tony b

I am pleased that we hijacked this thread away from Marmite and onto something way more palatable! I used beef Top Round steak, that was thinly cut (by the butcher, not me!) - it was called Sandwich Steak. It was about 1/8" thick. I cut the slabs into strips for the skewers. Here's the rub recipe that I used (I modified it based upon what I had, plus how I thought it was supposed to taste?) This recipe made plenty of rub for a pound of meat. 1/4 cup of dry roasted peanuts 1/2 TB of cayenne (I used Korean chile powder - Gochugaru - as I think it has more kick than cayenne.) 3/4 tsp of smoke paprika 1/2 TB of garlic powder (I used Lane's BBQ Garlic Squared, which has some herbs in it, too - Garlic, Salt ,Onion, Black Pepper, Parsley, Oregano, Basil, & Turmeric) 1/2 TB of onion powder (I used Penzey's Fox Point with some extra dried shallot tossed in - Fox Point: salt, freeze-dried shallots, chives, garlic, onion and green peppercorns) 1/2 TB of white pepper 1/2 TB of hot ground pepper (or cayenne) (I used Penzey's Berbere seasoning, to not just give heat, but some complexity to the rub - it has a lot of Moroccan flavors in it - cayenne red pepper, garlic, ginger, fenugreek, cardamom, cumin, black pepper, allspice, turmeric, cloves, Ceylon cinnamon and coriander) 1/2 TB chicken bouillon (I crushed up 2 cubes) Salt to taste. I put everything into my spice grinder and pulsed until well chopped/blended. The peanuts still had just enough oil in them to make it almost a wet rub, but still crumbly and not a paste. Lightly oiled the meat after I skewered it and generously sprinkled the rub on. As I said in my earlier post, I used the rest of the rub on the meat as it was cooking to layer it up. Worked well.

Preserving the integrity of the blueberries in a vacuum sealer will be tricky, unless your model has a "soft food" option/button. My older one does, but the newer version doesn't, so you just have to time it manually to shut off the vacuum and start the sealer process.

I haven't used mine in a cook yet, but I did plug in all 4 probes and synch it up to the receiver. Worked perfectly, very simple - much simpler than the older versions! Be patient, as they are worth it. One thing that was a bit of a disappointment, can't use the probes from the older unit with it. While the plugs fit, the resistance must be different, as they displayed temperature was waaaay off. Had hoped to salvage the old ones as spares, but guess not.

You don't need big holes to make this work, in fact, if you have too many holes or too large, it doesn't work as well. The goal is to create an oxygen starved environment to smolder the wood, not let it burn/flame. If I remember correctly (it was several years ago), I think I used a 3/32" bit, so only a tiny bit bigger than yours. I have 3 holes in the bottom of my dutch oven (you didn't say how many holes you have in yours, MacKenzie?) I would be reticent to go to a full 1/8". If you do, just enlarge one hole and see how it goes.

Nice job, Shuley! Huge fan of Detroit style pizza. Local place specializes in it. My standard order - Medium, Detroit, Mambo Combo - no green peppers! It just naturally rolls off my tongue without even thinking about it! Make sure that you pile up the cheese around the outside edge. That's what sets Detroit style apart from the more traditional Chicago deep dish - no outer crust, just nice crispy wall of cheesy goodness!

Well, not having any benchmark for how close to original I got, but I have to say that this is some seriously tasty sh!t!! I mixed up the rub and couldn't stop myself from sampling it - it was that good! This one's a keeper - a big THANK YOU to @tekobo ! (btw - the unsalted dry roasted peanuts worked GREAT!) A quick shot of the skewers. I cooked probably twice this many, but I was hungry and was sampling them as they came off the grill - LOL! The key/trick seems to be to hold back some rub and dust them again just before taking them off the grill. I hit them right after they started to sweat. Brilliant! Oh, as a comparison, I did one skewer with my standard Satay rub. Both are good, but surprisingly very different flavor profiles. Won't say one's better than the other. In fairness to the Satay, I didn't have any peanut/coconut milk sauce for it, which might have made the comparison closer. DAMN this is fun!

Well done, all 'round!!

OK, my Donabe pot arrived today, so I had to give it a try. First, mine is glazed on the inside, so I didn't have to season it. Nice bonus. First pot of rice was a bit of a miss - had the heat too high and scorched the bottom of the rice in spots (not the yummy crust, black = burnt!). Tossed it out and started over, being careful not to get the heat too high this time. (btw - threw off dinner schedule by about 45 minutes in the "do over.") But, much better results the second time around. Nice fluffy individual grains of rice. I did plain water this time, but going forward, I'll revert to my standard of using stock. Here's a couple of pics - pot cooking on the stove and the finished rice. I have to say that this was some very tasty rice, even plain. But, who am I to question a culture that's been cooking rice for several thousand years!

I finally got nice enough weather to fire up the KK and do a pizza that I'd planned several days ago. Sorry, it's purchased pizza dough, but I did make an uncooked tomato sauce for it. It's a 4 cheese blend - fontina, mozzarella, provolone, and parmesan. Sliced cherry tomatoes dressed with a splash of balsamic vinegar (too early for any from my garden yet), but I did use the basil off my plants. 2 hour heatup/soak @ 475F with the pizza stone on the top grate. Parbaked the crust for 5 minutes, as the uncooked sauce is a bit waterier than a cooked one and didn't want soggy pizza. After the parbake and assembly. Almost done on the KK. Up close and personal. A couple more minutes and viola!

I had a visitor yesterday - not a bear, thankfully, just a cute chipmunk (ground squirrel). He was just helping out getting the grill ready for supper!

I also have alderwood planks for salmon. Both are nice.

I was expecting to see a hoagie, not a sausage platter.

Huge fan of the white sauce chicken. While I've done BBG's sauce (store bought & homemade), I'm really partial to Cornell Chicken. It's also a white sauce - a variation on a very thin mayonnaise, but with a lot of salt - so it's a cross between a sauce and a brine.

A word of caution if you're buying cedar shingles (or similar) at a hardware store for use on the grill. That wood has likely been treated with fire retardant and is not suitable for cooking food. Best to stick to the ones sold in BBQ stores to be on the safe side.

That's just wrong!

Charles (aka ckreef) built a retort for making his own charcoal from local wood.

I was gonna do a pizza on the KK tonight, but bailed out because of the rain. It's supposed to clear up tomorrow, so I'm hoping to do the pizza then. The suya experiment will be on Saturday.

Bought some unsalted dry roasted peanuts at the market today, along with nice thin sliced beef bottom round. So, if the weather cooperates (been raining for days now!), I hope to give the Suya a go. Will be 2 experiments - finally gonna break out the yakitori grill and try the new charcoals I bought for it months ago!

After reading some more and seeing some recipes for the spice rub, it's probably more similar to Ethiopian Berbere than Satay. I was wondering if you got Planters "dry roasted" peanuts and rough chopped them, that they would work in the Suya spice mix instead of the kuli-kuli?

@tekobo - how similar is Suya to Indonesian Satay?

The secret is the pink butcher paper wrap after the stall. @amusedtodeath - I think the Wagyu beef had as much to do with your success as following Franklin's technique did. As Aaron says in his book, buy the best cut of meat you can afford. He only uses Prime at his restaurant.

Hear, hear! I want to have some idea that I'm going to be OK with plunking down $120 for a ceramic pot that will only cook 1 cup of rice before I jump into the deep end of that pool! https://toirokitchen.com/collections/unique-style-iga-yaki-donabe/products/kamado-san?variant=45954685774 I made some pretty damned good rice tonight in a 1 cup Calphalon pot. Owned it for decades.

Now that's the only interesting idea that I've seen yet for Vegemite/Marmite. Makes sense, especially if you thin it out a little, like the consistency of mustard. @tekobo - I've have no doubt the Marmite wings were nasty; BUT, how were the Nigerian spiced wings? What's the spice rub called? Is it available outside Nigeria or is it a family recipe? If you're looking to add serious umami to some wings, go with Korean Gochujang (fermented soybean paste with chilies). I'm addicted to the stuff!!