coffee and kosher salt could stand on their own.

I heated the enamel dutch oven to medium and browned the pork shoulder before putting it in the oven at 350 degrees. The idea behind getting a quick sear on the shoulder is about flavor and texture. Typically, I’d smoke a pork shoulder which would help develop a nice bark or crust, but baking the shoulder in a covered dutch oven doesn’t allow a bark to develop. This step helps imitate that texture.

About 3 and a half hours later, the coffee rubbed bone-in pork shoulder was ready to come out of the oven. When the bone comes out clean, you know you’re there. I try to remove and serve the pork in chunks and then shred it as needed. I believe (though, have not justified though testing) that this helps the shoulder keep better. At the very least, it makes it much more presentable than a pile of shredded pork.

Let me know what you think.

A light and cool shrimp taco dish with a smokey sauce…

Grilled shrimp tacos are definitely on my list of favorite things to make. They are great party fare; light but filling and fun to eat. The recipe below makes use of a chipotle sour cream sauce that is always a winner for its cool smoky flavor.

Side note. Grilled shrimp tacos not for you? Check out Cooking.com’s recipe of the day.

The portion below is good for 2-3 people depending on how you ration your shrimp. To scale it up, just add more shrimp.

Finally, before we get to the fun part… a quick note on the shrimp I used. I much prefer cooking shrimp shell on and dealing with the additional cleanup steps because the taste really is that much better. These guys were actually cooked fully intact (head on) and then shelled before making it into the taco. If you haven’t done this before please give it a try. On the flip side, if you’re cooking for a group and not a fast sheller… save it for when you have some practice.

All the necessary ingredients for shrimp tacos!

Shopping List:

• 1 red onion
• 1 ripe avocado
• 1 head green cabbage (napa here)
• 3-4 limes
• sour cream
• queso fresco
• fresh tortillas
• 6 raw shrimp
• chipotle powder

Prep definitely goes far whenever making tacos, but it’s especially important for shrimp because they have such a small window of being perfectly cooked. Prepare all the ingredients in advance; shred the cabbage, thinly slice the red onion and avocado (make sure to squeeze a lime over the avocado to prevent browning,) half the remaining limes, and crumb or grate the queso fresco. It’s worth making an assembly line or bar with these ingredients. Mix – to taste – chipotle powder and sour cream for color and smokiness. I always let this sit for a while so that the taste is more consistent throughout.

When you have your taco ingredients together, you’ll want to conduct necessary prep on the shrimp. For me this was splitting and deveining them using kitchen shears. I tossed them in olive oil and threw them on the grill for about 2 minutes on each side. It’s my experience that most people overcook shrimp. Invest some time in perfecting the art of shrimp grilling and it will definitely pay off.

The finished product, joined by some hatch chili tortilla chips.

Now you’re ready for assembly. I don’t think there’s much science to the taco assembly here. I went with an avocado base on an oven-warmed fresh tortilla, then cabbage and red onion, then the shrimp chipotle sour cream, and then topped off the shrimp taco with queso fresco and a light squeeze of lime.

I found Central Market’s Hatch Chile tortilla chips to be a solid pairing here. A lightly flavored tortilla chip is the way to go unless you’re going to make a salsa to go with the dish…

On the drink side of things, given the flavors involved, go with a wheat or mexican beer; they’ll work well with the citrus and the shrimp. If you’re a wine lover a sweet white will go quite nicely.

Good luck and as always, let me know what you think.

Back to the eggs… but what can I say? They were from Central Market. Previously from chickens. Presumably hens. Just a guess.

To be honest there was not a lot of strategy here. It was pretty much to put the eggs on and then to see what happened.

The aforementioned eggs…

The finished product, after about two hours on the smoker.

It’s a hard boiled egg with a hint of smokey goodness!

I was actually surprised that I enjoyed the eggs; they might even make a decent addition to some potato salad as the secret ingredient that ties everything together.

The photos took me instantly to the last time I had that very dish and spurred the thought – why has it been so long since I made it?

BBQ Brisket with a Chile Kick

This Sunday we decided to smoke a brisket – so far my favorite thing to barbecue – and have a little fun with it. The plan was to get it smoking early in the morning with a spicy rub and tear into it for dinner with some fresh tortillas and smoked and sauteed vegetables. Plan executed to near perfection.

(So well executed in fact that none of us bothered to take any pictures of the “after” because we were way too busy eating!)

This was the setup:

1. Trimmed the fat on the brisket to 1/4″
2. Threw together a quick rub (ancho, cayenne, paprika, salt, brown sugar, garlic)
3. Got the smoker going with charcoal and soaked cherry wood
4. Threw the brisket on – fat side up – until the internal hit 160° (about 6 hrs)
5. Wrapped the brisket in tinfoil – fat side still up – until the internal hit 190° (2.5 hrs)
6. Added some jalapenos and red peppers
7. Removed brisket. Let it rest.
8. Prepped the remaining vegetable support (texas sweet onions, jalapenos, peppers)
9. Sliced everything up and enjoyed on a fresh tortilla…
10. (Forgot to take pics due to hunger and excitement)

This was a bit of an experiment in smoking the brisket directly on the grates vs in a drip pan for the main haul. In the drip pan seemed juicier for sure, but more testing will need to be conducted. Perhaps we’ll go for a double brisket next Sunday…

Sick of mushrooms running away from your burger when you bite in? Me too.

I’m happy to admit this one’s a bit ridiculous. I love having mushrooms on my burgers but they always fall off and become a messy hazard. I thought to myself, perhaps if I used melted cheese to glue them in place…

Nothing too crazy here other than the amount of cheese used. If you want to recreate:

1. Cook the mushrooms in a hot cast iron skillet.
2. Throw your hamburger on the grill and cook one side.
3. Flip and add a layer of your cheese of choice. Allow to melt.
4. Add cooked mushrooms on top of that layer.
5. Top with more cheese. I went with a double layer.
6. Cook the burgers to perfection, prep, and enjoy!

The approach was rather brutish and rudimentary but successful. Certainly not a gourmet burger winning any awards but it was an entertaining way to spend the evening!

Freezing where you are? Read on for tips on successful winter grilling.

I’m in Texas now, but I grew up in the cold northeast. I’m inspired to write a little bit about winter grilling because we’re having some uncharacteristically cold weather and it’s reminding me of the days when I had to trudge out in the snow for a good chunk of the year if I wanted a good steak or burger.

I’m assuming if you’re reading this, I don’t need to win you over on the value of grilling, but you may benefit from a quick bit of positive reinforcement. Here’s what I love about firing up the grill when it’s cold.

• It’s a reason to get outside.
• You get to laugh at nature.
• Fire and snow go really well together.
• It’s satisfying to come inside – freezing – to a hot grilled meal.
• Your neighbors could be impressed by your fortitude.
• Your neighbors could be intimidated by your craziness.

If you’re ready to get out there, you need to be able to deal with a few challenges; it’s cold, preparation takes longer, food cooks differently, and some foods simply will not fare well.

First things first. Obviously it’s cold out. It’s important to dress for success – make sure that you will be adequately protected from the elements. More than once I’ve assumed that I could just hop outside in whatever I happened to be wearing only to find I had to spend a little more time than I thought and rushed back in. Good grilling takes precision and precision takes time.

Don’t forget hand protection. You’re going to be exposed to the elements but you’ll also need dexterity.

You can also hedge your bets against the cold. Can you move your grill closer to the door and still maintain a safe distance between the grill and the house? If so, go for it. It’s important to consider the wind as well – cold wind has an incredible effect on cooking times and can cool off hot food extremely quickly. If you can adjust to block the wind – again, safely – your efforts will be rewarded.

Remember that your grill will heat up much differently when it’s freezing outside. It will also cook differently. The air above the food in the grill will be colder than normal, so indirect heat cooking will be greatly affected. Plan on more time for preheating and paying more attention to how your food is being cooked. Depending on the conditions, effects will vary, so it pays to be dynamic.

Some foods simply do not respond well to winter grilling. They will be cold before you even get back to the door. When it’s freezing out, the heartier the food being cooked the better. Things I don’t like to grill when it’s very cold out include:

• Delicate fish
• Chicken less than 1/4″ in thickness
• Sides like mushrooms, asparagus, onions
• Bread or pizza
• Shrimp
• Basically… anything smaller than a closed fist

Steaks, burgers, significant cuts of meat; these are the things that make for successful winter grilling.

The key here is basic – prepare. Think about how the cooking will be affected, what you can do to reduce the weather’s effect on your efforts, and be ready for the cold. My final tip – have fun with it. If you find a way to enjoy yourself when grilling in the cold, you’ll be able to stay out there much longer, and the results will show in your food. What better way is there to enjoy the cold than lighting a fire?

How do you deal with grilling in the cold? What do you like to grill? Comment below!

[Header image source.]

Asterisk on the salad, because I got the “wrong feta.” It was still incredible!