Pequod

This is my Guru challenge entry for December. Here it is: Tea Smoked Duck Tacos, Asian Vinegar Slaw, and Hoisin Barbecue Sauce, and homemade flour tortillas too! My wife is pulling the evening shift at the hospital for both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, so tonight is our last opportunity for a family celebration before my son heads back to school. We decided to do Tea Smoked Duck Tacos from Steven Raichlen’s Project Smoke, with some minor mods. Many people are intimidated by smoking a duck but it’s really quite easy once you figure out which end to light. I’ll pause for the groans… Please don’t ignite your duck! Do this instead: Raichlen’s smoking mixture consists of Chinese black tea, white rice, brown sugar, star anise, cinnamon sticks, orange peel, and cherry wood chips. His recipe directs us to throw this mixture on the fire at two different times, but I'm not real hot on the idea of throwing brown sugar and rice into the belly of my KK. Instead, this seems like the perfect application for the smoke pot. Just need to take care that none of the small grains of rice or other matter plug one of the holes on the bottom. So…let’s start with a bed of cherry wood chips. Next, we’ll add a layer of foil and make a pouch to contain the other smoking ingredients, then poke holes in the top of the packet: Next, let’s make the rub for the duck, consisting of sugar, salt, black pepper, chinese five spice, ground coriander, and cinnamon. And rub up our duck, first painting it with a tablespoon of dark sesame oil. And make our Asian Vinegar Slaw with some Daikon radish, carrots, and small cucumber. Finally, simmer the Hoisin Barbecue Sauce for a bit. Besides the Hoisin, contains soy sauce, dark sesame oil, dry sherry, ginger, cilantro… I’m using my CyberQ today because I have a really nasty cold and want to minimize my number of trips outside. I put the smoke pot on. Then the duck on the main grate, with the double bottom drip pan below to hopefully catch the fat that renders so I can save it for another day (yum!). The smoke pot is working, and the smoke definitely has a spicy note to it. Not your ordinary wood smoke. After about two hours I'm ready to paint another coat of sesame oil and then crank the heat. Done. Wife and daughter are making homemade flour tortillas. Time to eat! Super delicious. We'll definitely be making this again.

Done and resting. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In progress. Stay tuned.

Coffee rub on beef ribs. Good call.

That's the idea...

I have a Victorinox boning knife that I use all the time for trimming briskets, butts, etc. It's a great knife for that and dirt cheap too.

Exactly the reason for my question.

My head was a lot smaller then. Or my glasses were much larger. Hard to tell which. And I was a lot younger. Dirt poor. No KK.

Busted? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Start with this and work your way back to the sweet spot: http://www.dcsharp.com/original-bob-kramer-meiji-kiritsuke/

Can't quite read the labels. What are the rubs and sauces?

I'm loving this knife. Feels great in the hand. A definite step up from my old Wusthoff Classic.

This is a pork tenderloin tapa that is loaded with flavor. The rub ingredients: The finishing sauce ingredients - honey, lemon juice, and garlic: Mixed up -- the garlic is finely grated: Chopped some fresh oregano for finishing as well: The victims. They yielded their silver skins with nary a whimper: Chunked up into small bites, and rubbed: KK lower grate, hot fire, and my favorite Weber grill pan made this quick work: Tossed with the finishing sauce and topped with fresh oregano. Super easy and super big flavors.

@ckreef - Going to make this on Sunday. Just to be sure, the sea salt is large grain like Maldon, not fine sea salt, correct?

We did exactly the same thing, although I used Dizzy Pig Bayouish to blacken ours.

Very nice!

Some questions to help us diagnose: You have a 23" KK, correct? You're using the grill shaped baking stone on the upper grate as shown here? http://komodokamado.com/collections/23-ultimate-accessories/products/baking-stone-23-special-23-lbs Do you have the upper grate pushed to the back so the dome closes cleanly and the thermometer isn't touching the stone?

About as perfect a hunk o' meat and cook as you can get.

Looks great! Did you do that on the upper grate?

You can use any of the pro series probes with the Smoke. I picked up two of the straight penetration probes so that I have the option to use two meat probes when I don't care about grate temp. In case you haven't noticed, these probes are currently discounted 30%: http://www.thermoworks.com/Handheld-Probes/Probes/Pro-Series

It's a Kurosaki Megumi Gyuto 210. Selected with wife at D.C. sharp, a Japanese knife shop downtown. Held them all and this one stood out. Terrific knife.

Did a reverse sear prime rib today. Using the cold smoker for the first hour with some whiskey barrel chips. Used the flat surface of my Grill Grates on the lower grate for the sear. Worked like a charm and kept the flare ups at bay. Resting. Sliced. Wall to wall medium rare. Made some sourdough too (of course). And some smoked, planked Camembert to spread on it. Nothing says "Christmas" like pepper jelly and jalapeños. Wife made a celery root purée and kale salad. Delicious day!

Merry Christmas y'all! Thanks for making it fun. Speaking of which, I think the fam is telling me to get cooking...

Realized that! I should let the technology take over selecting my photos and posting them. If I could only get it to write my posts and hit the "submit" button I'd be set.

Just discovered a "Memories" feature in the iOS Photos app which makes a video out of selected photos. This is what it produced with minimal interaction on my part. I've been giving my KK a workout.