First Place Chicken at Sam's Club Comp- Sacramento, CA

Simply Marvelous takes the 1st place chicken trophy at the Inaugural Sam's Club Region 1 Sacramento BBQ competition. This was Big Brother Smoke's first time taking a first place award in chicken. I was very proud to be able to assist him in this comp. May I also say that that was some very tasty chicken.

Another Try at BBQ Chicken Thighs with MUGs BBQ Sauce

Tangy, sweet, and a hint of citrus, this sauce offers tastes equivalent to anything store bought. However, I offer one suggestion. Feel free to not add the liquid smoke if you are are going to smoke your meats with actual wood. I'm a purist and feel this is not needed for wood smoked flavor. For a smoked flavor on oven cooked or grilled meats, then ok.

With my Brew B Que Pack at hand compliments of MUGs Root Beer, I made the Southern Specialty BBQ sauce with the root beer as the special ingredient. The recipe for the BBQ sauce was previously posted at this link- MUGs.

I Taught Him All He Knows About BBQ

My son just turned 23. Instead of someone cooking for him, he chose to cook for his friends.

He smoked 2 pork butts, 2 racks of ribs, grilled chicken wings, hot links and hamburgers. He also made potato salad, coleslaw, salsa and macaroni and cheese casserole. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I tried to give him some directional assistance, but he wanted to do this all himself.

His Own Recipe For Mac and Cheese
Pulled Pork

Potato Salad (His Recipe)

Cole Slaw


Tony Grilling


Smoked Spare Ribs St Louis cut

He learned most of this by watching me, participating with Four Q BBQ Team at two competitions and experience gained as a Navy cook and currently as a student at the Culinary Institute of America.

Not bad for a first attempt at backyard BBQ'ing on his own.

Pullet Award Winner 2007

Soul Fusion Kitchen Receives the Pullet Award for my rendition of Doro Wat- Ethiopian Chicken Stew.

Thank you to my friends at Peanut Butter Etouffee

Visit their site and check out all the other entrants.

2007 Pullet Surprise Entry for Poultry Excellence

My friends over at Peanut Butter Etouffee are sponsoring an event called the The 2007 Pullet Surprise for Poultry Excellence.

This event is in celebration of 10,000 visits to their site. All I have to do is post a poultry recipe which is one of my favorites and guaranteed to please. When I first read about this event my thoughts included two different chicken preps I wanted to showcase. One was chicken cooked in a clay baking dish and the other is obviously what I'm posting about, an Ethiopian inspired dish called "Doro Wat" or simply spicy braised chicken stew. May I confess that I had not made this dish prior to today. Weeks ago I did surf the net for recipes and info on how to prepare this dish. I did make my own Berbere, a hot pepper seasoning which is a combination of spices and heat used in many Ethiopian dishes. From many recipes I present my version of Doro Wat.



I adapted a recipe from Recipezaar for the berbere

Berbere
1 teaspoon Ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon Ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon Allspice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Ground coriander
2 tablespoons Salt
1/2 teaspoon Ground fenugreek seeds
1 1/4 cups Cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon Grated nutmeg
1/2 cup Paprika
1/4 teaspoon Ground cloves
1 tsp Turmeric
1 teaspoon Fresh ground black pepper

Toast the ground spices together over a low heat for 4 to 5 minutes: ginger, cardamom, coriander, fenugreek, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and allspice. Shake or stir to prevent burning. Add the salt, cayenne pepper, paprika and fresh ground black pepper and continue toasting and stirring for 10 to 15 more minutes. Do not burn.

Store in tightly covered glass jar.
Refrigerated it is good for 5 or 6 months.

Makes 1 1/2 cups.

For the Doro Wat, I couldn't find single recipe so I improvised and came up with this one which rocks. It's not often that you taste something you cook and say "damn that's good". For this I did. For this I give a must make again and again-it was that good. Note it is not diet food. I used butter and ghee plus I kept the skin of the chicken on.



Doro Wat (Ethiopian Chicken Stew)

1 whole chicken halved
1 lemon- juiced
8 ounces Tomato paste
1/2 cup dry red wine
1 Stick butter
3 Tb Ghee
4 Hard boiled eggs (or more- one per serving)
3 medium size onions coarsely chopped
1 medium size bell pepper coarsely chopped
4 Cloves garlic minced
1 teaspoon Ground black pepper
3 Tb prepared berbere

Make red pepper paste by combining tomato sauce, red wine, berbere. Reserve.

Score each chicken half slightly with a knife. Soak in lemon juice plus enough water to cover for about 15 minutes.



In a large stew pot, melt the butter and ghee, then saute the onions and garlic for about five minutes. Add bell pepper and saute about 3-5 minutes mores.


Add red pepper paste stirring occasionally while the mixture simmers about 15 minutes. Add enough water to keep mixutre a stew consistency.


Place chicken halves in pot coating well with the sauce. Continue to simmer, adding enough water to maintain the consistency of a thick soup. When chicken is half done, after about 20 minutes, put in the hard boiled eggs.



Cover and continue cooking until the chicken is tender. The dish is ready when the oil has risen to the top. Add black pepper and let sit until slightly cooled. Adjust to taste with salt.

Makes enough to serve 4 to 6.

Superbowl 2007 Throwdown Pictures

Menu for the event included pulled pork, chicken, brisket, jalapeno corn muffins, baked beans, potato salad, veggie plate, coleslaw and buns. Mr. B and I prepared the meats.
Chicken:
Left = Mr. B.
Right = Sylvie
Brisket
Left = Sylvie
Right = Mr. B
Pulled Pork
Left = Mr. B.
Right = Sylvie




See complete slideshow of event at my Flickr photos of the Low and Slow BBQ Throw Down event.

Huli Huli Chicken and Korean BBQ Shortribs

So what do these two meats have in common? Well, at first glance, not a lot. Only that I used the same marinade for both of them and they were grilled side by side.

one of my co-workers told me about this fantastic marinade her family from Hawaii use to make Huli Huli Chicken. She usually just adds a little of this and a little of that but decided to measure so she could tell me what to do.

Huli Huli stands for "turn turn" in Hawaiian and refers to turning the chicken on the grill. I looked at varying recipes on the internet and found some basic ingredients and then those added ingredients individuals use to personalize the marinade.
















The basic marinade as told to me by LM is listed below.

You can't be garlic shy as there are 10 cloves, coarsely chopped in this recipe.
4-5 green onions sliced
2 Tbsp minced ginger
2-3 cups soy sauce
1/4 cup vinegar (I used rice vinegar)
1/4 cup brown sugar (I added more- 1/2 cup)
2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder (as if I needed more garlic)
3 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
1 tbsp oil (I used olive oil)

All ingredients are blended together. Marinade chicken pieces at least 24 hours assuring it is well coated.

Remove chicken from marinade (throw it out). BBQ/grill over hot coals, turning and turning. The best part is the crispy almost burnt skin with a sweet, salty, garlicky flavor. Do not baste the chicken during cooking.

Alternatives which may be added to the sauce include curry powder, pineapple juice, thai garlic sauce, sherry wine for the vinegar, honey for the brown sugar, ketsup and lime juice,to taste.

I had some unused marinade which I used for some Korean beef short ribs I purchased Saturday. These were also marinaded for 24 hours and grilled til done.