For someone who tries to eat lower on the food chain, I sure love using my smoker.
Granted, I could smoke things like cheese and even some vegetables but meat is where the smoker really shines!
I’ve smoked pork shoulders, ribs, and turkey breasts, and I continue to expand my repertory, but I really enjoy smoking chicken thighs.
Smoking is often an all-day affair. Sometimes it’s an all-night affair if one is smoking large enough pieces of meat. So far, I’ve limited myself to smoking things that can go into the smoker at a reasonable time of the day. I’m not one of those guys who wants to sit beside his smoker through the night with a cooler of beer at his side!
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Chicken thighs cook in a relatively short period of time so they’re great when you want to limit attending to the smoker to just a few hours before dinnertime.
My smoker has an adjustment for the heat output but not temperature, per se. If the wind or external temperature change, the internal smoker temperature changes, too. Some day I’ll get a smoker with an actual thermostat but so far this one has served me well.
If you get a smoker with an automatic thermostat there would be almost no need to attend to the chicken thighs. While I have a nice smoker, it doesn’t have a thermostat. It has a control that puts out an adjustable but then constant amount of heat based on the setting similar to the way car heaters used to work before cars had real thermostats. If the outdoor temperature or wind changes, the temperature inside the smoker will change due to the constant heat output.
Before I had a smoker, I used my gas grill to smoke. It has a separate burner just for creating smoke from wood chips. It has three other burners to actually cook the food plus a rotisserie burner. Under many circumstances, the burner for the wood chips puts out enough heat to keep the grill at the proper smoking temperature. When the weather turns cold, like the time I smoked a turkey on Thanksgiving, a little heat from one of the other burners is needed…just not a burner that’s actually under the food.
I sometimes use my gas grill to smoke things, including a whole turkey once.
If you don’t have a smoker (and I realize that most people don’t) you really can do these on a grill with indirect heat, either gas or charcoal.
Put on oven thermometer on the grate where you intend to put the chicken. There should not be any heat coming from under that grate. Heat up the opposite side of the grill using either gas or charcoal. With a little experimentation, you’ll be able to keep the side of the grill, where the chicken will go, at the proper smoking temperature. If your grill doesn’t have a separate place for wood chips, add some wood chips, soaked in water for 30 minutes, to the hot part of the grill from time to time.
Happy smoking!!! (Oh, and don’t forget the beer!)
Barbecued Chicken Thighs
These chicken thighs are moist and fall-apart tender. See the Notes section for links to my recipes for barbecue rub and barbecue sauce. Professional kitchens often weigh liquids, hence the 4000 grams of water. 4000 grams would essentially be the same as 4 liters. The advantage of weighing the water, though, is that you can add ice to cool the brine down while still being exact about the quantity of water. This recipe scales easily.
After a lot of discussion and email exchanges, we decided to name the group Santa Fe Ate, both for what we do and for the (play on the words regarding the) number of people in the group.
From the “Things You Can Cook in a Wood-Burning Oven” dinner: Roasted Cauliflower with whipped Goat Cheese, Ricotta, and Olive Oil Dip and Cannellini alla Toscana
We had our first dinner in January 2013 and we’ve been going strong ever since. We meet about once every three months, rotating houses. At each dinner we decide the theme for the next dinner. This may not be the best time to make such a consequential decision given the amount of alcohol typically consumed. For example, one of our themes was French Indo-China 1920s to 1930s!
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Frank and Doug don’t really cook so their group assignment is always to come up with a signature cocktail and appropriate wine pairings for each course. They have leeway to be creative in finding or creating a cocktail, which they have to do for even for cultures where drinking alcohol is not really common. If the theme of the dinner relates to a wine producing region, the wines are generally from that region to the extent feasible.
From the French Indo-China 1920s to 1930s dinner: Cambodian Fish Amok (Fish and Coconut Milk Curry Baked in Banana Leaves)
The other six of us do successive rounds of emails refining the list of dishes to be prepared and organizing them into courses. Our task is to be as authentic to the theme as possible.
French Indo-China 1920s to 1930s was probably our most narrow theme. Others have included, for example, Summer in Provence, Winter in Friuli, Along the Silk Road, Persia (not Iran but Persia), Comfort Food, and Things You Can Cook in a Wood-Burning Oven (for which the entire meal was cooked in our outdoor wood-burning oven).
The only meal we’ve had which strayed from the basic plan was Timballo. Timballo is a (typically large) pastry-encased and baked dish of layered pasta, hardboiled eggs, cheese, meatballs, and other meats, all moistened with tomato sauce. Each of the cooks was assigned one or more components of the timballo to make at home. We got together to assemble and bake the final dish. This was a multi-hour process, even with all the prep work done in advance.
Unmolding the timballo
To help pass the time, Frank and Doug devised a blind wine-tasting in which we had to try to identify the varietal and provenance of each wine. I believe the eight of us tasted six bottles of wine. After we finished those, we opened some more. This was the dinner at which we decided the theme of French Indo-China 1920s to 1930s. You may notice a correlation between alcohol intake and unusual dinner themes!
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Earlier this year, our theme was Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book, first edition, published in 1950. Every dish had to come from the cookbook with no changes, substitutions or updating unless absolutely necessary. One of the appetizers was anchovies rolled around cornichons!
Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book, 1950, First Edition
The food was actually surprisingly good. I suspect part of that was related to how each of us selected our dish or dishes (Becky, who did appetizers selected three!). The wines were, undoubtedly, fabulous. In the United States, if you were drinking wine in the 1950s you were likely drinking French wine, and good French wine, at that! On that night, so were we!
I made a Maraschino Cherry Cake with Almond Crème Filling and Maraschino Boiled Frosting. Though if I were making the cake again, I would probably substitute my recipe for Italian Pastry Cream for Betty’s Crème Filling, I really wouldn’t make any other changes.
Here’s the recipe directly from the first edition of the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook with a few minor adaptions of the technique by me. For you bakers out there, I’m providing the original sea-level measurements as published in the cookbook. Since I baked this at nearly 8000 feet in elevation, I followed Betty’s recommendations for adjusting for high altitude.
Getting ready to make Maraschino Cherry Cake
Maraschino Cherry Cake
You can divide the work for this cake over several days. The filling can be made up to three days in advance and refrigerated, tightly covered. Stir in the toasted almonds just before using. The cake layers can be made a day in advance, wrapped tightly and refrigerated. The frosting should be made when you’re ready to frost the cake. The original recipe called for “rich milk” in the almond crème filling. Remember, this recipe was published before the advent of homogenized milk. Half-and-half is a good substitute. Except in professional recipes, it is rare to see egg whites measured in volume but it is a very good idea as the white, much more than the yolk, varies with the size of the egg.
1/4cupMaraschino cherry liquid(from the jar of Maraschino cherries)
3/4cupwhole milk
1/2cupchopped blanched almondsor other nuts
16maraschino cherriescut in eighths (plus additional whole cherries for decorating the top of the cake)
5egg whites(2/3 cup)
Almond Crème Filling
1/4cupgranulated sugar
1tablespooncornstarch
1/2teaspoonsalt
1cuphalf-and-half
4egg yolkslightly beaten
1teaspoonalmond extract
1/2teaspoonvanilla extract
1/2cupchopped toasted blanched almonds
Maraschino Cherry Cooked Frosting
3egg whites
1 1/2cupsgranulated sugar
1/4teaspooncream of tartar
6tablespoonsMaraschino cherry liquid(from the jar of Maraschino cherries)
1teaspoonvanilla extract
1/2teaspoonalmond extract
Method
Maraschino Cherry Cake
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Reserve.
Combine milk and Maraschino cherry liquid. Reserve.
Cream butter.
Cream in sugar until fluffy.
Add dry ingredients in four additions, alternating with milk-juice mixture in three additions. Mix lightly, but well, after each addition.
Stir in nuts and Maraschino cherries.
In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff.
Fold beaten egg whites into batter, using about ¼ of the egg whites first to loosen the batter.
Pour into two greased and floured 9” cake pans.
Bake 350°F approximately 30-35 minutes, until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool the pans on a rack approximately 10 minutes.
Remove layers from pans and cool completely.
Almond Crème Filling
Combine the sugar, cornstarch, salt and half-and-half in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.
Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
Slowly pour about half of the boiling half-and-half mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, to temper the yolks.
Put the saucepan with the remaining half-and-half mixture back on the heat.
Pour the tempered yolks back into the saucepan, whisking constantly.
Bring the mixture to a boil. Boil 1 minute, stirring constantly.
Remove from the heat and stir in the almond and vanilla extracts.
Pour the pastry cream into a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, putting the wrap directly on the pastry cream to avoid a skin.
Refrigerate until cold.
Stir in chopped almonds just before using.
Just before making the frosting, put one cake layer on a serving platter. Top with Almond Crème Filling.
Top with second layer.
Maraschino Cherry Cooked Frosting
Combine the egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar and Maraschino cherry liquid in a double boiler.
Cook over boiling water, beating constantly with an electric mixer until a spreadable consistency, approximately 5-7 minutes. The top of the double boiler should not touch the boiling water in the bottom.
The combination of rice and legumes (peas, beans, lentils) is common throughout much of the world. Sometimes the beans and rice are cooked together like Cajun Red Beans and Rice, Ecuadorian Gallo Pinto or Italian Risi e Bisi. Sometimes the beans and rice are cooked separately but served together as with Cuban Black Beans and Rice. The combination of black beans and rice, mixed into a single dish, is traditionally called Moros y Cristianos, a not very politically correct term that translates as Moors and Christians.
Jamaican Rice and Peas is probably the most well-known version of the combination from the West Indies, a term that is typically applied to the English-speaking parts of the Caribbean. As I’ve mentioned before, although Guyana is on the South American mainland, it was administered as part of the British West Indies and most definitely has a West Indian culture.
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Jamaican Rice and Peas is typically meatless. It is most often made with red kidney beans. Part of the cooking liquid is coconut milk.
The house where Ray Hugh, my college roommate, grew up and where I stayed on several occasions, Georgetown, Guyana
Cook Up, the Guyanese version of rice and peas, is most definitely not meatless. In my experience, it is rare to have fewer than two types of meat in Cook Up. Coconut milk also figures prominently.
I made four trips to Guyana starting just prior to my junior year in college and ending just prior to starting my internship after finishing medical school. During the first three trips, I stayed with Ray Hugh, my college roommate, at his father’s house.
During the last trip, I was working as a physician at the public hospital in Georgetown, Guyana. I rented a room in a private house. That visit was scheduled to last for five months with a brief return to the States for my medical school graduation after about three and a half months. As graduation approached, and the prospect of working long hours as an intern became more real, I decided that when I flew home for graduation I would stay put and relax for a bit before starting internship.
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I enjoy going to food markets whenever I travel, be they local convenience stores, supermarkets, open-air markets, or any other variant! Stabroek Market in Georgetown is a roofed-over open-sided market housed in a sprawling Nineteenth Century building. Vendors sell food and almost any other necessity.
Stabroek Market in Georgetown, Guyana (photo: Google, stabroeknews.com)
Although the house where I stayed had a cook, she only cooked lunch, a very substantial lunch I might add! I sometimes cooked dinner. Stabroek Market was where I did my shopping.
Thyme figures prominently in Guyanese cooking. There are three different herbs that are referred to as thyme in Guyana. The first is what we think of as “regular” thyme, sometimes called French thyme. The second is referred to as fine-leaf thyme or Guyanese thyme. The third is called thick-leaf thyme or broad-leaf thyme.
Although there are many varieties of thyme, thick-leaf thyme is not really thyme but a semi-succulent perennial plant that has wide distribution. Guyanese thyme, which is quite difficult to obtain in the United States may actually be a variety of oregano. Thyme, oregano, and marjoram are all closely related.
Rather than sweat trying to find different varieties of thyme, I use “regular” (French) thyme and a little oregano and/or marjoram to round out the flavors. Since no two cooks use the same herbs in the same quantities, and since many Guyanese cooks would just use French thyme, I think the addition of a little oregano and/or marjoram to mimic fine-leaf thyme produces a traditional taste. However you do it, thyme should be the predominant flavor. Since thyme can taste medicinal in large quantities, use it sparingly at first if it’s not an herb you’re accustomed to cooking with.
Guyanese "Cook Up" (Rice and Peas with Coconut Milk and Meats)
There are more variations of Cook Up than there are Guyanese cooks. Consider this recipe a starting point. You can use more kinds or different meat, such as diced corned beef or pickled pork (essentially made the same was as corned beef but with pork). Typically, in Guyana, the meats and black-eyed peas would be cooked in the same pot, being added when appropriate to finish cooking at the same time. Liquid would be adjusted by sight and the rice and other ingredients added and the cooking finished. When I made this frequently, I had all the timing down and got quite good at estimating the volume of liquid in the pot. These days, I cook the different ingredients in steps, and actually measure the liquid, as described below.
Minced fresh hot pepperto taste (optional but traditional)
Smoked Meat Broth
2 1/4poundssmoked ham shanksor 1 smoked ham hock, see Notes below
8cupswater
Final Assembly
1/3poundbacon
2medium onionsdiced
3clovesgarlicminced
2cupsblack eyed peas
6teaspoonssaltdivided
4cupslong-grain white rice
3cupscoconut milkcanned is fine, preferably Aroy-D brand
Method
Seasoned Chicken
Combine chicken thighs with all chicken seasoning ingredients.
Mix well. Refrigerate several hours or overnight.
Smoked Meat Broth
Make the smoked meat broth using the ham shanks or ham hock and water. You can do this by simmering them, covered, for 4-5 hours; cooking in a pressure cooker or Instant Pot for 60 minutes; or using a slow cooker set on low for 6-8 hours.
When the broth is done, remove and reserve the ham shanks or ham hock. Skim the fat from the broth, add water to make 8 cups, and refrigerate if not using immediately.
Dice the meat from the ham shanks or ham hock and reserve.
Final Assembly
Dice the bacon.
In a large, heavy-bottomed Dutch oven or stockpot with a tight-fitting lid, brown the bacon.
Remove and reserve the bacon.
Brown the seasoned chicken pieces well, in batches, in a the bacon fat in the Dutch oven.
As the chicken pieces are browned, remove them to a platter.
After browning and removing all the chicken, add the onions to the Dutch oven and sauté until softened. If the onions do not release enough liquid to loosen the browned bits from the bottom of the pot, add a few tablespoons of broth or water.
After loosening the brown bits, continue to sauté the onions until translucent.
Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant.
Return the chicken to the pot with the onions and garlic. Add any accumulated juices as well as any marinade that might be left in the bowl. Add 4 cups of broth. Cover the pot and simmer approximately one hour, until the chicken is tender.
Remove and reserve the chicken.
Add the black-eyed peas and bacon to the pot in which the chicken was cooked along with the remaining 4 cups of broth. Bring to a gentle boil and cook, partially covered, until the peas are cooked, approximately 30-45 minutes, adding two teaspoons of salt after about 15 minutes of cooking.
When the peas are cooked drain them, reserving the cooking liquid.
Measure the cooking liquid and either add water or boil it down to make four cups.
Return the cooking liquid to the Dutch oven along with the cooked black-eyed peas and bacon, diced pork from the broth, rice, coconut milk and 4 teaspoons of salt. Bring to a boil, stirring a few times. Put the chicken pieces on top of the rice, cover the pot, reduce the heat to low, and cook for 20 minutes without opening the pot.
Remove the rice from the heat and allow it to rest for 15 minutes without removing the lid.
After 15 minutes taste a bit of the rice. It should be cooked, but if not, add a bit more water and cook briefly on low heat, covered, until the rice is fully cooked.
Arrange the chicken on a serving platter.
Stir the rice and put on the platter with the chicken or on a different one. Serve immediately with West Indian hot sauce.
When visiting family in Patagonia a number of years ago we had a meal that went something like this:
Appetizer: Fried calamari (15 kilos, no less)
First course: Grilled lamb chops
Second course: Grilled steak
Third course: Grilled chicken
Fourth course: Grilled sausage
All that was followed by maté, a caffeine-containing tisane made from the leaves of a native tree.
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A tisane would be tea, if it were made from tea leaves but, since it’s not made from tea leaves, it isn’t properly called tea. A tisane is different from a decoction though we sometimes erroneously call both of them tea.
In a tisane, the botanicals are steeped in hot water, as is tea. Whereas, for a decoction, the ingredients are actually boiled.
Maté (photo by Jorge Alfonso Hernández / http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)
I don’t remember what dessert was but we had something!
To be fair, there were some vegetables on the table. But they didn’t migrate far from us Americans sitting at one end. The heads of this extended family, my husband’s great uncle and aunt from Italy, made a bit of a nod in the direction of vegetables. Their children, grandchildren, and the various spouses and significant others wanted nothing at all to do with anything that once had roots.
Nonetheless, Argentines excel at making side dishes that compliment grilled meat. This eggplant is one example. (I’m not sure who, exactly, eats these dishes but they do appear on tables!)
This eggplant great for a crowd since it is made in advance and can sit in the fridge for several days, getting better each day. It’s a perfect accompaniment to grille meats. That’s a plus now that summer grilling season is here.
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I really like having an array of dishes in my repertoire that don’t require much (or any) last minute fussing when I’m trying to feed a crowd. This dish fits the bill perfectly.
Maté plant in the wild (photo by Ilosuna / http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)
I frequently get asked for the recipe which tells me it’s generally well liked.
Now that summer grilling season is upon us, give this a try! I promise you won’t be sorry.
Argentine Marinated Eggplant
If your dried oregano is more than a year old, you may want to get a new jar for this dish. The oregano is key to the flavor. If you can get very aromatic, dried wild oregano from Italy so much the better. See the Notes section below for some amazing wild oregano. Adjust the crushed red pepper to taste.
I’m posting this recipe today because it is one of the three desserts that I typically serve on the Fourth of July. The other two are Dulce de Leche Cheesecake Bars and Nick Maglieri’s Supernatural Brownies.
Our front gate ready for the Fourth of July, 2017
The first year that these three became our traditional dessert course, one of our guests, after tasting them, commandeered the platter and started serving the other guests. He introduced the dessert as “Sex on a platter!”
That was the moment when I knew I could not make changes to the dessert course without proof that the changes would actually be an improvement rather than just different.
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The three desserts make a winning combination.
Guests arriving by van from the parking area
This year, we are not throwing our usual Fourth of July party. Instead, we are spending two weeks on Fire Island.
For the last five and a half years, my husband, Frank, has been working in Alamogordo, New Mexico, a four-hour drive from our home in Santa Fe. With rare exceptions, we’ve only seen each other on weekends during this time. The trip to Fire Island is a celebration of his last day of work in Alamogordo which was this past Friday.
Fourth of July guests
Even when not part of the Fourth of July dessert trifecta, these lemon bars get great reviews but I have to apologize a bit to Zia Ida.
Zia Ida is my husband’s Aunt Ida. Zia is the Italian word for aunt.
Zia Ida, far left, my father-in-law, and their aunt, Zia Fidalma, from Tuscany
I still consider these to be her lemon bars even though I’ve tweaked her recipe. I added the lemon zest as her original recipe only called for the juice. I think the zest adds layers of lemon flavor as the essential oils are way more lemony than the juice. I also like to add coconut, though it wasn’t part of the original recipe and can certainly be left out. Since I like my lemon bars tart, I increased the lemon juice from the original 5 tablespoons.
These lemon bars are not fussy to make. I’ve seen fussy recipes that include steps like precooking the filling and diddling with the crust. I don’t think either of those steps would improve the flavor and they’d definitely increase the work involved.
More Fourth of July guests
If you have a favorite recipe for some sort of dessert bar, I’d love to see it. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy Zia Ida’s Lemon Bars.
Zia Ida's Lemon Bars
The coconut is optional. If you like your lemon bars less tart, use 5 tablespoons of lemon juice. After zesting the lemons for the crust and the lemon topping, squeeze the juice and strain well. You may need juice from an additional lemon.
