Beef Chuck Rolls

I did an 'Iron Chef contest' a couple years ago and the foods that we HAD to use were 7 bone chuck roast, serrano peppers and spinach, the rest was up to our imagination.  Here's what I came up with and they came in 2nd place! 

I seared a 7 bone chuck roast naked, then liberally doused with WRB, put into a pan and cooked in the smoke for another hour, then foiled the pan untl the meat was tender

Then I grilled a head of cabbage, red onion and the serranos. Then julienned those. I blanched and chopped baby spinach and baby carrots. Mixes all the ingredients plus some garlic, salt and pepper. I then mixed the meat and veggies and placed in the fridge to cool.

I then made a dipping sauce which consisted of Reverend Marvins Hot BBQ Sauce, Brown Sugar, Soy Sauce and Sesame Oil. Brought to a boil and reduced by 1/4.

Filled egg roll wrappers with the chuck/veggie mixture and deep fried until golden brown. They turned out much better than expected!!!


                               

Beef Short Ribs

I picked up some beef short ribs from my butcher on Monday for the 4 of July dinner.  The racks were 7lbs between the two, very nice meaty marbled ribs.  $5 a lb and well worth it!



Splashed with Worcestershire, then rubbed liberally with Wolfe Rub Bold.




Cooked indirect with lump and two big pieces of Apple Wood.



Started with a coat of Sticky Fingers Carolina Sweet Sauce after the ribs had cooked for 4 hours.


Final coat of sauce at the 5 hour mark.



Ribs are done and ready to rest while the corn cooks.



Time to eat.  The ribs were like butter, very rich, flavorful, tender and filling. 




We had homemade potato salad, homemade pasta salad and sub-par corn.  You’d think this time of the year the corn would be great……


Bones came squeaky clean. NO I didn’t eat all of these, they were from all three of us.  One rib I would consider a serving, that’s how meaty they were.  Shawn and I split a second one.

Stuffed Skirt Steaks

I initially planned on making Cheese Steak Sliders, but could not find small buns and the baguette loaves were too small. However, I went ahead as planned and stuffed 2 skirt steaks.

Started off slicing, onions, peppers and mushrooms.

Sauté the onion in EVOO and salt and pepper until they begin to sweat.


Then add the peppers, garlic and mushrooms. Continue to sauté until tender, then cool before stuffing into the steaks.


Skirt steaks are always on sale around here, so I fill the freezer with them often. They are a very flavorful, well marbled and somewhat fatty cut of meat. They are wonderful for fajitas and require no trimming for direct quick grilling. However, for this application I wanted to trim the fat from the inside of the skirt steaks to prevent the filling from getting greasy. Leave the external fat.


Pound out the steaks to ‘square up’ and make as uniform as possible, then overlap the two steaks by roughly an inch to create ‘one steak’. I seasoned with Wolfe Rub Bold or your favorite seasoning, or simply salt and pepper.


Evenly spread the mixture leaving about an inch on the sides and a couple inches at the end to prevent ‘filling blowout’.

 

Add 6 slices of provolone cheese, overlapping.


Carefully roll up the roast and tie with butcher’s twine. Place in the fridge to firm up a bit.


I did not monitor cooking or meat temps. I cooked indirect for one hour, with just lump, then finished with a quick sear. I would suggest cooking in the 350º range and pulling at 125º if you want to monitor temperatures.

Let rest for 10 minutes or so and enjoy.

Surf, Turf and Blooming Onion

It was just the Girlfriend and I last night, so we had a nice quiet evening on the deck cooking.

Started off with Vermins Onion. Kept ours plain and simple this time, no topping. 2 sweet onions, olive oil and Tony Cacheres's Creole Seasoning. Also had a few hassleback potatoes drizzled with olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic.




Portabellas stuffed with lump crab meat, 1 egg, 2 tbs mayo, roasted red peppers, salt and pepper.



Onions are done. We could not eat these fast enough. Soooo much better without the greasy breading. If we had four we would have eaten them all. Shawn made a dip, not sure wht was in it, but it was perfectly tasty.


3lb sirloin to share, seasoned with salt and pepper.






Dinner is ready. Shawn made an herb butter to top the potatoes with that was outrageously good!