Kalbi Style Korean BBQ!!

Well we went with a Korean Motif last night as you can plainly see. The Wife marinated the short ribs in her top secret korean marinade-I will let you in on a secret though; one of the ingredients is something called "Sesame Oil."

Anyhow the top plate shows the ribs, some marinated bean sprouts, some Kimchi as well as our beer of Choice Kirin Ichiban. I know to the untrained American eye the Kimchi and Sprouts probably look more like entrails and tapeworms but rest assured these two items are in fact vegetable based. The bottom picture shows the 4 year old hand of Hip JR trying to nab one of the succulent ribs off of the plate. What can I say-hes a chip off the old block. Reminded me a bit of my food related petty thefts when I was his age. When I was 4 or 5 it wasn't all that uncommon for me to Shoplift Smoked Gouda, Italian Prosciutto, and Imported Spices(saffron and Madagascar vanilla ) from the local Lucky Market on shopping trips with my mother.

On a semi related side note-Kimchi is a great source of naturally occurring Pro biotic Culture and has some other great health benefits. You can read more about here or search for yourself if you are so inclined.

http://www.treelight.com/health/nutrition/KimchiHealthy.html

If you like spicy food and garlic-Kimchi will be right up your alley. It has a pretty strong flavor though so pairs much better with beer then it does wine. If it is something you want to try though I would certainly recommend going with some lower priced bottles. And as always, if you do manage to find a wine that pairs well...I'm all ears.

I also did some BBQed hot wings this weekend that were fantastic but in my zest to digin forgot to take pictures. I may do them again for dinner tonight and If I do I promise Ill take pics and post them here. Thanks again for all the positive feedback Ive received in the month or so this blog has been in existence. If anyone here wants-feel free to add the link to your blog but make sure you title the link
"Hipcheck's Food and Wine Blog that is not only the best blog on the internet but singlehandedly revolutionizing the way we view dining in todays modern socio and economic climate."

Marquis Phillips. Excelsior Cab, and Weekend BBQ recap

Marquis Phillips Shiraz

The Good-Marquis Phillips Australian Shiraz. You've probably read reviews in which a wine was described as "buttery." Well I always personally thought it to be hogwash until I got a whiff of the Marquis Phillips. I kid you not it was so buttery I almost thought about putting it on some popcorn and popping in a DVD. We're all familiar with overused term "Fruitbomb" but this wine may be the first to earn the moniker of "butterbomb." Apart from being terrific on the nose it was a solid effort with some strong fruit to start and a clean albeit tame finish. Certainly a wine I wouldn't mind getting 6 bottles just to have on hand. The wife as well as some of our guest all thought it was very good.

Excelsior Cab
The Not so Bad-The excelsior cab came recommended by some tall blond git from South Africa who strongly recommended as a good every day drinking wine. And truth be told it wasn't half bad it just didn't stand up as well against the Marquis Phillips. Perhaps I should try it again on its own and maybe give a bit better review at a later date. Ill go record as saying if the Marquis Phillips scored a spectacular touchdown the Excelsior scored a routine 24 yd Field Goal in a dome game with Adam Vinateri kicking the ball. Hey it is opening day for Major League Baseball....which is why I'm using the NFL reference.

To the food reviews....

We started off with a cheese/fruit tray using some Aged Tillamook Cheddar and two Imported English Cheeses-an aged English Cheddar and some English Variety of cheese knows as Cotswold.

The next picture is our meat tray showing some Cajun Shrimp Skewers, Caribbean Style Chicken Breast, Some Hot Wings I dug out of the freezer and cooked with some Franks, and one lone, soul, sad sausage I cooked for no apparent reason.

The next dish was vegetable mixed grill I cooked using a BBQ Wok, Jumbo Tiger Prawns, and some Colossal Sea Scallops. I marinated the shrimp and scallops in some sweet Vietnamese chili sauce, olive oil, and garlic. Certainly the nights most popular dish as the vegetables were perfectly tender with just a bit of texture to them and the seafood portions succulent and vibrant. The chili sauce marinade wasn't overbearing by any means and surprisingly not as spicy as I would have thought.

The last pic is just a closeup of the Cajun Shrimp and the Chicken Breast enlarged to show texture and moisture levels. All in all the night went very very well....until for some reason I decided to start drinking vodka. After that my memory is a bit hazy and I'm pretty sure it didn't go well.

And with all of this talk of English cheese...I may as well as post one of my all time favorite cheese related bits-

Letters, We get yout Letters.....

Slowly but surely I'm starting to get some email responses and this one in particular I thought would make for a good daily post..

Hi Hip,

do you grill with charcoal or propane? which is best?

any good tilapia or any fish recipes for bbq?

is it always best to marinate your food at least 1hr?

I Love Wine one of my favorites is a cabernet/merlot blend.

Sincerely,

Mashi in Montclair

Good Questions Mashi! Starting from the top-

I prefer Propane myself for 2 main reasons.

1)I BBQ so often that if I used charcoal I would be going through Costco sized bags on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

2)Consistency in heat/temperature. I know exactly at which setting works best for which foods and can crank up one side to sear and the other to finish/finalize etc etc. I used to be an old school charcoal guy but with propane its so much easier to crank up the heat when needed and turn it off when you're done. Simply a convenience factor. I will be doing a future post all about my BBQ and some of the tools I use.

As for the Fish Question-Ive never done a tilapia but will put that on my list of things to do for sure which leads to the next question about marinade.

In my opinion, the longer the marinade the better the flavor. I'll generally try and do overnight if not at least 5 or 6 hours. Get the large Ziploc bags for this. Put in the marinade , Put in the meat take out the excess air-works like a charm! Don't do this for seafood though as any vinegar/citrus juice will cook the fish. When it comes to seafood an hour tops is fine and try not to use too much juice or too much vinegar. If you really want to do an overnight marinade for seafood make your own marinade using only herbs and oils and it will work like a charm. Ill be doing some features about marination in future posts.

As for the Cab/Merlot blends....I'm in a Cab/Zinfandel phase right now but I'm sure with time that will change. With the warm summer months approaching I may try sampling some Whites-and of course will post my thoughts here for all to see.

Once again great questions Mashi. I will be posting some recipes here in a week or so for "Dustin Brown Baby Backs and "Kopitar's Kalbi Korean Flank Steak."

Coming Soon-Bevmo's Wine Special

Just an FYI-Bevmo will be having their buy 1 get one for a nickel wine special this weekend. Here is a cool little trick to even get a better deal. Go their website at www.bevmo.com and place an order for pickup. When you order online they simply have all of the selected wines 1/2 off. Not sure which ones I'm going to pick up as of yet...I'll cut and paste this post on LGK and see if I can get some recommendations or feel free to post them as a comment.

Sunday BBQ-Filet Mignon, Rib Eye, Chicken & Pillar Box Red

Quick writeup of Sundays BBQ. I prepared a roma tomato salad with balsamic drizzle topped with herb sprinkled slices of avocado and some slices of English Cheddar. The Main Course was a couple of filets. One was done with a Jerk Spice while the other was done with a combination of Mignonette Pepper and Montreal Steal crushed a bit with a mortar and pestle. The Veggies were done on the BBQ as well and consisted of Asparagus, Red Pepper, Maui Onion and Cauliflower...yes Cauliflower. I told the Mrs over dinner that I may very well be the first guy on the planet who voluntarily BBQ's Cauliflower. IThe veggie dish is pretty simply really, slice some assorted veggies into medium/large pieces, add some type of oil(Italian Dressing works good but in last nights case I used Sundried Tomato Infused Olive Oil) and cook until tender over medium heat. If you want to make that a main course you can add shrimp or scallops or any kind of sliced meat really. I do that occasionally and its always been a hit. The other entrees pictured above was a BBQ Spice Marinated Chicken Breast and a Peppercorn Grass Fed Ribeye. For the chicken I took some standard store bought BBQ Sauce, Chef Pauls BBQ Seasoning, Grapeseed Oil, and a clove of minced garlic. Mix all of that in a Ziploc and marinate the chicken for a couple of hours. Great Flavor and nice Golden Color. I almost cut the uncooked breast into strips and throw in with the veggies but opted not to. The Rib Eye was encrusted with a Peppercorn Mix as well as stuffed with garlic. That parts pretty easy-simply take a pairing knife and cut a slice into some of the fatty portions of the meat and insert 1/2 a clove of garlic. Truth be told I am now sure how much garlic flavor actually infuses with meat but you can never go wrong adding garlic to anything-sans maybe cinnamon rolls or Capn Crunch.

As for the Wine-That's a bottle of Australian Pillar Box Red. Its a very affordable wine as I picked up this bottle at the Local Wine Club for 9 or 10 bucks. Its been described as a Premium Everyday Drinking Wine and I think that really fits the bill well. There was nothing extraordinary about the wine but very solid across the board in all areas. The wife found it a bit dry for her liking but I found it well balanced. There's no question its not the fruitiest wine you will ever drink but once again it does have a very nice balance. From the decanter it actually smelled almost identical to Welch's Grape Juice. It paired well with the dinner though and with an alcohol content over 14 we still had 1/4 bottle left. Overall a nice value....I am not sure I will start posting wine scores here or anything like. If that's something someone wants me to do leave some feedback in the comments field or email me.

Review-Lucille's BBQ in Lake Forest

Went to Lucille’s BBQ the other night and thought Id post a quick review.

First off we started with a couple of Lucille’s Microbrews….I had the Lucille’s Amber while the wife had the Lucille’s Blond. Both good beers. I think theyre made for Lucille’s by some mysterious beer making company. My wife ordered the Black Tiger Shrimp while I order one of the combo samplers.

The think I will say about Lucille’s is it is pricey for BBQ. The price I paid for the my dinner Im sure I could have ordered a real kick ass Fish dish at Kings Fish House so I’m proud to say the food didn’t disappoint.

The Wife’s shrimp had a nice flavor. The Menu described it as Shrimp sautéed in BBQ sauce. I think they must have lightened up the sauce a bit or maybe the sauce simply diluted with whatever oil or butter they sautéed it in. However they did it, it worked wonderfully. Her plate also came with some type of Spinach as well as some Cheese Grits. Its been a long time since Ive eaten spinach and it certainly harked back to the days when eating spinach meant my Mom opening a can of Green Giant. The grits were very good as well although Ive nothing to compare them to as growing up in Orange County grits were hardly the staple they are in the South. As a matter of fact-this may very well be the first time Ive had grits entirely.

My plate has ½ a chicken, some pulled pork, and ½ rack of Baby Back Ribs. The Chicken was good although I questioned why I chose it in the first place as Ive become quite adept at BBQ Chicken and as a rule of thumb will never order anything at a restaurant that I feel I could make better at home. It was good though and had a strong dose of white pepper. The Pulled Pork was good as well but for the price I paid for the plate expected a little bit more generous of portion. The Baby Backs were a real treat though. If I ever make it back to Lucille’s rest assured I will get the full serving of Baby Backs and nothing else. They were very tender and very lean yet every morsel of rib was covered with some sauce/dry rub/smoke. Great Rib. I also had the shoestring potatoes(standard shoestring fare), the BBQ Beans(very good with hearty bacon/onion flavor), and the Garlic Mashed Potatoes(not horrible-but some of the other things were so much better they didn’t stand out.) Friends also raved about the biscuits and the apple butter but quite frankly it wasn’t amazingly good. Sure they were good….just not amazingly good.

To me Lucille’s stands out as a place that curtails for people who want BBQ but don’t want to go to the hole if the wall places to find it and don’t mind paying extra for “premium” BBQ if there is such a think. The Location in Lake Forest was packed and while we got there semi-early and had no problem getting a table by the time we left there was a long wait. Also a bit disappointed in that the bar had no happy hour-this really sets it apart from Kings Fish House that has a great Happy Hour. Both places are very similar in setup and approach and price for that matter. If you want premium BBQ and not afraid to pay for it Lucille’s is a great bet. If you want the most bang for your buck Im sure there are tons of other BBQ places that will meet your needs and once again for the price I paid on the bill Im sure I could have had an amazing meal at Kings Fish House. If you do visit-skip the chicken and go straight for the Baby Backs. They were perfectly done and even though the table had 3 different kinds of sauces you didn’t need it at all.

I give Lucilles a solid B, maybe a B+. If the prices were a bit more reasonable no reason it wouldn’t have gotten an A though and Im sure for real BBQ purist the overtly sanitized enviroment will probably be a bit different from your normal barbecuery.

Another Night of BBQ Bliss

Had a wondeful BBQ last night. I had 2 Filet Mignons. One I marinated in a Korean BBQ Sauce the other I Encrusted the Outside edge with some Penzeys Spices. I also did a quick bbq stir fry in the veggie basket with mushrooms asparagus and onions coated with a sundried tomato olive oil enfusuion. I really should have taken a picture but I didnt....so there. I also opened up a bottle of Cameron Hughes Cabernet Lot 15 if Im not mistaken. Its a very good mid priced wine with nice oak overtones. I know there is something about the finish as well but I had a glass of scotch before I started BBQing as well as a cheap glass of Syrah and by the time dinner was ready my pallette was how we should say....compromised.

Anyhow the dinner looked a little something like this.