EDF Cooking Contest--Grilling Challenge

[Mermade]

Sam--Great photos. I'd love to see a pictoral trip report, especially of the food, when you get back.

[guids]

Its a crime not trying an and all that street vendor stuff becuase of fear of getting sick. that stuff looks amazing.



this is what I was relating too in the "obesity" thread in OOT, that street vendor food is Americas version of "fast food"..this is why we are fat and they arent.

[SamIAm]

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Its a crime not trying an and all that street vendor stuff becuase of fear of getting sick. that stuff looks amazing.

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Don't worry, we're having tons and tons of street food. We're basically eating every 3 hours. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] But I'm sketched out by meat that's sitting out. There are plenty of places selling an ashy, skewered chicken or fish, and there's no way to know how long they've been sitting. We're trying as much food as we possibly can, but some of the meat is super sketchy.

The stand pictured above is actually cooking the meat while you watch, so I'll probably try that one before we leave. (We leave tomorrow, so at least by the time I'm sick, I'll be back in the land of double-ply.)

[KJS]

If you like the heat in the potatoes, try adding some Chipotles in Adobo in there, mince a couple and add them with a tbsp or so of the sauce from the can. Delicious.

KJS

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

i have a proposal for the next challenge. Ive been messing around on wikipedia doing random search for food "cuisine of Poland" "cuisine of Syria" etc and there are some really tasting looking meals out there that i never saw or heard of previously. i think itd be cool for each person to find a foreign meal they never heard of previously and try to make it.

[BretWeir]

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BretWeir--Asparagus on the grill is great. This is a standard veg in our house. I like to add some minced garlic as well as the olive oil and let it sit for a sec before going on the grill. I love garlic. It looks like the polenta turned out well. Did you have any problems with sticking?

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Grilling has pretty much become my exclusive way of doing asparagus; in the winter, I just toss them on the Foreman. The garlic sounds like a great idea -- I'll have to try it next time out. I also like adding a little lemon juice or (even better) homemade sour mix right before serving.

There were some minor sticking issues with the polenta, but nothing too serious. I think the problem was that I grilled the meat first, so the grill wasn't totally clean by the time the polenta went on, and some of the crust stuck. I think that a really clean grill, maybe very lightly oiled, would have fixed the problem. In any case, I was able to preserve about 90% of the crust with some deft spatula work.

[Mermade]

BrettWeir--What's in your homemade sour mix. It sounds odd but intriguing.

El Sapo--I was looking over your ribs post again. I've been making my own BBQ sauce for the past two year, using a different recipe (usually of my own invention with what I have on hand) every time. I'll definitely give your grilled apple bourbon bbq sauce a shot. Did you really get a flavor from the grilling of the apples? I wonder about that, especially with gas grilling...

[JaBlue]

Mermade, just so you know, eating like that means you are in fact NOT camping. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ElSapo]

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El Sapo--I was looking over your ribs post again. I've been making my own BBQ sauce for the past two year, using a different recipe (usually of my own invention with what I have on hand) every time. I'll definitely give your grilled apple bourbon bbq sauce a shot. Did you really get a flavor from the grilling of the apples? I wonder about that, especially with gas grilling...

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I was really surprised (pleasantly) by how much the apple flavor came through. It certainly wasn't overpowering and it wasn't tart like a natural apple sauce - it was just a backround flavor, but it was definitely there.

I had a little left over and saved it, and used it last night on some chicken. The apple flavor was still very pronounced. I thik the cumin and touch of cinnamon brought it out. The apple flavor was stonger than the bourbon, actually.

Whether or not the flavor comes from grilling it: I'm not sure. I think a part of it is the sugar caramelizaion, which I suppose you could do on a stove. On the gas grill, I gave them an initial char and then moved them to the side and closed the lid, hoping to pick up a little more flavor.

I think it worked. The BBQ sauce came out well - though like you, I'm really just cooking with what's on hand, so replicating it exactly might be impossible.

[BretWeir]

Mermade,

It's just regular sour mix, like you'd use to mix a whiskey sour. All the store-bought mixes I've tried have been cloyingly sweet with kind of a chemical aftertaste. So I mix my own: boil 1 cup water with 1 cup sugar to make simple syrup; cool and add 1 cup fresh lemon juice. Sometimes I throw in an egg white, which makes it foam a bit when you use it to mix drinks.

A couple of years ago, I made a big batch of asparagus for a dinner party and couldn't find the vinaigrette I was going to top it with, so I poured on a little sour mix and everybody loved it.