Entrees

Why Clarify Butter

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Texas Style Cuisine

A little different kind of post, but one thing that can make a huge difference in your cooking. Everyone loves the taste of butter but butter burns rather easily. In fact about 250º, which is not hot enough to saute’. By clarifying your butter you raise the the smoking point to about 350º. Now you can cook without the fear of burning  butter. The reason for the high temperature before burning is that you have taken out the ingredients that will burn and left the oil. What burns is the sugar, milk solids and water. Once removing these items you are cooking with oil. You can save the part you remove and use it for seasoning on items such as popcorn. So here is the process.

  1. Heat sticks of butter, I usually clarify at least one pound at a time.
  2. Remove items that are floating on the top and pour off the middle, which you will keep.
  3. The oil can now be stored at room temp with out the worry of the butter turning rancid.

Melting the butter

011

014

Pouring melted butter into a clear pitcher.

017

The butter starting to separate and layer up.

020

After removing the top pour off the oil being careful not to get the bottom portion.

023

Just the oil left

025

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Brisket Chile

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Texas Style Cuisine
A nice bowl of red!

A nice bowl of red!

I had to throw a lunch together today for some of the staff. I decided to make ranchero beans, mexican rice, cornbread and some Chile. I had to extend the hamburger meat I had so I pulled out some chopped brisket that I had been saving. I browned the burger and sautéed the onions, while doing that I chopped up the brisket into small pieces and heated it to render some of the fat. I used 5lbs of hamburger and3 lbs of brisket. The Chile came out excellent. The smokey flavor that the brisket brought to the Chile really added to the chili.

BBQ Chili

  • 5lbs                   Ground Beef
  • 3lbs                   Chopped Brisket
  • 2                        Onions, chopped
  • 3                        28oz cans Diced Tomatoes
  • 1 cup                 Chili Powder
  • 1/4 cup             Salt
  • 1/4 cup             Pepper
  • 1 tbsp                  Cayenne Pepper
  • 1/4 cup             Garlic Powder
  • 2 tbsp                  Cumin
  • 1 cup                 Corn Meal
  1. Brown meat and saute onions
  2. Add tomatoes
  3. Add seasonings
  4. Brin to a boil
  5. Thicken with corn meal
  6. Simmer for 30 minutes

 

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Making Venison and Pork Sausage

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Texas Style Cuisine

Hunting season was quite rewarding this year. I wound up with about 100 lbs of deer meat and 100 lbs of wild hog. Of course this meant it was time to make some sausage. I found my old sausage stuffer that is about 100 years old and set up my Kitchen Aid mixer with its grinder attachment. I ground up all the meat once with the course grinding plate and then again with the small plate. I also ground up 30 pounds of fatback. Fatback is excellent to use in sausage because it does not give a strong flavor. You can use it and still get the flavor of what is your primary meat. The ratios I used for the sausage was 4:1:5 Deer to fat to pork. This gave me a nice sausage that was not to fat. If I would have been using pork shoulder or Boston Butts I could have left out the fatback, but the wild hog is much leaner than pork that you will buy at the grocery store. I make many different type of sausage, breakfast, hot and mild, hot italian, polish, keilbasa, jalapeno and cheese, poblano, and chorizo. I will try to get up some of the recipes so everyone can give it a try. Here are a few photos of the process.

My old stuffer, I can only imagine how many sausageshave been stuffed on this old hand crank stuffer.

My old stuffer, I can only imagine how many sausages have been stuffed on this old hand crank stuffer.

Filling the hog casings with some keilbasa.

Filling the hog casings with some keilbasa.

Fresh Jalapeno and Cheese Venison Sausage

  • 4 lbs Venison
  • 1 lb Fatback
  • 5 lbs pork butt
  • 1/2 lb pork fat
  • 16 oz cubed sharp cheddar
  • 6 Large jalapenos, small dice
  • 6 Tbl Kosher salt
  • 2 Tbl black pepper
  •  1 6 oz can Tomato Paste
  • 1/4 c  Garlic powder

Mix salt, pepper, garlic and tomato paste with 1 cup cold water until dissolved.

Combine meat, fat, cheese, jalepenos and spice mixture together until well mixed.

Stuff into pig casings.

If you smoke it, add 2 tsp of Prague Powder #1 when you add the spices. Cold smoke for about 4 hours.

My smoker was about 120 degrees. Under 100 would be better but with my BBQ Pit i can not get it that cool.

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A lesson in making Crab Stew

Posted on August 11, 2012 by Texas Style Cuisine
 

As I have said before I love sea food and this is one of my favorites. I have an Aunt that is from Biloxi and she makes the best crab stew. I remember eating it as a kid growing up. I had not had any of Aunt Doris’s stew for years so I made a deal with her. I would bring fresh blue crabs home and she would teach me how to make it. Before I left Aransas Pass the other day I bought every live crab I could find. I wound up with 69.

The crabs on Ice. Still alive but asleep in the cold.

It is best to use the crab fresh, but I was about 4 days out from using them. There are different ways to handle crabs, you can cook them whole and freeze them, cook them and then pick the meat out and use it or you can freeze them whole. I chose freeze them whole since I was using the whole crab in the stew. I pulled the crab out of the freezer on Friday to let them thaw in the frig. Early Saturday morning John and I got up and started cleaning the crabs. Crab can spoil very quickly so we were very careful when processing them.

Cleaning and rinsing the crabs

Starting the cleaning process 1st you break off the abdominal plate.

Male and female crabs. The male has a slim pointed abdominal plate and the female had a rounded or half-moon shaped plate.

John scrubbing the shell with a stiff brush and removing the abdominal plate then I removed the carapace and cleaned the inside and placed it in ice to protect freshness.

After cleaning the crabs they were put on ice. Then we started the dicing of vegetables. We had celery, onions, red bell pepper and parsley. We fried up 2 lbs of bacon for the grease. We used the bacon grease along with vegetable oil to make the roux. I wish I had pictures of the finished roux, it was the color of a new penny. My Aunt made the prettiest roux I have ever seen.

Frying bacon for fat to use in the roux, sauteing vegetables and starting the first pan of roux.

Aunt Doris overseeing the dicing of the vegetables.

Adding crabs to the stock and vegetables.

John and Fernando adding more crabs.

Aunt Doris seasoning the stew.

The crabs are just about ready.

The stock I used was five gallons of chicken stock. The sautéed vegetables were added to the stock along with on head of sautéed garlic. This was bought to a boil then simmered for about an hour. Then the crabs were added and brought to a boil again. We then seasoned with Cajun seasoning salt and pepper. We added the roux to thicken and the seasonings were readjusted This cooked for about another five minutes and the stew was served over rice.

Sorry for no final pictures or a picture of the roux but we were running hard trying to have this ready for the big crowd that was coming to enjoy this treat from Aunt Doris.

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Red Fish on the Half Shell

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Texas Style Cuisine

Before

After

I love grilled fish, especially when its fresh. Now this can’t get much fresher. I caught it about 1:00, ate it about 4:00. That s pretty fresh. Now a fish cooked on the half shell is simply a fillet that has cut off the bone and the skin and scales left on. Now you want to use a fish with a tougher skin, like reds, snapper, black drum or something like that. If you look at the plate you will see a small piece of fish to its left. the is the throat of the red. This is located behind the gills and below the pectoral fins. Many times when someone fillets a fish this portion of the red is thrown away. It’s not a real large area but it is tasty. I have a grill set up outside the trailer and it really comes in handy. I like cooking outside but it also takes some heat out of the trailer and Texas produces enough heat without the help of the stove.

Now to get started. I have taken he fillets and seasoned them with some Tony Chachere’s and then drizzled a little Italian dressing on it with a squeeze of lemon. I have also cooked the bones on the fish, this red was big enough that I saved the bones to cook also

The red seasoned up

I have the grill heated up and head straight to it with he fillets. Now you lay the fish straight on the grill on a medium high heat. My grill does not have a lid so I use some aluminium foil to make a tent over the fish to help hold in heat. Before I had the fish on I fixed some red potatoes. I got the small ones and sliced them in half, seasoned them with salt, pepper, cumin and some fresh garlic. I also sliced up about half an onion. wrapped this inside of some aluminum foil, with a stick of butter. This package was placed on the grill before the fish.

The bones are ready

Just about ready

Supper is ready

Grilling in the shade outside of the 5th wheel

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Shrimp Linguine

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Texas Style Cuisine

Wow it has been a long time. I have been busy and had to many irons in the fire. My wife and daughter headed to Europe for a few weeks so I headed to the coast to do some fishing. I have had a few meals worth talking about so I will try to get them posted as soon as I can. The meals were not anything overly hard to put together, but preparing them our 5th wheel is a challenge. The first I want to post up is a quick little shrimp dish I threw together that will be easy for anyone to prepare.

First I started some water to boil for the linguine. I added a little oil and some salt to the water. While I was wanting for the water I started dicing a package of mushrooms and about 1/4 of an onion. I also minced three cloves of garlic. The water was boiling so I added the pasta.  I heated a pan with a stick of butter and added the onions. I sautéed them until translucent then I added the garlic. The garlic was cooked for about 60 seconds, then i added the mushrooms. Once the mushrooms were finished I added 2 pounds of peeled and deveined shrimp. It only took about 3 minutes to have the shrimp cooked. once they were almost done I added a package of cherub tomatoes that hd been sliced in half. While the tomatoes were heating I poured in about 1/2 cup of white wine. I seasoned with salt and pepper to taste. The pasta was removed and drain. I topped the linguine with the shrimp mixture and topped it with grated parmesan cheese.

Ingredients

  • 1 lb     Linguine
  • 2lb      Peeled and deveined shrimp
  • 1 pkg   Mushrooms
  • 1 pkg   Cherub tomatoes
  • 1/4       Onion diced
  • 3          Garlic cloves
  • TT       Salt and Pepper
  • TT       Parmesan Cheese grated

sauteing the onions, garlic and mushrooms

Adding the shrimp

Finishing up with the tomatoes and some wine

 

 

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Fiesta Rib Cook Off

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Texas Style Cuisine

Fiesta in San Antonio is a huge celebration. It is 100 different events over 11 days in late April every year. One of the annual events is the Culture Fest Rib Cook Off  hosted by St. Philip’s College. I had entered a few years ago and really enjoyed myself with a 3rd place finish. It took very little convincing to get Bar Cross to enter it this year. We decided to enter both beef and pork ribs and to sell plates. I made a run to Restaurant Depot and picked up 30 slabs of spare ribs and six slabs of beef. We usually never cook beef ribs so we practice on a few racks prior to the cook off and came up with what we would be a good recipe. We have been working on some new recipes so we decided to enter two teams, Bar Cross and Bar Cross Too.  We got to St Philip’s around 3:30 and started the fires. The pit was warmed up and cruising about 250º so we loaded up the pit with 30 slabs of pork and 6 slabs of beef that had already been rubbed the day before. About 10:45 we turned in our competition ribs. Team 1 turned in our sweet pork rib recipe and some spicy beef ribs. Team 2 turned in some spicy pork ribs and sweet beef ribs. Soon as we turned in we started selling plates. $5 would get you potato salad, borracho beans and a nice juicy rib. We had a good line of people buying plates when we were called for the awards ceremony. We were busy and did not go so they sent for us again. This time my cousin Fernando went to represent our team. The rest of us continued selling plates. in about 15 minutes we hear Fernando calling. We spot him coming through the crowd with his arms full of trophies. He yells out “We Won It All”. He was not kidding. We won 1st place beef ribs, 1st and 3rd place pork ribs and the Student Choice Award. Not a bad day. From the time we were announced as the winners we had people in our line until 1:30 when we ran out of ribs. Then we started selling sausage plates until they were all gone. So by 3:00 we had won every 1st place and sold out of food. Also we had a chance to try out the pit since we had moved it to the new trailer and made a few changes. It all worked out and we had a great time. St Philip’s did an excellent job hosting the event. We got to meet many of the Fiesta dignitaries, the president of Fiesta, the President and some of the deans from St. Philip’s and King El Rey Feo. We also wound up on TV here in San Antonio. WOAI TV 4 came by for a live shot for their morning show, and David Sears from KSAT 12 dropped in and tried some ribs while filming the trophies. It was great fun for us and we made good money selling plates, we just did not bring enough. But next year we will know and we will bring twice as many ribs.

Team Bar Cross BBQ

Pappy and I slicing ribs

The new trailer

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Southwestern Quiche

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Texas Style Cuisine

I spent the day making Quiche. The French teacher brought his classes down to try a little french cuisine. I had a few quiches already made, so I would make one for the class then let them help my students make a few more. So by the end of the day we had made about 20. I had the kids cook a classic ham and cheese quiche, a spinach one and a broccoli one. We also made two southwestern quiches. They were all excellent, but as you would guess the spicy ones were my favorite. If you have never tried quiche then it’s about time and this is an easy one to make.

Southwestern Quiche
  • 1/2 lb                 Diced Kiolbassa Sausage with Jalapenos or Hot breakfast sausage
  • 1 1/2 Cup          Monterey Jack Cheese
  • 1/2 Cup            Cheddar Cheese
  • 1/2 Cup            Rotel Tomatoes with Green Chilies
  • 1  Cup               Milk
  • 3                        Eggs
  • 1/4 tsp             Pepper
  • 1/4 tsp             Salt
  • 1                        9″ Pie Crust
  1. Pre heat oven to 400
  2. thoroughly mix eggs, milk, salt, pepper, and rotel
  3. Place pie crust in 9″ pie pan
  4. Spread cheese evenly in the crust
  5. Spread the sausage over the cheese
  6. Poor egg mixture over the cheese and sausage
  7. Place quiche in oven for 30 minutes or until eggs are set
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A sweet little Fattie

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Texas Style Cuisine

Now I am sure that many of you wondering what in the heck is a Fattie. Basically it is a meatloaf stuffed with your favorite fillings wrapped in bacon and then smoked. I made two of them, one was an Italian, stuffed with red and green bell peppers sweet onions, mushrooms, ricotta and mozzarella. The other was stuffed with fettucine alfredo, mushrooms and jumbo shrimp. They were excellent. The way I make them is I place my meatloaf in a ziplock bag. Then I make a woven matt of bacon. The stuffing is placed inside of the meatloaf and rolled up, using the bag. I slice the sides with a sharp knife so it can be opened up. The meat roll is then place on the bacon matt and rolled up. Roll the fattie in plastic to firm it up, then put it on the smoker for about 2 hours at 225.

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BBQ Chicken Test

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Texas Style Cuisine

Sunday I figured I would throw a couple for chickens on the UDS. I wanted to try out a couple of new rub recipes. I also wanted to try a mustard slather. I cooked each bird with the same rub but I only slathered one half. I wanted to see how it affected the flavor. The first bird was rubbed with mustard and McCormick’s Grill Mates Cowboy Rub and the other half was coated with EVOO than rubbed with the same rub. The other bird was coated the same way and I used an Ancho chili rubbed that I put together on it. Both birds were a success. After about an hour and fifteen minutes on the grill at 300 degrees they were 165, so I pulled them. The winning flavors with both birds were the one with the mustard slath. I have always been told that you can’t taste the mustard but my judges said they could taste a little mustard on each one. The appearance was good on each half, but the one with the EVOO seemed to be a little darker in color. I don’t think any of the four halves were to light, but the mustard ones were lighter.

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