Amateurs with Knives

I do a lot of grilling in the summer. For small parties, I don’t mind going “all out” with elaborate dishes and desserts. When it comes to a larger group with diverse dietary requests, sometimes it’s better to simplify. June 2008 Food & Wine Magazine has a great idea that I tried out this weekend with tasty success: A DIY Kebab Party.

Photo courtesy of Food & Wine Magazine

The article provides you with three different tastes for kebabs: Mediterranean, Mexican and Asian. Each flavor has an accompanying basting sauce and dipping sauce. For my party, I chose the Mexican flavors for a little spicy excitement.

In putting together the actual kebobs, I provided a variety of items placed like an assembly line. If you’re short on ideas, the magazine provides some creative combinations:

Shrimp + Chorizo + Zucchini
Pork + Pineapple + Pickled Jalapeños
Chicken + Yellow Squash + Poblanos
Tuna + Okra + Cherry Tomatoes
Beef + Red Onions + Red Peppers
Scallops + Okra + Tomatoes

My kebab party was a little simpler and included: Beef, Tofu (very firm), chicken, shrimp, zucchini, baby corn, pineapple, grape tomatoes, red pepper, green pepper, mushrooms - and a couple of others that I can’t think of off the top of my head. Let your guests load up their kebobs with any combination they choose. When they get to the grilling station, baste the kebobs with Cumin-Adobo Oil:

Cumin-Adobo Oil
Ingredients
1/2 cup olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh oregano, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
2 teaspoons adobo sauce (from a can of chipotles)
Salt

Directions
Combine the olive oil with the ground cumin, oregano, garlic clove and adobo sauce. Season the oil with salt.

That’s really all there is to it — take your ingredients, put them in a bowl, stir them around. That’s it. Nothing more. When the kebab goes down on the grill, baste it with a bit of the oil. The result is absolutely delicious: the basting oil gives the kebabs a very delicious flavor with a slight spicy kick. For the spice-wimps out there (like me), it is not overpowering at all. I was actually really surprised at how good the basting oil tasted.

The article also provides a dipping sauce, but to be honest, it wasn’t really used. The basting oil tasted so wonderful, no one really wanted the dipping sauce to muck it up. If you do like dipping sauces, it’s a very spicy mayo dip that did have a good flavor to it, but because the Cumin-Adobo Oil was so good, the Chipotle-Citrus Mayonnaise was barely touched.

Chipotle-Citrus Mayonnaise
Ingredients
1/2 cup mayonnaise
3 chipotles in adobo, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
3/4 teaspoon minced fresh oregano
1 tablespoon minced red onion
1 tablespoon minced cilantro
Salt

Directions
In a small bowl, combine all of the ingredients and mix well. Season the sauce with salt.

Overall, this was a huge success. It was the fastest prep I ever had for a large BBQ and, from a clean-up point of view, the basting oil and kebobs did not make a huge, disgusting mess inside my grill. (Admittedly, the ease of clean up was probably one of my most favorite things about the experience.) I’ve made a few kebabs before, but this DIY has to be one of my favorites to date. Independence Day and Canada Day are coming up fast - this would be a great idea for any event. Everyone at our BBQ who had the kebobs appreciated the fact that they could pick what ingredients they liked. The hardest part, of course, was remembering who had which kebab.

Last time I mentioned that we might be open to friendly offers from magazine editors to facilitate a favorable AwK review of your product. Since we had no takers, I can only blame myself for not communicating our intentions clearly: WE CAN BE BOUGHT.

Ok, on to another (regrettably) payola-free review of one of the recipes in the latest issue of Food & Wine:

Ginger-Garlic Shrimp with Tangy Tomato Sauce

Ingredients: Shrimp

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped basil
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 2 1/2 pounds large shrimp, shelled and deveined

Ingredients: Dipping Sauce

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
• 1 large garlic clove, minced
• 3 stalks of fresh lemongrass, tender inner bulb only, minced
• 1 1/2 pounds tomatoes—peeled, seeded and coarsely chopped
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
• Kosher salt

Directions:

1. Marinate the shrimp: In a large bowl, mix the vegetable oil with the parsley, garlic, basil, ginger, lemon juice, salt and crushed red pepper. Add the shrimp and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 4 hours.
2. Meanwhile, make the sauce: In a medium saucepan, heat the vegetable oil. Stir in the ginger, garlic and lemongrass and cook over moderate heat until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, about 10 minutes. Let cool to room temperature, then stir in the lime juice and cilantro. Season with salt. Transfer the sauce to ramekins.
3. Light a grill. Loosely thread the shrimp onto 10 skewers. Grill over moderately high heat, turning once, until lightly charred and cooked through, about 5 minutes. Transfer the shrimp to plates and serve with the tomato sauce.

Again with the no pictures of the cooking. Yes I will stop sucking soon, I promise. This is a pretty standard marinated shrimp dish, but while the grill did nothing for the clams, they did a ton for the shrimp. Oh man, this was amazing. I had forgotten what a potent combination ginger and shrimp were. I don’t need to comment too much on the mechanics of the dish, it’s pretty straightforward. But, man, THIS I will make again.

The part I was a lot less impressed with was the tomato sauce. I think the main problem here was I couldn’t find lemongrass so I had to use powdered. I know, normally lemongrass is pretty easy to find, a lot easier than finding powdered lemongrass, that’s for sure. But this particular day, no soap. Add to that some fairly flavorless tomatoes and this sauce didnt even make it on the plates. Luckily it didn’t need to since the shrimp were so good. And I am willing to call this part user error. Most of the time the “Citizen” in “Citizen Chef” stands for “Normal Guy Who Really Screws Up Simple Dishes And Should Shut Up And Watch The Food Channel Instead Of Writing Things For People To Read”

So make these shrimp, grill some bread and put the horseradish butter from the Pop Open Clams with Horseradish-Tabasco Sauce on it, and enjoy!

~Citizen Chef

As Citizen Chef pointed out in the Magazine of the Month debut post, every month, AwK will pick out one culinary magazine to feature and show you some highlights. This month, we’ve chosen the June 2008 edition of Food and Wine.

This magazine is a new one for me. I started receiving it a few months ago as a complimentary gift for something I purchased. When I told Citizen Chef about it, he was interested to know how good the magazine was. Every month when a new publication was released, we would find ourselves discussing whether or not it was worth buying.

That’s basically how the idea for this recurring article came to be. There are plenty of websites that feature books, but that can be a very expensive venture and, if you’re anything like me, you already have two shelves’ worth of cookbooks that have barely been touched. Magazines are a much cheaper option and can contain lots of good advice.

Lemon-Blueberry Frozen Yogurt

Making frozen yogurt was another first for me. I would have shied away from this one as well, had not the creator, Jeni Britton, been quoted as saying, “I never make frozen yogurt as a low-fat replacement for ice cream.” I was sold. The outcome was a very rich and delicious dessert. You may feel compelled to not include the blueberry sauce but I must warn you: the blueberry sauce is what makes it amazing! If you don’t include the sauce, you’ll get this overly rich and tart frozen yogurt that is lacking a balance. The sweetness of the blueberry gives this what it needs. You’ll notice there isn’t a lot of blueberry sauce being made and that’s fine - it’s so sweet that the amount that comes out is perfect. If you double the sauce it will be way too sweet and you’ll lose the tartness of the lemon.

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice, plus 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
One 1/4-ounce package unflavored powdered gelatin
2/3 cup plus 6 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
2 cups plain whole-milk yogurt
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup blueberries
2 teaspoons water

There are a couple of different steps to this dessert and, unfortunately, it’s not one that you can just toss into your ice cream maker and forget about. However, don’t let that stop you. It’s relatively quick and simple, and you can end up with a delicious and beautiful dessert.

Step 1: Fill a large bowl about half way with ice water. Pour 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice into a small bowl. (Note: I used about three lemons and, unlike Citizen Chef, I remembered that I needed zest before tossing it into my garbage bowl - ha!) Sprinkle the gelatin over the lemon juice and let stand for 5 minutes.

Step 2: Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, whisk the remaining 6 tablespoons of lemon juice with 2/3 cup of the sugar and the corn syrup. Bring to a boil and cook over moderate heat until the sugar dissolves, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon gelatin mixture you made in step 1.

Step 3: In a medium bowl, mix the yogurt with the zest. Stir in the lemon juice mixture, then whisk in the cream. Set the yogurt base in the ice water bath and let stand, stirring occasionally, until cold, 20 minutes.

Note: This is why I said in step 1 to only fill the bowl half way up with ice water - if you fill it up all the way, once you put your frozen yogurt bowl into the ice water bath, the water will overflow all over the counter and you will get it all over your cats who are sitting at your feet in the hopes of you spilling some of the sweet, dairy creation onto the floor, only you don’t and instead they get an ice water bath and are quite unhappy with you and go running across the house, splashing and spreading more water. If that ever happened, and I’m not saying it did, that would be unfortunate for both you and your cats.

Step 4: Meanwhile, in a saucepan, mix the blueberries with the remaining 6 tablespoons of sugar and the water. Simmer over moderate heat, until saucy, 4 minutes. Let cool.

Note: Remember what I said above about the blueberry sauce! It is a must have for this yogurt! I actually let this cook for a long time because I was confused about how the consistency was supposed to be. For some reason I thought the blueberries would totally break down and I would end up with a very smooth sauce. I didn’t. There was a lot of smoothness to it, but the blueberries don’t completely dissolve.

Step 5: Pour the lemon yogurt into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Basically, I tossed this into my ice cream maker and forgot about it for a couple of hours. When the consistency looked good to me (like a soft-serve ice cream) I took it out.

Step 6: Scoop alternating spoonfuls of the yogurt and blueberry sauce into a plastic container. This is where I got a little nervous. I was looking at the photo and looking at my plastic container, and I couldn’t figure out how to layer this so that it came out looking just as beautiful as the picture. In the end, I just went for it. Using small spoonfuls, I just made little swipes and stripes over the frozen yogurt and made about three layers.

For further illustration, here is a little something I put together to show off my stunning paint skills:

Now that’s definitely something you won’t see on a Fark photoshop contest, lemme tell ya.

Anyway, when you’re done with the layering process, press a sheet of plastic wrap directly onto the surface and close with an airtight lid. Freeze until firm, about 4 hours.

When scooping this with a rounded ice cream scooper, I was really pleased that the little ribbons of blueberry came out looking just like the photograph. This dessert was taken to a BBQ and devoured in the first 20 minutes.

So yeah, pick up a copy of Food & Wine’s June 2008 - there are plenty of other good reasons to buy one, and we’ll be talking more about it all month.

We’re kicking off a new series here called “Magazine of the Month”, reviewing issues of food magazines, both the name brands and the more obscure, and choosing the best of the month to let the masses know (that’s you guys) if they are worth buying or not. (Note to magazine editors out there, yes we CAN be bought, and at reasonable rates to you, I might add.)

But until that happens, here is a completely unbiased review of one of the recipes in the latest issue of Food & Wine:

Pop-Open Clams with Horseradish-Tabasco Sauce

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons drained horseradish
• 1 tablespoon Tabasco
• 1/4 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon sweet pimentón de la Vera (Spanish smoked paprika)
• Salt
• 2 dozen littleneck clams, scrubbed
• Grilled slices of crusty white bread, for serving

Directions

1. Light a grill. In a small bowl, blend the butter with the horseradish, Tabasco, lemon zest, lemon juice and pimentón de la Vera. Season with salt.
2. Arrange the clams over high heat and grill until they pop open, about 25 seconds. Using tongs, carefully turn the clams over so the meat side is down. Grill for about 20 seconds longer, until the clam juices start simmering. Transfer the clams to a serving bowl. Top each clam with about 1/2 teaspoon of the horseradish-Tabasco sauce and serve with the grilled bread.

Now, what drew me to this one was that it was quick and I had never cooked clams before, especially not on the grill. I would love to have cool pictures of each step in the cooking process but I didn’t take any, so we’ll have to use the Theatre of the Mind. Imagine me mixing the butter, horseradish, Tabasco, and paprika together. Imagine that I tried to find smoked paprika at the store but they didn’t have it so I used regular paprika. Imagine that I forgot I needed lemon zest until I had squeezed the lemon and threw it away and then had to get it again to get the lemon zest. Imagine that again, but not as gross as the first time you imagined it.

Actually the sauce for this was really more of a flavored-butter than a sauce. So while it was great on the grilled bread, on the clams itself it was just ok. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The clams went on the grill, and they opened up just like the recipe it says, although it did take a bit longer than 25 seconds. As I was turning them over and the clam juice was spilling out and hissing all over the grill, I thought to myself, “Don’t we need that stuff in the clams?”

Verdict: These were not bad at all. Not great, but good. I think the main problem here was the cooking method. Some things need the grill, some things don’t. This particular recipe, I don’t think the grill helped much. Next time I would just do what I do with mussels, steam them in some white wine and garlic and plate ‘em up.

Next up: Ginger-Garlic Shrimp with Tangy Tomato Sauce. One of those two things sucked, the other one freakin’ rocked. Find out which is which next time!!

~Citizen Chef