Our Meyer lemons are so ripe they’re almost falling off our trees (1 regular and 2 dwarfs), so I’m using lots of things with lemons these days. This weekend I need to make homemade margaritas for a family gathering and I’ll use oodles of them, most likely.

As you’ve read here before, I’m the first to admit that chicken breasts can be challenging for most cooks – you want to infuse them with lots of flavor and also not overcook them so they’re dry. Dry = tasteless. The trick is taking them off the fire/flame when they’re JUST done and not later. It was some years ago that I learned at one of Phillis Carey’s cooking classes, that flattening chicken breasts to a mostly even thickness is one secret to success. Phillis has written an entire BOOK about cooking chicken breasts, so she comes by her knowledge with a lot of experience under her belt. If you have one of these pounders (pictured at left), great. If not, use a regular meat pounder turned on its side – you do not want to pulverize the chicken flesh. You just spread it a little bit, that’s all.

This recipe came from a 2005 Gourmetissue. As I recall, the editorial staff asked  employees for favorite recipes they’d share in the magazine. This one was provided by Food Editor Melissa Roberts-Matar, from her father Richard Roberts. The recipe does not come with any sauce or garnish. Hence, I decided to add a bit of zip to the mixture by sprinkling on a gremolata. Traditionally gremolatais sprinkled on Italian osso buco as a garnish only. But it’s zippy – lemon zest, finely minced garlic and Italian parsley. If used in profusion it could overpower this, so be gentle until you know that you really like it and can handle the pungent garlic. And whatever you do, don’t overcook the chicken.

If you’ve pounded the breasts, you simple put them in a bowl or plastic bag and add the marinade. What’s unique about this concoction is a raw EGG. One whole egg gets whizzed up in the blender with the other ingredients, so the liquid becomes emulsified – looks more like a salad dressing than a marinade. It has some fresh squeezed lemon juice and vegetable oil. It also called for poultry seasoning. Since I didn’t have any, I made my own with dried sage, dried thyme, pepper, marjoram and a dash of ground cloves. So my recipe differs somewhat from the original. The chicken is marinated for at least 8 hours, and up to 24.

If you check on the recipe at Epicurious, you’ll find that a couple of people thought it was dry and tasteless, but most people who made this raved about it. So beware of overcooking, that’s all I can tell you. The chicken is grilled, first searing both sides, then baked (inside the grill) off heat until they’re done. If you don’t mind inserting a meat thermometer into chicken breasts (the absolute best way to know when they’re done) cook them until they reach 155 degrees, and not a moment longer. Whisk them while they’re sizzling hot to a heated platter and serve. Chicken doesn’t need to sit and rest as red meat does.

The gremolata ingredients are added in this recipe at the bottom. Hope you enjoy that – it makes a huge difference. I like lemon-garlic-parsley, so for me I could add a lot of it. You could also serve this with a fruit salsa, but I think it would detract from the delicate lemon flavor of the chicken. If you prefer a sauce, make a savory lemon sauce to go with it. I’d want a clear lemon sauce, probably made with cornstarch, chicken broth, lemon juice, and that would be about it. Or a chimichurri sauce would also go perfectly with this. If you enjoy lemon, you could also give the chicken breasts a little squeeze of lemon just before serving, too. The lemon flavor definitely permeated through the chicken. I might give it the full 24 hours marinating time, next time. Shall I say it one more time? Don’t overcook it, that’s all.
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Last summer we purchased a quarter of a 4-H pig. We have a friend whose children, when they were young, used to raise pigs every year, and since the children have sprouted wings and left the nest, she still allows other 4-H kids to board pigs on her ranch. Over the years, we’ve purchased a quarter of a pig several times – mostly ones raised on her ranch. They’re raised with natural products, no hormones, and with lots and lots of TLC. Only once were we disappointed in the flavor of the meat. This last summer’s pig is the best ever. We ended up buying a quarter of the prized blue-ribbon 4-H pig of the season at auction at the Orange County Fair. She was bigger than most and sold for more than many of them, but we got a bit more meat than usual. We have to pay extra for the slaughtering and butchering, and one of us (the group of 3-4 who have purchased the whole pig) has to drive about 40 miles to pick it up, all packaged and frozen. We order what we want – more or less chops, roasts, ground pork, sausage, one ham roast, per family, etc. and they package it up per our instructions. Now I really need to get busy because the next Fair is in July.

When you buy a 4-H pig, you pay for all the poundage, even though a good percentage of it is discarded, or the butcher uses it for other products. I decline the hooves, skin, fat, organ meat, neck bones, bones in general. In some cultures, I know, those odd pieces are prized. Once I visited an Hispanic market and there were whole pig/hog heads for sale. Eek. Not my cup of pig broth. You may want to  read my original story about Petunia, our first 4-H pig.

So I’d been trying to use up other meat things in the freezer, and we hadn’t eaten any of ’08’s pig. We heard that the loin chops from this pig were sensational. Oh, indeed, they were. They’re huge. Bigger than any pork chops I’ve ever seen at a butcher store. After defrosting them I used some of Michael Chiarello’s Citrus Rosemary Sea Salt on them and they went onto the barbecue. My DH has this lesson down pat – he grilled them about 4 minutes per side, then put them on a rack, on a small cookie sheet (I’d covered the whole thing with foil) and roasted them off the direct heat at about 350 inside the grill, until the internal meat temp reached 150. We tented the meat with foil for about 5 minutes, while I finished the rest of the meal (snow peas sauteed with garlic, and a salad of field greens and radishes). I also made my favorite mango salsa with cilantro to go with the pork. I used frozen mango chunks (from Trader Joe’s), some red bell pepper, some diced green chiles and a splash of rice wine vinegar.

Oh, my goodness. Were those chops ever good. So juicy. Unbelievably tender meat. Now, I know, you can’t go to the corner market and buy 4-H pig loin chops. Neither can I. But, you can contact somebody in 4-H in your area and see if you could buy a part of one. I recommend it.

What I posted a year ago today: Vermont Cheddar Cheese Bread

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It isn’t often that you can create a marinade and use that same marinade as a sauce. It could be done more, I suppose, except that often the ingredients in a marinade contain things that you wouldn’t want in a finishing sauce (things that tenderize meat, like a brine, or beer, vinegar, other acidic citrus juices, etc.). In this case, once the boneless leg of lamb was marinated in the cherry and Merlot marinade, that same marinade was simmered (to make sure the raw-meat bacteria were boiled), pureed and used as a delicious sauce.

This is another recipe from the cooking class I attended last week at Great News in San Diego, and taught by Phillis Carey. It’s for recipes like this one that my friend Cherrie and I keep going back to Phillis’ classes, since she comes up with the most interesting food combinations. I’d never have thought to use frozen cherries as the basis for a marinade. I’m glad she did!

So, you combine the marinade (cherries, Merlot, shallot, garlic, brown sugar, red wine vinegar, oil, marjoram, basil and soy sauce) and marinate for 4-12 hours. If you’re fortunate enough to have a Costco near you, pick up one of their boneless legs of lamb. Such a bargain! After removing the lamb from its covering you spread it out – stretch it out, if you will – and fix the thick parts. By its very nature, the boneless lamb has a couple of thick knobby parts, and if you were to grill it as-is, those knobs would be raw inside and the thinner parts would dried up if you continued to cook it. Answer? You make some moderately deep slits (not clear through) across the knobby parts to kind of flatten them. Allows the thicker parts to cook more evenly. You’ll still have some parts of the lamb that will be more medium to medium-well cooked, but the thicker parts will be perfectly (to me, anyway) grilled to medium-rare.

If you use a meat thermometer (recommended), roast the meat to 130, remove and tent the meat while you finish up the dinner, then cut thinner slices and drizzle with the cherry-Merlot sauce that you’ve boiled down. Phillis actually served this lamb with a dried cherry-pecan relish (creme de cassis, water, sugar, dried tart cherries, pecans and orange zest) but the cherry-Merlot sauce was all I wanted on my portion. If you’re interested in the relish, go to the bottom of the recipe and you’ll find it.
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If you’re a beer lover, then this steak will be right down your alley. I don’t drink beer, but recognize its value for marinating and in stews and braises. You won’t really know there even IS beer in the marinade, but it helps to tenderize any meat and give it a deeper flavor.

The recipe came from the cooking class (thanks to Cherrie for faxing me her copy of the recipes) last week, with Phillis Carey, one of my most favorite cooking teachers. The steaks we enjoyed at the class only marinated for a very short time, and they definitely weren’t very tender, but the flavor was good. (Just make sure you buy better-quality steaks if/when you make this.) Phillis is a master of creating pan sauces to go with just about any kind of meat, be it chicken breasts, beef, pork, fish or lamb.

The steaks go into a whole-grain mustard and beer-enhanced marinade – overnight, if possible. While the steaks grill, you prepare a white wine and peppercorn based pan sauce to which you add some heavy cream at the end. If you prefer a thicker sauce (this one is quite thin) you might want to add about 2 teaspoons of flour to the shallot mixture before you add the broth, so you’ll end up with a slightly thickened sauce. If you like sauce, you might want to make a larger quantity of it (more than indicated in this recipe) so you’ll have ample to drizzle on the side potatoes too. I’ll be posting a recipe for mashed potatoes that went with this perfectly, also prepared at the class.
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Costco sells these already-sealed packages of chicken. Boneless thighs come with about 5 in a package. Boneless breasts usually have two small in each sealed pouch. Makes it so easy to count them, even defrost them in a bowl of water since they’re totally sealed up and can be submerged. I have these pouches stashed all over in the freezer, which makes it difficult sometimes to find them. But oh well, I did find a package of thighs and had just read this recipe.

Andrea’s Recipes is a blog I read regularly, and she mentioned in a recent post that there is a fairly significant Japanese population in Peru. Who knew? Hence, there are a number of different recipes that have been adopted by the general population as Peruvian. The addition of lime juice makes this grilled chicken different than the usual yakitori from Japan. Plus the use of cumin, paprika and oregano!

The chicken is marinated in this concoction (very low on the soy sauce scale). There is just a tiny splash of vegetable oil in the mixture. I made a half recipe for my batch of chicken thighs. We grilled ours, but there are directions for baking or grilling (both gas and charcoal). These were delish. Since I like cumin and oregano a lot, it married well with the other ingredients. And the soy sauce is a very minor player in the mixure of flavors. Just make sure you have sufficient time to marinate the chicken for at least 8 hours, or up to 24. And thanks to Andrea for her great recipe.
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A year ago: Shiitake-Crusted Chicken in Sauce

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At Costco the other day I purchased a small boneless Australian leg of lamb. I don’t buy them very often because even the small ones are simply too much meat for us to use. And I like to prepare them whole – not cut it in half with freezing part of it (because I think the frozen pieces never are as good as the freshly prepared ones). So I have to be creative in using the leftovers. And we generally invite somebody over for dinner when we fix it. Our son, his wife, and our young year-old grandson joined us this time. I wasn’t motivated enough to make a salsa or sauce this time, but opted to serve it simply, as is. But I did serve it with the watermelon tomato salad, the BBQ macaroni (pasta) salad, and some grilled pineapple (see below).

First I brined it. The experts say red meat (beef and lamb) doesn’t require brining, but I thought it would be a good thing to help retain moisture. I used a spicy herb brine mix that I buy from Whole Foods. As a side note, I use a whole lot less of the salt mixture than the jar indicates (if I used their proportions I’d use up the mixture in about 3 brinings. And if you’re not sure how salty to make it, add some salt to whatever quantity of water you think you need to cover the meat, then TASTE IT. If it’s mildly salty, that’s perfect. Very salty – add more water. You want it to be pleasantly salty. If you can’t really taste the salt, add a bit more.) I’m very sensitive to salt, so I prefer a mildly salt brine, but it’s completely up to your palate.

I let it marinate (turning it several times) for about 4-5 hours, drained it, then Dave threaded it onto the rotisserie probe. The roast was covered in one of those elastic mesh thingies – that held firm all through the grilling process. Because the brine was already spiced, I opted not to use the lemon marinade from the recipe (below) I referred to (Rotisseried Leg of Lamb with Lemon and Butter, from Steven Raichlen’s book, The Barbecue Bible). The recipe includes, though, a basting mixture of oil, lemon juice, white wine (I used just lemon juice), garlic, oregano and pepper, which Dave slathered on the meat every 15 minutes of its grilling. The recipe indicates to grill until the meat reaches 170 F. That’s way too long if you like red-hued meat. We took it off the grill at 140 F, and let it sit. It was still blood rare, so I might opt to cook it just a tad longer (like 145 F). We let it sit loosely covered with foil for 5 minutes (should have been 10) before carving and serving. It was delicious.

As with most legs of lamb, some parts of the meat are more tender than others, but it was cooked very nicely, and I liked the flavor. The combination of the lamb with grilled pineapple was really great.

THE GRILLED PINEAPPLE: We sliced the peeled pineapple in full rounds about ¾ inch thick and grilled just long enough on each side to get lovely grill marks and be hot throughout. If you’ve never had grilled pineapple, may I nicely tell you – NOW – get yourself to a market with good-quality, ripe pineapples and buy one. It’s one of the simplest sides (or dessert with vanilla ice cream if you’re so inclined) that you’ll ever make. I mean – you cut off the skins, remove most of the eyes, slice and grill. If you do it for dessert, maybe put a tiny amount of brown sugar on one side. Either way, the pineapple gets this unctuous caramelized appearance AND caramel flavor. Not to be missed.

As for the lamb: Now we’ll see what I can concoct for the leftovers. Any of you have favorites? My first go-to would be shepherd’s pie, but it’s awfully hot weather for that. So, we’ll see what I can invent this time.
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There’s a photo of the slider version of Oprah’s Turkey Burgers. Oh my. Oh so good.

And here’s a photo of the delish pear chutney that goes with the turkey burgers. These are a must – don’t make one without the other.

When I started planning, we didn’t know if we were going to have 9 or 15 family members here to celebrate our Independence Day. The group included adults and children, so I needed to find a menu that would appeal to everybody. My DH wasn’t all that thrilled when I said he was going to grill hamburgers. They’re not one of his favorite things – mostly because he doesn’t enjoy eating out of hand – he likes food on a plate with a knife and fork. Weird thing. But he’s not very picky about most things, so I just tried to humor him most times. Told him about the potato salad I was making, about the relishes, the peach dessert we’d have. The big green salad. I knew he wouldn’t go hungry. Indeed he didn’t. He absolutely loved the turkey burgers.

What I decided was this:

Chips & fresh tomato salsa
Hot chile cheese dip with Fritos
Deviled eggs

Beef burger sliders with red onion red bell pepper relish
Oprah’s (Donald Trump’s) Mar-a-Lago turkey burgers (also sliders) with pear chutney
Traditional potato salad (recipe soon)
Green salad with VIP Garlic Dressing

Desserts:
Apple pie and Peach pie
Both served with ice cream or whipped cream

As with most big gatherings, I needed to start cooking the day before. I made the relish, pear chutney and the potato salad. The morning of the 4th I had some help in the kitchen, so between my daughter Dana and me we made the green salad, the dressing and shaped all the burgers. Our daughter in law, Karen, brought the two desserts.

The sliders were all served on King’s Hawaiian bread rolls (both regular white and whole wheat). They’re soft, a bit sweet, and taste better than the soft Styrofoam that comprises most commercially-made hamburger buns. Since we were serving both beef and turkey burgers, I decided we’d have sliders (small burgers) instead of full-size burgers. Easier to eat. And more variety for everyone.

There’s quite a story behind the turkey burgers. In case you missed watching Oprah’s show that day (last month), she told the story about when she and her friend Gail went to the Mar-a-Lago (a Donald Trump resort) in Palm Beach, Florida for a couple of days. It’s a private club, apparently. Don’t know anything about how you get to stay there. Am sure it’s pricey. But anyway, Oprah decided to order the turkey burger on the menu there. She fell in love. Craved it the next meal too. And the next. And the next. Gail tried to get the recipe. Nope, they wouldn’t reveal it. So, when Oprah got back to Chicago she phoned her friend Donald Trump and asked if he’d ever had the turkey burgers at Mar-a-Lago? He scoffed. Of course not, he said. He doesn’t eat anything even related to turkey burgers. She wanted the recipe. Some negotiations later, he agreed and appeared on the show where the burgers were prepared and passed out to the audience. Oprah was in heaven since she now has the recipe. And so do we!

What’s unique about these burgers is chutney. Not just any old chutney. Major Grey’s chutney. Now we need to have a little history lesson here (thanks to Wikipedia).

• The original chutney of India was usually a relish made from fresh fruits and spices. During the colonial era the British took it home and the recipe evolved, until the commercially made mango chutney (“Major Grey’s chutney”) became the British standard chutney. Commercially made cooked chutneys are still popular in Great Britain, and are usually made of fruit (usually mangos, apples or pears), onions and raisins simmered with vinegar, brown sugar and spices for about two hours.
• Chutneys are served with almost every meal in India, especially as relishes with curries, but also as sauces for hot dishes (especially meats). They can be fresh or cooked, and are made from a wide variety of ingredients, ranging in flavor from sweet or sour, spicy or mild, or any combination; they can be thin or chunky and can be made with fruits or vegetables or both.

According to Wikipedia, Sun Brand chutney is the best (contains more fruit than others; can be found online). I bought Crosse & Blackwell’s version (quite pricey at $5.49 for 9 ounces). If you have mangoes, there are recipes all over the internet for Major Grey’s version. I got a kick out of reading somewhere that this Major Grey is also the same “Earl” Grey of tea fame. Who knew! The turkey burgers were a big hit. I loved them. Absolutely loved them. Will make them again, no question. The beef burgers were also wonderful on the small buns, and the onion pepper marmalade I’ll post in the next day or so.
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It was a few weeks ago I went to yet another cooking class. (Lucky for you, you don’t have to pay for the class, but you get to have the recipes!) The subject was entrees suitable for entertaining, by Phillis Carey. I’ll post most of the recipes (one of them I didn’t like much, so will ignore that one) in the next couple of weeks.

This marinade and glaze for flank steak looks like it’s got a lot of ingredients (it does), but it goes together quite quickly. Don’t eliminate the Tabasco – I loved the little bit of heat in this marinade. And the overall taste was excellent. The meat is tenderized (it needs to marinate for at least 24 hours (even 2-3 days would be fine). Cut on the bias and across the grain for very tender slices.
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Needing to clean out my freezer in preparation for receiving a quarter of a 4-H pig in a month, I’ve been working diligently to discard old stuff that I’ll never use and cook up things that have been hiding in corners. I had this nice 2-pound boneless pork loin roast, but what to do with it? I turned to my newest favorite grilling book: The Barbecue Bible by Steven Raichlen. Sure enough, he had several pork loin recipes. This one fit the bill since it didn’t require me to run to the grocery store. All I needed was garlic (yup), rosemary (yup, out of the garden, in abundance), salt, pepper and olive oil. How cinchy is that?

Ideally you’ll want to marinate this roast for a few hours with the herb-garlic mixture all over it, but I didn’t have the time. I’d forgotten to defrost the roast until about noon the other day, so soaked it in cold water (all sealed up) for several hours. Some parts of the middle were still a bit on the frosty side, so I opened up the roast (which is a procedure in the recipe anyway) and let it sit at room temp for about 20 minutes.

photo, from Raichlen’s The Barbecue Bible, showing how to butterfly a pork tenderloin. I used the same technique for a pork roast.

The recipe indicates using a mortar for grinding up the herb mixture, but I had frozen little cubes of garlic to use (pureed) and it took no time at all to mince the fresh rosemary. I just minced and minced and minced with my long santoku knife, then mashed in the garlic, salt, pepper, and finally the oil. It took no time at all to make. I’m including a photo of a page in the cookbook about butterflying the meat. The meat I had was from Costco, and it was already rolled. I opened it up (it was already butterflied), but then you cut shorter pockets in each side (in the fat side of the loins) – not all the way through, and leaving ½ inch at each end. So it’s a kind of slot. To stuff the herbs into. You slather half of the mixture on the inside edges, reform the roast, tie it up (I used those nifty reusable baking rubber bands), then slather the remaining herbs on the outside.

We decided to rotisserie the roast. My DH warmed the grill to high, and between us we positioned the rotisserie prongs in the meat and started it up. You can also do this over indirect heat on the grill itself (positioning a drip pan under the grill, however). It took about 70 minutes for our roast to reach 160 degrees F. We removed it, let it rest for about 5 minutes while I quick-like arranged the artichoke half I’d just pressure-cooked, and a nice green salad. I had meat from the inside of the roast – it was delicious – absolutely mouth-filling with the garlic and rosemary. Loved it. DH had a slice from the outside, and he thought it was a bit overdone. Next time I’d remove the roast at 155 degrees F. and let it sit. And I’d push the pocket to almost the end, so only the very outside slice would be without some of the herb mixture in it. I might also make a sauce to serve with this – a pan sauce would be easy enough to do. Maybe just chicken broth, rosemary and garlic, perhaps some chopped up dried apricots. Boiled and thickened, then with some added butter just at the end. Just a thought. I’ll be making this again, in any case.
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So, there was a blurb by John Willoughby in June’s issue of Gourmet that almost missed my radar. Here’s the blurb quoted from the magazine:

Myth: Searing meat at the beginning of cooking helps seal in the juices.

Facts: Despite its impressive heritage (Escoffier himself espoused the concept), this well-known axiom is completely false. In his book The Curious Cook, food scientist Harold McGee explains how he cooked a series of identical steaks with and without initial searing, then measured the moisture loss from each. The results were clear – the seared steaks actually lost a bit MORE juice during cooking. There is, however, a very good reason to give meat a nice, hard sear when it first goes into the pan. Thanks to a chemical process called the Maillard reaction, it creates literally hundreds of new flavor compounds that give the meat a much deeper and more complex flavor.

 Thank goodness for that last sentence; otherwise we’d be eating gray meat from hereon in. But, they missed one other ascetic – meat just plain LOOKS better when it’s been marked or seared, don’t you think? Photo above is our favorite grilled beef: Ribeye Steaks with Amazing Glaze.

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