Author Archives: bbqviking

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About bbqviking

IT sales guy. Passionate about cooking for 20+ years. Passionate about BBQ for 8+ years. Join my journey in learning more about the mysteries and secrets of fantastic low & slow BBQ.

BBQ Viking Sliders with caramelized onions

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Sliders, homemade chipotle mayo, shakey taters and caramelized onions

These sliders are tasty, juicy (even when you have to cook them through), and are real popular with the kids. They’re easy to make too, and require only a quick sear on the grill. You could always buy some slider buns, but I really suggets making your own, see my recipe for buns here. I realize some of you are going to find it extremely controversial that I put bread in my sliders. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. I mean it. If you grind your own beef, and have a hot enough grill to get a sear on these while they’re still pink in the middle, you can skip the bread. But I often have to use storebought ground beef, and that means it has to be cooked all the way through. That’s where the bread comes in, by soaking up the juices and fat, it makes these sliders a real, juicy treat.

Time: 60 minutes total
Skill level: Easy
Grilling method: Direct
Grill temperature: About 250 degrees centigrade  (480F)
Equipment: Hickory wood chips for smoke

Serve with:
Homemade chipotle mayo
Homemade slider buns
Shakey potatoes (recipe to come)

Sliders and Texas style BBQ sauce

You’ll need to get hold of:
Ground beef, about 500 grams makes about 15 sliders
2 slices of bread
4 tbsp of your favorite, preferrable homemade, BBQ sauce. I used Rocket Fuelled Bull BBQ Sauce
Some meltable cheese (I prefer orange cheddar)
2 large yellow onions
2 tbsp butter

How you do it:

  • Have a hot grill waiting, for this I just cover the whole grill grate in white hot coals
  • Slice your onions the way you want them, and caramelize them in a frying pan with the butter, some salt and pepper, and about a tbsp of sugar, on low heat for 30-45 minutes. You can do this the night before, store in the fridge and just reheat.
  • Cut away the crust from your two slices of bread, and let it soak in cold water for ten minutes. After soaking, squeeze all the water out of it
  • Mix the ground beef carefully with the BBQ sauce, the bread and liberal amounts of salt and pepper
  • Form the slider patties. Remember to make them flatter and larger-diameter than you want to be finished product to be, because they will change size when they’re being grilled. Each patty should be about 33 grams
  • Get a good hickory smoke going on the grill before starting grilling, I use water-soaked chips for this to maximize smoke, since they’re only on there a couple of minutes.
  • Put them on the grill. About 2-3 minutes should be enough, flip them, put the cheese on the finished side, and give them another 2-3 minutes. Serve!

Techniques : Grill setups for direct, indirect and rotisserie grilling

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So, I get some questions on how I do different things on the grill, among other things how to keep a steady low temperature for low and slow BBQ on the standard Weber kettle. I have made the attached drawings to help me explain this better. Feel free to print and use this diagram as a reference, but don’t steal it and use it on your own webpage without asking me first, it took me some work to make it. Take a look at the diagram first, and below I will explain the different setups and what I use them for.

Grill setups for direct, indirect and rotisserie grilling

Okay, let’s start top left:

    • Indirect, two-sides: I use this when making roasts and other large pieces of meat. It’s good for a medium-low temperature, but can also go up to medium-high, just make the fire mounds on both sides bigger. I use this type of setup for instance for Whole, Smokegrilled Trout
    • Indirect/direct 50/50: This is perhaps my most used setup. It can go from medium to high heat, and it’s very versatile. You can grill indirect sides on the right side and have heat for searing meat and other thing on the left side. You have large safety/resting zone too, if you have larger piece of meat you want to sear first and then finish indirectly. I use this type of setup for instance in my Smokegrilled Mackerel recipe
    • Indirect/direct pile: This can be a good setup if you need a quick sear on something and then need to rest it a while after. I can see that it would be useful for thick t-bone steaks, for instance. You can also start with this for searing a roast or similar large piece, and then rake it out to both sides after for a long indirect cook.
    • Ring of fire: Haven’t experimented much with this one either. I can tell you I put it in there mostly for the name. I guess it could be good for indirectly grilling a very large piece of meat, it would give you a more even heat than some of the other options
    • Indirect, one-sided (low and slow!): I use this method for two things. Firstly,I use it when doing beef short ribs and pulled pork, in 12-16 hour sessions. I will then use a very minimal amount of briquettes, all on one side, 12-20 briquettes at a time, depending on the weather outside, and I use a large steel drip pan filled with about 4 litres (a gallon) of water in the middle of the grill. The purpose of the water is primarily to store heat and help me keep the temperature stable, but it also makes for a moist environment inside the grill. Adjust temperature using the bottom vent only, always leave top vent open. The second thing I use this for is rotisserie grilling chickens, ducks and other things. I will then use charcoal normally, and much more of it. No problem getting to 200-250 degrees centigrade (390-480F) with one big pile up against the side wall
    • Direct, all: I’ve only used this setup for one thing, but for that it’s very useful. We were having a big party, and I used the kettle for making a ton of chicken wings (only the small, outer wing part). For that, it was ingenious. A thin layer of coals over meant I could do 30-40 wings at a time on the grill as they needed no indirect grilling, only a good sear. Very efficient for making lots of sliders too I would imagine
    • Direct/indirect, two-zone fire: This is really a lot like the 50/50 setup, just with a smaller safety zone. Use when you need more sear space and less resting area.
    • Direct/indirect, three-zone fire: This is the most complicated setup. On the left 1/3rd of the grill there is a thick layer of coals for very high heat, the middle third has a thinner layer, and then there’s a safety zone to the right for resting. It’s just another option that might suit you depending what combination of food you’re grilling.

Yeah, that was a lot wasn’t it? I primarily use only 2-3 of these regularly, but it’s always good to know your options. Some common things to remember; always put a drip tray under your meat/fish when grilling indirect, you don’t want all the fat to drip and stick to the bottom part of your kettle. Another important point, when you set up, try to keep your coals away from the handles when you can. It will just be easier if you need to move the grill around during cooking if the handle sides don’t get too hot.

Spicy Bacon Potato Salad

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Spicy Bacon Potato Salad

A good potato salad is a great side for almost any BBQ dish. It’s also something that can be made the day before, stored in the fridge, and served cold.

Which in turn means you can focus on the preparation of meat when you need to, which is good. It also means it’s a great side to bring to the park, the beach or camping.

Time: 20-30 minutes
Skill level: Easy

You’re going to need:
12-15 Medium-sized red-skinned potatoes
About 1 cup of Homemade Chipotle Mayo (you can always substitute for store bought mayo mixed with chipotle hot sauce, but it won’t be as tasty then)
4 tbsp of Honey Dijon Mustard (I use Maille brand, the French know their mustard)
4 Scallions
6 thin strips of quality bacon
Salt/pepper

How you do it:

  • Slice your bacon in small slices, and fry in a pan over low heat. I like to grind some pepper on it while frying
  • Wash and dice your potatoes (I leave the peel on, it looks nice, and I’m also lazy)and boil them until they’re just about soft, not too long. Rinse in cold water and let drain in a colander
  • Whisk the mustard into the mayo
  • Slice your scallions in thin slices
  • Put potatoes in a bowl and mix with scallions, bacon and the dressing
  • Serve lukewarm of refrigerated and enjoy!

Easy Homemade Chipotle Mayo

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Homemade Chipotle Mayo

People tend to think homemade mayonnaise is difficult to make. Well it’s not. Here’s my basic recipe for a simple chipotle mayo (just skip the chipotle to make it regular mayo…)

This mayo is great on sliders or in my Spicy Bacon Potato Salad.

Time: 10 minutes
Skill level: Easy

You’re going to need:
2 Egg yolks
1 tsp water
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 cup of oil (canola, rapeseed, corn oil. no extra virgin, it overpowers everything else)
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp clear vinegar
Salt and pepper
Your favorite Chipotle hot sauce (I like Tabasco or Cholula brands)

How you do it:

  • Put egg yolks, mustard, 1tsp water and 1 tbsp lemon juice in blender. Mix with 4-5 pulses
  • Pour the oil in while mizing continuously in a steady, thin stream. It should take you >2-3 minutes to pour in the cup of oil
  • Once the oil is incorporated and the mayo is thick and creamy (emulsified!), whisk in as much as you like of your favorite Chipotle hot sauce. If you don’t like Chipotle (you’re in the wrong place) you can always use freshly minced garlic or some fresh herbs instead for your flavoured mayo.

Watermelon lemonade (yeah, it’s pink)

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Watermelon lemonade

Here’s a little twist on the basic homemade lemonade, where I use some watermelon as well. Sweeter than my regular lemonade, and the color gets a pinkish hue that looks nice. My kids love this one. Because the watermelon is sweet, you can get away with less granulated sugar. This recipe makes about 3 litres (two large pitchers)Time: 20-25 minutes
Skill level: Easy

You’ll need to get hold of:
12 lemons
1/4 medium-size watermelon
2 cups of sugar
Water
Lots of ice cubes

How you do it:

  • Put 2 cups of granulated white sugar and 4 cups of water in a pot
  • Make it boil (I trust you know how)
  • While you wait for the boil, squeeze 6 lemons into each of your lemonade pitchers.
  • Cut away the green and white parts from your 1/4 watermelon, and blend all the meat in a blender. Strain into the pitchers and mix with your lemon juice
  • Turn off your stove and stir until all sugar is dissolved
  • Fill your pitchers 2/3 full with ice cubes
  • Divide the simple syrup (sugar+water)in the two pitchers, and pour it on so most of the ice melts and the syrup gets cooled instantly
  • Put in more ice if needed, you can also add more ice cold water if the lemonade’s too strong

My favorite knife vs watermelon. Easy match.

Homemade burger, hot dog and slider buns

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Slider buns just out of the oven

Inspired by Norwegian-American BBQ chef Craig Whitson and his book “Far
lukter svidd” (Daddy smells burnt), I started making my own hot dog, burger and slider buns many years ago. This is basically his recipe, and it’s pretty straight-forward. I also use these for any BBQ-based sandwiches (pulled pork for instance).

Be warned though – once you try homemade buns like these, you’re NEVER going back to storebought… I usually make a large batch (2-3x this recipe), put them straight in the freezer, they only need 1-2 hours to defrost and taste great. This recipe makes about 60 slider buns, 25 large hot dog buns or 19 burger buns.

Time: 2-3 hours (mostly waiting though)
Skill Level: Easy

You’re going to need:
1 kilo (2.2 pounds) wheat flour (about 1,4 liters worth if you don’t have a scale)
2 packets of dry yeast
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
2,5 dl (8,5 oz) milk
2,5 dl (8,5 oz) water
2 eggs
4 tbsp rapeseed or similar oil
1 egg white and 2 tbsp milk for brushing
Sesame seeds (or other seeds if you prefer) for sprinkling

How you do it:
Put all the dry ingredients in your mixer bowl and whisk them a little. Put milk and water in a microwaveable (!) container, and heat to about body temp (for once I avoided the temp conversion from C to F!). Whisk the two eggs and rapeseed oil thoroughly into the milk/water mixture. Pour water mixture slowly into dry stuff while mixing continuously at low speed. Once the dough starts forming, crank it up, and knead it for 5-10 minutes by machine. You’re all set, leave the dough covered to rise for about 45-60 minutes until it has doubled in size.

Now, knead the dough a little by hand to get the large air bubbles out and the small ones evenly distributed. Once that’s done, you can start making your buns. I like to use a scale, so I can get them all the same size. I use 30 grams for slider buns, 75 for large hot dog buns, and 100 grams for large burger buns.

Turn your oven to 200 degrees centigrade (390F). Roll out the buns, and then squeeze them pretty flat, about 1,5cm (half inch) thick. They rise quite a lot. Cover the trays of buns with kitchen towels, and leave to rise to double size, again about 45 minutes. Brush them with egg wash (milk+egg white), then sprinkle seeds on top. Bake them in the middle of the oven for 10-14 minutes until golden brown. Transfer to wire rack immediately to let them cool, before eating them or bagging and freezing them. Enjoy!

Ember-roasted yams

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Yams that have been roasted directly on the embers. Tasty!

This is maybe my all-time favorite side dish. It goes well with all meats, it’s healthier than potatoes, and it tastes fantastic. It really couldn’t be easier than putting something right on the coals and leaving it there. The burning of the outside gives the inside a lovely smokey flavor. Best trick ever!
Time: 45-60 minutes total
Skill level: Easy
Grilling method: On the embers
Grill temperature: Doesn’t really matter as long as the coals are white-hot

You’ll need to get hold of:
Yams
(Optional) Butter, garlic, herbs for a herb butter

Yams that have been roasted directly on the embers. Yes I have moved them to the grate for the photo. Don’t do that before they’re finished.

How you do it:

  • No washing or prep needed, because you’re burning the outside to a crisp anyway
  • Just chuck your yams directly on the white-hot coals, turn them every 10-15 minutes until they have a nice, ashy, burnt finish on all sides
  • Prick them with a knife to check they’re nice and soft all the way through
  • Slice in two with a sharp knife, make a garlic or herb butter, mash it up a bit with a fork, and eat!

Spicy Fennel Ketchup aka Ketchup for grownups

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Homemade spicy fennel ketchup

I like experimenting with making ketchups. The regular Heinz ketchup is of course aclassic that will live forever, but sometimes it’s good to have a ketchup with more taste to it, especially for spicy sausages and on burgers. In this one, a spicy fennel taste is what I’m going for. This recipe makes about 2 jars of delicious homemade ketchup.

Time: 60 minutes
Skill Level: Easy

You’re going to need:
8 smoked, roasted chillies
2 cans of chopped tomatoes (If you live in a part of the world with GREAT tomatoes, you can use fresh ones instead. Lucky you!)
0,5 cup tomato paste
2 tbsp rapeseed oil
6 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 cup of brown sugar (I use the sticky kind)
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp freshly ground fennel seed
1 tsp marjoram
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tbsp ground pepper
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp maldon salt
2 tbsp ground chili flakes

Fennel seeds

Put your smoked and roasted chillies with rapeseed oil in a blender, and blend to a fine paste. Combine with everything else in a saucepan, and bring slowly to a boil. Let it simmer for 45 minutes or until desired consistency is reached. Blend in batches until desired smoothness is achieved. Let it cool to room temperature before putting in containers and storing in the fridge. Sterilize your equipment and jars, seal them properly, and this kind of sauce will stay good for many months in your fridge.

Quick tip: String’em up!

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Here’s a great tip for smoking or roasting small pieces of vegetables or any other small things. Get some steel string from your local hardware store, and just string them up, like so. This worked great when smoking a bunch of chillies for my homemade ketchup.

Chillies stringed up on steel string

Rocket Fuelled Bull BBQ Sauce

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I make my own BBQ sauces. It’s fun, it’s a lot cheaper than buying them (at least here in Norway), and it means you can tailor the sauce to your particular tastes. I think it’s good to make as much as possible of my food from the ground up, because then I know what’s in it. Call me paranoid, but I don’t always trust the food industry to make the healthiest choices on my behalf… Also, it’s not a very difficult thing to cook. This is a sweet, tangy sauce with quite the kick to it. Which is just what I like for any BBQ beef dish.

Chillies stringed up on steel string and smoking on the BBQ

Time: 60 minutes
Skill Level: Easy

You’re going to need:
1/2 yellow onion
8 whole fresh chillies (I use some medium to mild ones)
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1/2 cup Worcestershire Sauce
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
0,5 cups of good bourbon
1 tbsp ground cumin
2 tbsp paprika powder (preferably the Spanish, spicy variety)
2 tbsp freshly ground pepper
1,5 cups of brown sugar
2 tbsp of liquid smoke (not necessary if you smoke the onion and chillies)

Ideally, I like to smoke and roast the chillies and onion on the grill beforehand, I normally do this while BBQing something else. If you don’t have time for that, just deseed chillies, chop onion, saute in the rapeseed oil, and then put in a blender to make a smooth paste. Combine the paste and the rest of all the ingredients in a saucepan. Whisk once in a while and let it simmer for 30-45 minutes until desired consistency is achieved. Let it cool to room temperature before putting in containers and storing in the fridge. Sterilize your equipment and jars, seal them properly, and this kind of sauce will stay good for many months in your fridge.

The finished sauce. I still draw at a kindergarten level, I know. Thanks.