I wanted to do some stuff on my Big Green Egg last week, so I got some really thick pork chops and the makings of caprese salad (what I understand to be tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese and basil), along with some ciabatta bread.

The set up was easy; get some coals going on the egg and get it heating up. While doing that, I opened a bottle of wine to breathe, which I thought was perfect for the meal… a bottle of Le Snoot Cabernet Savignon!

I also got the pork chops out of the fridge and seasoned them with grey salt, black pepper, oregano, onion powder and garlic powder. Since these were really thich (like 1 1/2″), I seasoned them pretty heavily.

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We’re just past Memorial Day weekend. I have to say that I’m a bit saddened that Memorial Day isn’t really observed for what it’s meant to honor, which is fallen U.S. soldiers. I don’t go out of my way to do a lot for the day, but I do think about the sacrifices made by others. Unfortunately, I saw a lot of other celebrations going on, too, that had nothing to do with that; people are just confused, I guess.

On Saturday, Pat of Patrick’s BBQ held his annual customer appreciation event by cooking anything that he could fit in his smoker (which is a whole lot). While there, I noticed a field of wildflowers, and I had to wander down to get a better look.

It is a long weekend, and it unofficially denotes the start of summer. We had incredible weather for Saturday and Sunday, with Monday not too awful. On Sunday, my dad and stepmother were in Ohio, and they spent the afternoon and evening with us, which was all the excuse I needed to put the XL Big Green Egg through it’s paces, just to see how it did with a variety of tasks.

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We’re finally used to being back home from vacation in Maine. We were only gone a few days, but we really fell in love with Maine in general and Kennebunkport in particular! But now we’re back in the country, replacing sights of the Atlantic with sights of farmers.

We had some people over the other night, and I was going to fix flank steak, but I saw this flat iron steak at the market. They were giving out samples, and it was pretty good, so i thought I’d try it.

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When my wife and I were coming back from Maine last Monday, we found out that we could buy live lobsters and check them as luggage on the plane… So we did!

Pre-sunrise, Kennebunkport, ME

Roger at the Portland Lobster Pound was more than happy to help us out, so we got a couple 1 1/2 pounders in a box to go. We were told that these bugs would be fine for about 24 hours in the box… So off to the airport, a couple of hours early for our flight, since it was starting to rain anyway.

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There’s a great grocery in Hamiton, Ohio, called Jungle Jim’s. The place is several acres under roof, with huge selections of wine, beer, cheeses, meats, seafood and all kinds of ethnic foods (arranged by region/country). My wife and I stopped by over last weekend, and they had a special on some wild caught sockeye salmon that I couldn’t pass up, along with a cart full of English beer and hard cider. You’ve got to love a grocery that has a sign outside saying, “Foodies Welcome”!

My wife and I don’t really celebrate New Year’s Eve. It’s not that we’re old and boring (I am, she’s not); it’s just that it’s never been a big deal to either of us. But we don’t have to go to work the next day, so I usually try to make something good.

Sometimes I feel like I’m something of a rut with salmon, but my wife requested that I cedar plank this, so I did. It’s easy to do and tastes really fantastic! I use the simplest of recipes for this; I’m a believer in using good ingredients that don’t need to be covered up with spices and sauces all the time (though now and then is good). For good salmon, all I use for seasoning is grey salt, black pepper and brown sugar. That’s it.

So here is the list of ingredients:

• 1 salmon fillet
• 1 1/2 teaspoons grey salt (this is along the lines of Fleur de Sel)
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• enough brown sugar to liberally cover the filet (maybe 1 cup)

Two hours before cooking, I put a cedar plank in water to soak. An XL kitty litter box (unused, please!) works great for this. I lay the salmon out to let it get to room temp, about a half hour before putting it on the grill. I don’t season until just before I put it on though.

I also get a chimney of coals going, so they’re good and hot when it’s time to grill. This also simplifies the fire in that there’s no need to worry about making a 3 zone fire; the cedar plank makes all the heat indirect. When the coals are ready, I put them in something of a rectangular shape, right below where I’ll put the cedar plank.

About 5 minutes before I put the salmon on, I spray the smooth side of the cedar plank with veggie oil spray and put the plank on the grate of the grill, about 6″ directly above the fire. It’s ready once the cedar wood starts smoking.

Once I see the smoke coming out of the grill, I put the salmon fillet right on the plank, doing my best to not let it hang over the plank. The lid comes down, and all there is to do is wait.

I don’t really time this too much, but I usually start looking at the fish after about 15 minutes. Depending on how hot the fire is burning and hot thick the fillet is, this is about the earliest the fish will be ready. This time, it took just under 20 minutes.

The brown sugar melts all over the fish, and the plank, and into the fire… which is ok. It forms a bit of a crust on top of the fish, adding some sweetness, but not as much as you’d think. I’ve had non-fish-eater friends decide salmon was good stuff after having this.

A trick I’ve finally taught myself is to have an already-charred plank from before that’s clean and dry. When the fish was done, I transferred it to this plank and served it. If you try to serve on a smoking plank, you’re going to empty the dining room! Only do this if you’re outside and won’t catch anything on fire!

The presentation ends up really nice, and the fish is well worth the effort. As with many things, the quality of the fish really makes a difference. The idea is not to overseason or overcook the fish; medium rare is great for this. If you can’t get wild caught or Scottish salmon, using spices more like dill or tarragon may be a better way to go. But this is so good, it’s worth a splurge when/if you can find good wild caught salmon. The planking also works for other fish, pork chops and chicken, and scallops are really great this way.

By not having to watch over the food too much, this also makes a great winter grilling exercise.

When we have our wine party every year, I try to do a variety of food for the party. Sometimes, I make whatever I want, but I’m trying to get better at following the theme of the wines. I select the wine theme in advance so guests can get wines that fit. We’ve done American wines that aren’t from California, southern hemisphere wines that aren’t from Australia, and anything goes.

This year’s theme was French wines, if you haven’t read anything else I’ve written about the party. Each couple was asked to bring two French wines, one red and one white. They were also asked to look up something about the wine to share, whether it’s about the vineyard, the grape, that particular wine, the appellation, whatever. (Appellations are distinct areas were grapes for wines are grown). It wasn’t anything too difficult, and Vince helped some by looking up their wines on his iPhone connected to our household wireless!

I talked about the foie gras I made for the party yesterday. Today, it’s grilled steak au poivre.

I’ve made steak au poivre in the past. It’s basically steak with a pepper-cream sauce, and it’s fun because I get to play with fire. Traditionally, though, it’s a dish made in a skillet on the stovetop. I wanted to mix it up a bit, though, and push it outside onto the grill. I thought the addition of wood-grilled steak would be a benefit.

There’s one problem with this approach… The fond! Fond is the stuff left in the pan after pan-frying, and grilling a steak means no stuff in a pan. What to do, what to do? I realized that, for the sauce, beef is beef, so I got a couple strips of cubed round steak and used that in the pan. It worked great!

So here’s the whole process:

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Here it is at last! The foie gras I’d been so looking forward to preparing and eating. The big question: was it worth it?

The answer: a definite YES!

This stuff is like heaven on a fork. Here’s the progression of how things went:

If you look at any posts this week, they’ll most likely be from our 2007 wine party. This was, I guess, the featured dish of the party (outside of the wine, that is). I’d been looking into whether I’m pro-foie gras or anti-foie gras in an earlier post. My conclusion was that I’m pro. So I put in my order, and the foie gras got here last Thursday.

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A while ago, I was contacted, along with several other bloggers, to review some American lamb, thanks to the American Lamb Board (http://www.americanlambboard.org).  They are the premier nonprofit promoter of American-raised lamb.

I promised to review the lamb, and I am finally getting to it!  I know several others have already reviewed it, and I’ll have trackbacks listed to some of them, too.  But on with the review!

The kit arrived well packaged and still good and cold.  The kit included basically a 6-8 lb. boneless leg of lamb, a probe thermometer and dried herbs from a great company, Penzey’s (one of my personally preferred spice sources).  It was nicely packaged, and it also included a great write up on American lamb, along with a variety of serving ideas.

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Everyone seems to have their lists of advice, so I figured, now that we’re well into the peak of grilling season, to add mine!

So, with no further adieu, here is Bucky McOinkum’s 9 Tips For Cooking Outdoors:

1.  Have a fire extinguisher handy.

Ok, first one is boring, but, really, have a fire extinguisher on hand.  You never know when you need it, and even seasoned cooks have issues.  When you’re cooking outside, you’re likely working with flame of some sort, and things do happen!

2.  Take the time to determine what tools you like to use.

This is somewhat different than I hear most people say; most want to tell you what tools to use.  However, I think people do things differently.  I’ll give advice now and then on something I happen to like, but if you choose something differently, that’s fine with me, too.

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As part of my last grilling class, I wanted to show mostly simple dished to grill.  I included steaks, asparagus, pineapple and onions.  But I also wanted to give the participants something that was a bit more upscale, while still not being anything difficult.

What I came up with was a favorite appetizer around my house: cedar planked scallops!
The ingredients are simple:

• Cedar plank, soaked for 2+ hours in water
• Very fresh sea scallops
• 1/2 as many prosciutto slices as there are scallops
• 1 Rosemary twig per each scallop
• Grey salt
• Black pepper

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