jwtseng
is one Smokin' Farker
My butcher at Safeway is turning out to be a real asset. I've asked him for some really off the wall stuff, like cutting Lloyd's fully cooked and ready to eat SLC spareribs into thirds lengthwise, and he never bats an eye. This time, I told him that I wanted some nice thick cuts of meat with T-bones, and he went into the back and brought out some great looking meat...and he gave me value pack pricing on the whole shebang to boot!
Since I hate making choosy choices, I ended up with a 1.75" beef porterhouse weighing almost 2.5lbs, a couple of 1.5" pork loin chops about 1.5lbs a piece, and a quartet of thick little lamb porterhouses...my absolute favorite cut of meat!
The beef was seasoned with magic mushroom pow-pow (MMPP) and jalabellanero. The pork got a nice dusting of MSG and asian five spice. Lamb chops got some MMPP, parsley, and red chili flakes. I put everything to sleep for 24 hours under shrink-wrap. The pork chops actually went into a simple brine with maple syrup and red chili flakes about 12 hours in.
Here's all the meat after marinating/brining and a couple hours of cold cherrywood smoke:
While the cold-smoke was going on, I fixed up a trifecta of toppings for the meat:
Bad photo, but what you got here are three different "skillet toppings". The lamb will get a lemon pistachio gremolata. The pork will be blessed with a cherry applesauce butter. And the beef porterhouse will experience an umami blast with a cherry tomato-asiago-anchovy butter.
Pork chops getting nice and toasty:
Warming up the beef:
Everybody's in:
Beef porterhouse with cherry tomato, asiago, anchovy butter:
Pork loin chop with cherry applesauce butter:
Lamb porterhouse with lemon pistachio gremolata:
Here's the group photo:
And the aftermath:
Everything was delicious by all accounts...my wife said it was the tastiest cook I have done in a while. My three little girls are meat eaters to the max. The oldest loved the savory umami of the beef, while my second daughter liked the sweeter flavor profile of the pork. And as luck would have it, the little lamb loin chops were the perfect size for my newest little girl...
That's the most awesome compliment for this Daddy-cook. No tricks needed to get the kids to eat today's cook. For me, the cook was a lot of fun as usual. More often than not, I like to sousvide big cuts of meat, so grilling them over lump was a fun change for me. I think my sousvide steaks (all three varieties) end up more tender, but all-in-all today's cook was straight out of FlavorTown!
Thanks for checking out my cook! Hope everyone is having a fun and food-filled weekend with family and friends!
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