BBQ

How To Cook Salmon Tips & Methods

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Salmon is a versatile fish for the reason that there are numerous ways to prepare the fillets. Its a healthy protein filled with Omega 3 Fats which have many health benefits, including enhanced brain function and overall wellness. Salmon is a flavorsome fish therefore can choose to cook it unseasoned or you can add a range of spices to add even more flavor. The most common ways of cooking salmon include baking, pan frying and poaching. Keep reading for a few helpful tips about how to cook salmon.

To bake the salmon, put the fillets in a dish which has been sprayed with olive oil apply or wrap the salmon in foil with various spices i.e. experiment with different spices and herbs or a squeeze of lemon juice or a hint of soy sauce. Bake the fish inside a pre-heated oven for about 15-20 min’s or until cooked the way you like (note – cooking times may vary depending on the size of your fillets). Serve the unseasoned salmon with mayo or djonaisse as well as a lemon wedge. For seasoned fillets, there is no need to serve with additional condiments. Serve the salmon with a mixed green salad for a healthy and also balanced meal.

Salmon is tasty pan fried or cooked on the Barbecue. As with the baking technique, you can pan-fry or BBQ salmon without seasoning or it is possible to add sea salt & spice up or even a herb crusting. Once pan-fried, the exterior of the seafood may become crispy, specifically if you maintain the skin. Spray the fish with extra virgin olive oil spray or brush it with olive oil just before cooking on a medium-high heat right up until it is cooked (generally about 4-5 mins on either side.) Serve the salmon together with your favorite mix of greens or perhaps vegetables.

The actual healthiest way to cook salmon would be to poach it. To get this done, fill a medium-sized pot with around 5 centimeters of water and bring this to the boil. Gently position the salmon in the water, then reduce the heat to a mild, simmer where tiny bubbles seem round the fish. Cook for about eight minutes, or before the trout becomes opaque. It is possible to flavor the liquid to give the trout additional flavor. Attempt poaching the trout in a some chicken or even vegetable stock, or even in milk using a bay leaf plus some peppercorns. Poached salmon is actually fantastic flaked or cut and used in eating salads, sandwiches and also stirred in pasta.

Regardless how you choose to cook your fish or the seasonings you add (or dont), once you know how to cook salmon, you can incorporate this particular delightfully flavorsome seafood in your family members diet on a regular basis.

Cooking on Your Outdoor Fire Pit

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Have you cooked on your outdoor fire pit? Get the most out of your fire pit. It is not only great for enjoying warmth and relaxation on a cool evening but it is also great for cooking.

Our ancestors have been cooking on open flames for centuries. Knowing how to cook is a necessity for all of us. Cooking on an open fire can be a great activity with your family while teaching your kids a useful skill. Whether you have a permanent or portable fire pit cooking on it makes for great food and fun. You may be having a large gathering with friends or a simple meal with your family, either one your fire pit can be a great way to add uniqueness to your meal. Just about anything that you cook on your BBQ grill can be just as good and maybe better on your fire pit.

You can enjoy the outdoor cooking experience with any type of wood; any wood burning fire gives food a unique flavor. However, you can also experiment to get specific smoke flavors in your food. Using different types of wood can accent your food with different flavors. There are many different types of wood you can use but you need to be careful that you are going to get a flavor you like.

One key component to flavoring food when using different types of wood is the length of cooking time. The longer you cook the food the more flavors your food will pick up. If you are cooking foods for shorter periods of time the food will not pick up specific flavors. So don’t waste time trying to give specific flavor to fast cooking foods. The specific flavor is going to be dependent on the type of wood you use. Some woods will give a milder flavor while others will give stronger flavors. Woods such as almond, apple, apricot, cherry and citrus will give a milder light fruity flavor, while woods such as birch, maple, and oak give stronger but not over powering flavors. Alder is a traditional wood for smoking Salmon. Woods such as Walnut and Hickory can add strong over powering flavors.

Using a gas fire pit is another great way to cook food. You can use different types of wood chunks for different flavors. You simply moisten the wood chunks, you don’t want them dripping, then wrap them in foil. Poke 2 or 3 holes in the foil to allow smoke to escape. Lay them between the grill and burner. The foil will keep the ashes from getting into the burner and the smoke will flavor your food.

Two of my favorite recipes include:

Fresh Squash or Zucchini

Wash squash or Zucchini

Cut in half length wise

Scrape seeds out of middle

Cover with Zesty Italian dressing

Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese

Wrap in foil

Cook on fire until tender

Meat and Vegetable Shish Kabobs

Marinade your favorite meat chunks

Cut up favorite vegetables and marinade – mushrooms, pepper, onion, tomatoes

Place on wooden or metal sticks
alternating meat and vegetables

Place on fire until meat is cooked
through and vegetables are tender

So whatever it may be, a quick hamburger or hot dog meal that will cook quickly or your favorite poultry, leg of lamb or steak, get started now cooking on your outdoor fire pit.

Cooking Brisket in the Oven – A Beginners Guide

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Did you know that at one time, brisket was considered a very poor quality meat? History has it, that two brothers from Germany, back in the 1950’s decided to smoke up some leftover brisket they had. They left the brisket inside their smokehouse for an entire weekend. When they returned to work they sliced up the meat and served it to their customers. The meat was so flavorful and tender that it quickly became a hit.

I remember the first time I had the pleasure of eating beef brisket. It was at this fabulous little Barbecue Restaurant in Croton-On-Hudson, NY called Memphis Maes.

New York isn’t known for its BBQ, so my wife and I were a bit skeptical. But after we took our first bite of the “Texas BBQ Beef Brisket”, we became believers! My wife then looked at me and said , “You have to make this!” Not wanting to let the lovely wife down, I took it upon myself to try and recreate the BBQ brisket at home. I don’t own a smoker, so I needed to improvise and cook the brisket in the oven.

Believe it or not, the oven makes a pretty darn good BBQ brisket. Many BBQ enthusiasts will tell you that a smoker is the only way to cook brisket, but I can tell you from experience this is simply not the case.

The secret to a good beef brisket is to cook it nice and slow at around 225 degrees for several hours. So if you are looking for a quick and easy meal tonight, cooking brisket in the oven is not the way to go.

You will have to prepare this particular recipe one day in advance and you will need to plan some extra time to cook the brisket as it takes several hours to finish cooking.

Lets Talk About Dry Rubs

There are a variety of different dry rub recipes you can use for your beef brisket. One such recipe is listed below. Don’t be shy with your dry rub. You want to really coat the brisket well. Its not called a rub for nothing, so really rub those spices into the meat with your hands. After the rub has been applied put the brisket in the fridge and let it marinade over night.

DRY RUB

– 1/4 Cup Paprika – 1/4 Cup Light Brown Sugar – 2 Tbs Chili Powder – 2 Tbs Kosher Salt – 2 Tbs Freshly Cracked Black Pepper – 1 1/3 Tbs Granulated Garlic – 1 1/3 Tbs Granulated Onion – 2 Tsp Ground Cumin

THE SAUCE

We need some type of liquid to slowly braise the brisket in the oven. Braising is an excellent way to cook brisket in the oven because it keeps the brisket moist and very tender.

What I do is mix some good quality store bought barbecue sauce with a little beef broth to thin it a bit. I like to use a smoke flavored barbecue sauce. To give it a little more smoky flavor, I also add a few drops of liquid smoke. This makes a very tasty braising liquid.

LETS START COOKING ALREADY!

Before we start cooking, lets do a little preparation.

Remove the brisket from the fridge and leave it on the counter for 30 minutes or so to allow it to come to room temperature.

Tips for grilling chicken

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One of the most preferred ways of eating any meat is by grilling it. Of all the meat options available, the most far reaching and delicious one has to be the chicken. Grilled chicken has many nutritional benefits, variety of flavors and can be cooked in a various ways. Chicken is easy to cook, doesnt require much prep, and if done right grilled chicken can be absolutely spectacular, making it a mouthwatering option! For this to happen though, you will need the best tips for grilling chicken! You cannot expect to just snap your fingers and your grilled chicken will just knock the socks off of your guests. Grilling chicken is just not that simple. Here are some tips for grilling spectacular grilled chicken.

Grilling chicken the right way!

Even though chicken is one of the most commonly cooked meat products, it is still very easy to go wrong while cooking it. Most people either end up overcooking the meat, making it stringy and tough or under cooking it and leaving it raw and smelly. Grilling chicken might not be a science but tips for grilling chicken, if followed correctly, will help you make the most delightfully cooked grilled chicken every single time.

Best Tips for Grilling Chicken

Buy FRESH ingredients! One of the all-time favorite tips for grilling chicken is to use the finest and most fresh ingredients! If you have the option to buy fresh chicken from the butcher or frozen chicken pieces from the cold storage, pick FRESH chicken every single time. There is nothing like a fresh chicken for a successful grilling experience. The taste and texture differ so much that you will feel like you are eating two different meats altogether.

POUND the chicken! If you are grilling boneless pieces of chicken as is mostly the case, an even thick slice of tender meat is what you are looking for. Pound the piece of chicken till it reaches a uniform thickness. One of the most important tips for grilling chicken is to cook the chicken all the way through without allowing the sides and ends of the piece to become dry and this is much easier to achieve if you follow the previous steps.

Use a MARINADE! Chicken pieces make for wonderful and marvelous grilling meats. One of the most supreme tips for grilling chicken is to use a marinade that will not allow the chicken to become dry and stringy which we already mentioned. Since chicken doesnt have any layers of fat it cooks fast and can easily become dry. While this makes it a healthy meat to eat, you might end up with dry bits and using tips for grilling chicken like making a marinade or brine which will reduce the chances of this occurring.

Prevent FLARE UPS & CHARRED chicken! Another tip for grilling chicken is to cook it fast on high heat! Trying to expedite the process by increasing the quantity and intensifying the quality of flames might lead to a flare up and nobody likes to eat scorched or charred chicken. Chicken will cook fast; this doesnt mean it needs high flames, just high temperature. Generally grill your chicken 3-4 minutes per side on high heat. If you want to add BBQ sauce waits until the last minute, if you add it too soon it will create a burnt skin that is unpleasant to eat.

Let’s Barbeque……….

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Its that time of year again, get out the grills and get ready for BBQ season. There are many different ways that people Barbeque. Here are some tips that you can use for when grilling out
and having family and friends over for a cookout. If you want to produce the perfect product which
includes mouth watering BBQ chicken, brisket and pork, there are four important factors in Barbequing. They are the meat, the method, the flavors and the smoke.

The right way to grilling is what is right for you and the only way to get good at anything
is the famous saying practice makes perfect. The first thing you need to do is purchase a Barbeque.
There are many barbeques that range from $30- $2000, just depends on how fancy you want to get.
When getting a barbeque you want to consider these simple things. The space you have for one
whether it is a big yard, get a large barbeque or a small space and get the smallest one possible. The second thing you need to do is consider the number of people you cook for regularly and you need to figure out the portions of food you will cook on your grill. If you want to have cookouts with family and friends all summer you need to consider a larger grill to put enough food to accommodate everyone. Also when it comes to grilling out you need to take into consideration if you want shelves and a workstation. It could make things easier to have a place to hold your meat and utensils and seasonings. The last thing to think about it how often you will use it, if it is just for the holidays then you might want
to go for the cheaper route since it once be used that much.

Once you have the grill and starts grilling you want it to be clean every time. You dont want the taste of fish on you steak. The best time to clean the grill is right after you get done cooking and use a wire brush to get off all residues. Before you start grilling you want to put a little bit of vegetable oil on the grill so that your food doesnt stick. Another good tip for grilling is when you begin a lot of people like to turn up the heat right before they put food on and that is wrong, you want to heat
up the grill 15-30 minutes before you start cooking your amazing food your about to make. You also want to have all your seasonings and utensils right beside you so youre not running back and forth to the kitchen. Also just in case things get out of hand and a flare up happens have a bottle of water nearby to put out unwanted flames.

When it comes to preparing you food for the grill, there are many different ways to do so. It can be your familys recipe or a sense of chef you have and try out different spices. Here are some ideas that can also help when it comes to preparing you meat for the grill. If you are going to grill a steak you might want to cut off any extra fat and put a pinch of salt and pepper on it and maybe add some steak seasoning before putting it on the grill. When cooking chicken you might consider putting it in the oven or microwave to cut down on cooking time and browning of the chicken. And when it comes to fish
one of my favorite things to do is to put it in a zip lock bag and add some olive oil and some herbs you like before grilling it. When you are grilling any kind of meat you want to keep to the cookbook guidelines when it comes to how long you leave it on the grill. Dont forget to have your cooking utensils such as long handed tongs, spatula, and fork and grill cleaner.

Everyone has their own techniques when it comes to grilling by use of their family recipes, tools, and marinades. Hopefully some of these will help you for this upcoming Barbeque season.
Nothing is better than spending time with family and friends while grilling out in the backyard having some amazing barbeque meals. Happy Grilling everyone!