Rooftop Gourmet

Even though I will most likely be using the grill all winter long, I felt the Fall weather coming and decided to make one of my favorite summer staples before it’s too late. Back in college was the first time I had ever attempted the “Beer Can Chicken”, and let me tell you, it takes a few trial and error periods to get it just right. The bull chested bird standing proudly atop the grill is not just for show, but actually serves a purpose for squatting on a beer can. As seen in the pictures below, I cut the top of the beer can off before I insert it into the cavity. As the bird slowly cooks on the grill, the beer simmers and keeps the entire inside of the cavity moist throughout the entire cooking process. As long as you don’t completely torch the chicken, your meat will be perfectly moist and tender.

In the past, I have rubbed the outside of the chicken in butter, fresh herbs, lemon, garlic, you name it… but this time I wanted to spice it up a bit and try out some new flavors. I have been experimenting with a lot of Indian flavors so I created my own spice rub consisting of Cumin, Corriander, Cayenne Pepper, Ginger, Tumeric, and Paprika.

Typical combinations of these spices are used to flavor all types of meats inside what is called a Tangine; a clay cooking vessel. Generously cover the entire bird with the rub and let it sit in the refrigerator for a couple of hours if possible. Since most of these flavors are incredibly intense (hot, spicy, smoky), I made a Greek Yogurt sauce with diced cucumbers and fresh dill to cool down the chicken.

The hardest part of assembling the whole bird is getting it to fit onto the beer can and still be stable. Sometimes snipping the skin in between the legs helps, especially if you use a 22oz. Fosters can like I did. Depending on the size of the bird, it takes about 45 minutes on the grill so this is a great meal to serve at a party because people can socialize while the bird is cooking and admire the way it stands up straight and watches everybody while it roasts. Make sure the bird is not sitting over direct high heat, or else certain parts of the bird will burn and cook unevenly. Typically eating food with intense spice, heat, or other bold flavors such as Thai, or Chinese food requires a fruiter white wine. The tannins in most red wines will clash with the food and give off an unpleasant taste and even make spicier foods burn longer. I recommend Caymus Conundrum with this Indian Spiced Beer Can chicken because it is a blend of a few different white grape varietals which are all relatively fruity and very aromatic such as Muscat.

If you cannot find Conundrum near you, try a Gewurztraminer or Riesling from the Alsace Region of France. I would recommend going out and purchasing a meat thermometer, which comes in handy for a lot of different things, but specifically this recipe. If you insert the tip into the thickest part of the thigh, the internal temperature should read 160 to 165 degrees before taking the chicken off the grill to rest. After about ten minutes of resting, slice the bird, and serve with a cool cucumber/yogurt sauce.

After being landlocked in Denver, Colorado for five days (it wasn’t as bad as I make it out to be, lots of golf and red meat), I was craving a nice piece of fish. I had an idea that I’ve been toying with for a while, that I came up with after re-loading our cigar humidor in our store. I noticed that most of the cigar boxes are made out of really nice, aromatic Spanish Cedar. This is a huge advantage and a smart tool for anyone who loves salmon on the grill because most cigar shops or places that sell cigars have millions of extra boxes laying around. Instead of buying those pre-packaged cedar planks from Whole Foods, ask your local cigar shop or liquor store if they have any extra boxes laying around, chances are, they’ll dish them out for free.

I grabbed a few cedar planks and soaked them in water for a few hours to prevent them from burning on the grill. I seared the fleshy side of the fish directly on the grill first to give it some nice grill marks, then transferred the fish, skin side down onto the wood. Turn the heat down to medium and shut the lid of the grill to trap all of the smoke inside. When the Salmon is medium rare, take the entire plank off the grill with the fish still on it, and cover it in tin foil to infuse more of the smoky cedar flavor. In a small sauce pot, I sauteed some shallots and ginger before pouring in half a bottle of Pinot Noir and a ton of fresh grapes, ready to reduce and form a rich sauce to top my grilled Spanish Cedar planked salmon. I love brussel sprouts and bacon. I think the combination is classic but you really can’t go wrong adding bacon to anything. I roasted some brussels, and slow-roasted a huge slab of pork belly,which actually paired nicely with the smoky, woodsy salmon. The brussels got a little dark in the 400 degree oven but I loved the crispy leaves; they almost tasted like brussel sprout potato chips.

I finished the Pinot sauce with a pat of butter, which made it silky and decadent; the perfect amount of sweetness balanced with rich fruit flavor. In another small saucepan, I made some crispy shallots and carmelized ginger to top the salmon with, to give it some crunchy texture. I made the Pinot sauce with an Austrailian Pinot Noir that I also served with the meal. 2007 Ninth Island Pinot Noir, from Tasmania Austrailia. Silky tannin structure and light raspberry and cherry flavors. Very aromatic but not as earthy and spicy as a Burgundy.

This “New World” Pinot Noir is definitley worth trying with salmon. The smoky, grilled cedar aromas played nicely with the rich fruit and lush, velvety texture of the wine. The sauce that was made from the wine and the fresh seasonal grapes was just sweet enough to balance out the smoky salmon. Grab an empty cigar box from your local store today and grill some salmon on it.

Sometimes you need to splurge. Sometimes, you just get in one of those moods where there is one thing, and one thing only that will make you feel satisfied. My vice is a 2 inch thick, heavily marbled ribeye with a tub of white truffle butter, and fresh organic corn on the cob. It really doesn’t get any better than this. I must say, this meal is something that even talking about it and looking back on the pictures, gives me goosebumps every time.

This meal is hands down, one of my favorite things to make. It is so simple, and really accentuates the steak, putting the flavor of beef on a pedastel, not to mention it brings back memories from every summer I’ve ever experienced. Grilled steak and fresh corn on the cob have been a summer staple with me growing up coming from a household of somewhat picky eaters (meat & potato fanatics). Summer’s bounty… sweet corn is so easy to prepare. Thrown on the grill in the husk. The smell of the burning husk with the brisk breeze blowing the smoke into your face.

Rolling the warm ears in butter and sea salt. The sizzle of the primal cut of beef over an open flame. Giant flare-ups on the grill just reassuring you that there is enough fat/flavor in your steak. A mound of butter, emitting enough truffle flavor to make your knees buckle, slowly melting into your giant, cooling brick of beef. Sliced perfectly, medium rare on the inside, a black peppered charred crust on the outside. The freshly ground black peppercorns burning your lips, but cooled down immediatley by the sweet, buttery corn.

Paired with a giant, California Cabernet, there is no better summer indulgence. Dark, inky colored wine, bursting with enormous tannins and bold fruit. The occasionally rich, chocolate or mocha finish that seems to last until your next bite of meat, only to be repeated over and over. Try the 2005 Chappellet Signature Cab which just got a great score from Wine Spectator. Dessert is either an ice cream cone, or a whole lot of dental floss. Either way, this was hands down one of the best/most satisfying summer meals I have ever eaten.

After a 4 mile run in the heat and humidity, a light lunch, rain clouds forming, and Red Sox vs. Yankees on Sunday Night Baseball, all I could think about was comfort food for dinner. My girlfriend and I immediatley thought about spaghetti and meatballs with homemade red sauce but I wanted to spice things up a bit and try something different. I wanted to stick with the Italian theme since I had a bottle of 2005 Frescobaldi Nipozzano Chianti waiting for us at home, which is relatively inexpensive considering it hit Wine Spectator’s Top 100 wines of 2008. I noticed that after dousing my herb garden with Miracle Grow the past week, the fresh oregano was spewing onto the deck and just begging to be used so I snipped off a bunch and smelled it. It was so fresh and pungent; it screamed Mediterranean flavors like lamb and olives. After deciding to stick within the spaghetti and meatball framework, we went to the supermarket.

I bought some ground lamb, green olives, ricotta cheese, sweet 100′s (baby cherry tomatoes), garlic, and meatball staple items. Rushing home to get all the prep work done before the first pitch of the game was challenging but exciting. I wanted to get my sauce going first, which was pretty simple. I preheated my oven to 400 degrees and roasted sweet 100 baby cherry tomatoes, with a diced yellow onion and 8 whole cloves of garlic for about an hour until all the baby tomatoes were wilted and the garlic was sweet and pungent. Probably one of the easiest and most simple sauces I have ever made.

While the tomatoes were roasting, my girlfriend got the meatballs going by soaking diced up white bread in milk (this trick combined with the dried breadcrumbs keeps your meatballs extremely moist), chopping the fresh oregano, and seasoning the lamb. I have realized at this point that I either need to start inviting more friends over for dinner, or stop buying way more food than I need because I always end up with enough food to feed an army. In this case, it isn’t so bad because leftover comfort food always taste better the next night. I flavored the ricotta cheese with some lemon zest, more chopped fresh oregano, parmesan cheese, and tons of chopped green olives, and crammed the mixture into a ziploc bag.

I decided to make the transition from spaghetti to manicotti because I didn’t want to miss any of the game because of constant fork twirling. One snip of the ziploc bag and I was piping the ricotta mixture into the al dente manicotti shells, which were then placed in a baking dish and covered with the roasted garlic/baby tomato sauce. The Spaulding Baseball-sized lamb meatballs were then seared off in a pan and roasted in the 400 degree oven until they were cooked throughout, just in time for the National Anthem. There is nothing like pulling the coffee table in about a foot on a Sunday night and eating comfort food infront of the television (even though the Sox looked pathetic).

The wine was a perfect compliment to the Mediterranean flavors in the dish. The tannins and acidity in the Chianti were balanced nicely with the creamy ricotta. The ripe, cherry flavors of the Sangiovese grape played off of the fresh pop of sweetness in the tomatoes and the roasted garlic, and the earthy terroir in the nose and in the wine was a delightful compliment to the gamey lamb with oregano. A southern Rhone red or a red from Provence would also be a great choice for a wine pairing with this dish. Overall, it was a great Sunday night classic comfort food dish with a twist worth making a second time; hopefully next time the wind at Fenway is blowing in.

Tonight was hot and muggy, and of all the things I could have made, seafood stew was probably the last thing that you would have wanted to eat…. As it turns out, I came up with a light, summery recipe for an alternative to the rich, spicy Cioppino (tomato based stews) that you’re used to. Seafood Stew is something that has been around for hundreds of years, whether from Portugal, Greece, Italy, or San Francisco. For the most part, it has been known as or marketed as a peasant dish. I have made spicy, rich flavorful, tomato based broth in the past and timely dropped in different types of seafood in order to bring all of the cooking times in sync, but tonight was the first time that I definitely stepped outside of my shell in terms of flavor.

I had wanted to make something like this for a long time, but it has taken a few years for me to eat enough Thai food and experience enough of these not so common flavors for me to feel comfortable working with them. I feel as though this fish stew is light enough to be served in the summer time and still find enjoyable. Since I recentley discovered the “upload photos” button on my blog, you will see alot of the steps that I took to create this dish. Classically, Thai and other Asian flavors are paired with dry or semi sweet white wines with intense acidity.

I opened a bottle of Sylvaner from the Alsace region of France and I found that it was a perfect match to the sweet and spicy broth that I created. Tons of fruit up front, floral nose, tons of minerality and acidity on the finish. Alone, this wine might be a little bit too sweet for me, but with the balance of heat from the chilies and brinyness of the seafood, it is a perfect match. The producer is Ostertag Les Vieilles Vignes de Sylvaner.

The protein for the stew consisted of scallops, Cod, Shrimp, Squid, and Mussels. The base of the dish, or the broth that I created was Thai influenced, including ingredients such as onion, garlic, thai chillies, green pepper, lemongrass, celery, basil, cilantro, lime juice/zest, red curry powder, coconut milk, and seafood stock. The full recipe will be available on the Gourmet Page of the website. I started layering flavors, one by one, making sure to season each component in order to create such a rich broth.

There is nothing I like more than sopping up some flavorful broth with some grilled rustic, chewy Italian bread. Here are a few pictures of the cooking process, which actually didn’t  take very long after I got all of the prep work done. After you bang out all of the prep work and have all of your seafood components set out and ready to go…. this meal only takes about 10-15 minutes to make. The different ingredients can seem foreign to alot of people but trust me, you shouldn’t be afraid to try them. This was relatively new to me too but it came out delicious. There really isn’t much room for error when all you are doing is simply layering different ingredients. I am sure most of you are used to seafood in a garlic, white wine based broth, or a spicy tomato broth. This is something that will bombard your palate with a whole new arsenal of flavors. Sweet, spicy, creamy, herbacious, briny, and Salty all in one. Experiment with some Thai/Island flavors and pair this dish with Alsacian Whites. Don’t forget to soak all of your flavorful broth up with grilled bread! I guarantee nothing will go to waste.