Chipotle Beef BBQ Sauce

Posted on March 15, 2014 by bbqviking

Came up with a new BBQ sauce today. The plan is to use it for beef short ribs, so that’s what I thought about when coming up with the flavour profile for it. It’s slightly sweet, very tangy, and as spicy as you want to make it. I ordered some delicious dried Chipotles from iHerb. They’re kinda hard to come by in Norway. If you can get them locally where you live, consider yourself lucky. Here’s what I did.

Time: 45 minutes
Skill Level: Easy

You’re going to need:
1 yellow onion
6 dried, whole chipotle peppers
4 whole fresh chillies (I use some medium to mild ones)
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup A1 Steak Sauce
1/2 cup of ketchup
2 tbsp bourbon
2 tbsp ground cumin
2 tbsp paprika powder (preferably the Spanish, spicy variety)
2 tbsp freshly ground pepper
3/4 cup of brown sugar
2 tbsp molasses

First thing you want to do is heat up some oil in a saucepan. Then add finely chopped onions, garlic, fresh chillies, and the chipotle peppers. Let them caramelize on low for about 15 minutes, then add the other dried spices and cook another 5 minutes.

Now you can add the A1, the vinegar, the ketchup, and the sugar. let it simmer until you get the desired thickness, and remember the sugar will make it thicker when it’s cold, so if you plan to primarily serve it cold, you should consider that.

Once it reaches it desired thickness, it is time to blend. The cool thing here is you can take out one or more whole chipotles, blend, taste and see how spicy it is. If it’s not hot enough for you, add inn chipotle(s) and blend again until it’s just right for you. How cool is that!?

BBQ Gallery – III

Gallery

Posted on July 20, 2012 by bbqviking

This gallery contains 18 photos.

Here it is! The third installment in my popular BBQ Gallery series. Enjoy!

Bacon-wrapped tenderloin and grilled vegetables

Posted on June 16, 2012 by bbqviking

Grilled, Bacon Wrapped Tenderloin with Zucchini and Tomatoes

There’s some real nice South American tenderloin to be had at my local store here in Oslo this year, thanks to the Rema 1000 chain of food stores. This meat is of much better quality than what you normally can get here in Oslo for a decent price. So I plan to take advantage of that this summer. So, I went and bought myself a piece of tenderloin, cut it into some nice large steaks and gave it a quick sear on the grill. This is what chef/author Steven Raichlen likes to refer to as “millionaire grilling”. You’re really buying yourself success, because you have to be an idiot not to get tenderloin right on the grill, all it takes is quick sear, to serve this meat done anywhere over medium rare would be a crime to bovines everywhere.

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

Serve with:
Ember-roasted yams
Grilled zucchini and vine tomatoes

You’ll need to get hold of:
A piece of tenderloin, two pounds should easily serve 4
A squash
4-6 Vine tomatoes
Some strips of quality bacon
Some hickory wood chips for a quick smoke
Some yams, 1 for each person eating
Weber’s thin, double-pronged skewers, or some wooden skewers

How you do it:

Have a hot grill waiting, for this I use a two-zone setup
Chuck your yams on the coals as described here, and turn them every 10-15 minutes or so
While the yams are cooking, cut your tenderloin into nice tall steaks, wrap them in

Griled tenderloin with Zucchini and Tomatoes

good bacon, and put a skewer through the whole thing to keep the bacon in place during cooking
If you want your steaks rare, keep them in the fridge until grilling, if you want them medium-rare, you can take them out of the fridge 1-2 hours in advance
Slice tomatoes in half and zucchini in thick slices and skewer them. I use Weber’s double-pronged thing skewers for this, they’re great. If you don’t have those, use two wooden skewers soaked in water
Season the vegetables with salt, pepper and marjoram, and brush them lightly with canola or rapeseed oil. When they’re seared leave them in the indirect/resting area of the grill
Let your grate heat up until it gets that white-gray colour, so you can get a good sear
Season the steaks (I use salt and pepper only for this one), and sear the steaks about 2 minutes, then turn them 45 degrees to get nice grill marks, another 2 minutes, flip, and repeat
Take the steaks off the grill to a plate (not the one you kept raw meat on), and let them rest under foil for 10 minutes while the vegetables finish
Plate everything, and serve. I just slice my yams in two and serve them on a separate plate to not get yam coal on my food, with a herb butter

All-round spice rub without sugar

Posted on June 14, 2012 by bbqviking

Pork butt, rubbed and ready to go

I’ve decided to move away from rubs that contain sugar, largely because they’re not that all-round (sugar starts burning at higher temperatures) and also because the sugar makes them stick to my grate, which means more cleanup.

Also, I’m sure I get enough sugar in me during an average week, so if I can do without it in rubs – great!

So why not try this good all-round rub with some kick to it, which goes well with chicken, pork, beef, and even fish. Just mix all this together.

Use a mortar and pestle or your electric coffee grinder to get everything pretty finely ground:

1 cup paprika powder
0,5 cups hot, smoky paprika powder (Spanish or Hungarian variety)
4 tbsp ground chili flakes
4 tbsp ground black pepper
1/2 cup celery salt
4 tbsp smoked sea salt
2 tbsp ground cumin
2 tbsp marjoram
2 tbsp onion flakes
2 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp dry mustard

Mix it all together and you’re ready to go! This recipe should make somewhere between 3-4 cups of rub, which should last you a couple of weeks or months, depending on how much you BBQ… Enjoy!

BBQ Gallery – II

Posted on June 11, 2012 by bbqviking

Last week’s escapades in grilling and BBQ here at BBQ Viking’s house

: Homemade slider buns

: Juicy sliders ready to eat

: Tasty sliders!

: Homemade Chipotle Mayo

: Making some bacon potato salad

: Spicy Bacon Potato Salad

: T-bone steak – caveman style

: T-bone steak – caveman style

: Caveman t-bone (yeah i forgot to clip the fat…)

: Pork butt, rubbed and ready to go

: Brisket, Norwegian style (oksebryst)

: Brisket, Norwegian style (oksebryst)

: Early morning, firing up the kettle

: The meat goes on, it’s 8 AM

: Taking notes is paramount if you want to learn

: Smoking up the neighborhood early Sunday morning

: Two butts, a ham and a cow chest

: Closing in on finished after 10+ hours

: The meat is resting, homemade buns ready to go

: Norwegian style brisket – oksebryst

: Pork butts ready for pullin’

: Pulled pork!

: Homemade coleslaw and pulled pork sandwich. Ah yeh…

: Homemade coleslaw and pulled pork sandwich. Ah yeh…

BBQ Viking Sliders with caramelized onions

Posted on June 9, 2012 by bbqviking

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!

Spicy Fennel Ketchup aka Ketchup for grownups

Posted on June 3, 2012 by bbqviking

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.

Rocket Fuelled Bull BBQ Sauce

Posted on June 3, 2012 by bbqviking

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.