Barbecue

I know what you're thinking. "What, spareribs? Again?!". As usual, there was some sort of celebratory event, that justifies eating this.

M, one of N's friends, came over all the way from Brabant. We wondered what we would have for dinner, and a BBQ seemed like a nice idea, even though we'll be having another BBQ tomorrow at J&L's.

The spareribs were bought pre-marinated and pre-grilled, so they only had to be heated basically. Tasted quite nice.

These were some curry-marinated chicken breast strip skewers. Quite okay, but a little dry. Went well with BBQ-sauce.

These were some cubes of old cheese, wrapped in baconstrips. Simple and nice!

To go with the meats, I had prepared some couscous salad, welded in vegetable stock, mixed with orange and grapefruit parts. Also, I had made grilled pepper strips, marinated in garlic. Then, I made cucumber pickle and tzatziki, using soy yoghurt (not gross at all) and tzatziki mix my parents brought with them from their holiday in Greece. Finally, I made some satay sauce, using soy milk, peanut butter, chili sauce and soy sauce. Traditionally, in Holland, we have sliced baguette with it and a variety of other sauces. I picked Heinz's barbecue-sauce and herbed butter for the baguette.

Now, this gun-shaped device is so cool! It's not 007's latest gadget, or the newest G.I. Joe toy gun. Well, the writing gives it away of course. It's a BBQ fan! You squeeze the red trigger-like thing and the fan starts blowing through its metal nozzle. Pointing it at the charcoal, you direct a jet of oxygen straight into the hot spot. It works great. Saves you waving a piece of paper to supply an undirected amount of oxygen in the charcoal's direction.

There were a lot of leftovers, mainly sides. We'll take them with us to the BBQ @ J&L's.

Sunday Dinner

Sunday dinners usually allow me to spend a little more time on preparing the meal. This sunday, I made the dish above (or below, but it doesn't really matter of course, because they're different photos from the same dish).

I preheated the oven to 50^oC (122^oF) and put a steak in, and let it there for about half an hour. Meat apparently tends to cook at 50-60^oC (122-140^oF), but cooking at too high a temperature supposedly makes the collagen contract and thus squeezes out all the meat's juices, giving you a tough piece of meat. Therefore, cooking at a low temperature maintains the tenderness. However, it will take longer for the heat to reach the core of the meat, so you'll need to cook your meat longer. After cooking in the oven I fried the meat for exactly one minute on each side and let it rest five minutes, wrapped in tin foil.

I cut the meat to 2 mm slices and served them on top of a pile of fried mushrooms, which were put on top of a heap of napa cabbage (raw), mixed with some tinned corn kernels and a dressing of chili sauce and pickle juice (the acidity of the pickle juice cut nicely through the sugary richness of the chili sauce, and the heat of the chili saus gave it all an extra zest).

I drizzled two tablespoons of chimichurri on top, which I had made two hours in advance, using parsley, cilantro, two garlic cloves, balsamic vinegar and oregano perfumed olive oil. On top of that a nice hand of alfalfa.

Alongside it I scooped some leftover couscous salad, which was previously made with stock welded couscous, fried bacon rinds, garlic and herb olives, parsley, cilantro, deseeded, skinned and diced tomatoes and diced cucumber.

I must say, it was a nice experiment which turned out pretty okay. N. loved it and it looked quite good. Surprisingly, the flavours mixed quite well. The acidity and heat of the cabbage/corn contrasted the hearty flavour of the beef and mushrooms, which in turn were complemented by the freshness of the chimichurri and the alfalfa. A lot of raw vegetables made sure it was a healthy meal, together with the fact that we shared just one steak amongst the two of us - something which I never thought would do for a meatlover like myself :)