Sweet (and possibly spicy) pickle relish

picklerelishPickle relish is fantastic. Nothing beats a good smoked bratwurst in a homemade bun, slathered with homemade IPA mustard and some delicious relish. Now that’s a hot dog! A cool thing about this recipe, is that it’s the only way I know of to make something pickled in less than half an hour. This one is ready to eat right off the bat. That’s pretty cool. This recipe should make for about one large mason jar type container, so just double it if you need more.

Time: 30 minutes
Skill Level: Easy

You’re going to need:
4 pickling cucumbers (those smallish ones)
1/2 of a yellow onion
1 Large green pepper
1 cup of apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup of honey
Red chili flakes (if you want it spicy)
Celery seed
Yellow mustard seed

How to do it:

  • Grate the pepper, onion and pickling cucumber.
  • Put them in a sieve and drain some of the water out squeezing them gently with your hands or some kind of spoon implement. Put all the grated vegetables in a pot with DSC_1584the vinegar and the honey
  • Bring to a boil, and add a tablespoon or two of mustard seed, a pinch of celery seed, and as much chili flakes as you want. I use chili flakes that are quite hot, so for me about a teaspoon is enough for this one
  • Let it simmer until desired consistency is reached
  • Put in sterilized jars and enjoy delicious homemade relish for months to come
  • And hey – it’s great on burgers too!

 

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Sweet and Smoky BBQ Sauce

Sweet and smoky sauce!Been a long time since I posted a BBQ sauce recipe, so here is another favorite. Not very spicy, but smoky and sweet. Goes great with sausage, pork ribs, chicken and pulled pork sandwiches, and a favorite at my house for the people who can’t take the heat of a lot of my other stuff.

Time: 30 minutes
Skill Level: Easy

You’re going to need:
3 tbsp dark brown sugar
1/4 cup of honey
1/4 cup of molasses
4 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp liquid smoke
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp maldon salt or more to taste
2 tbsp fine grain mustard
2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
2 cups of ketchup

Sterilizing jars in the oven. Easy!How to do it:
This couldn’t be easier. Chuck everything except the ketchup in a saucepan, stir well and bring to a boil. Let simmer for 10 minutes. Add the ketchup, bring to boil. Taste. Add vinegar, sweetener, salt and pepper until you get your preferred flavor. Let cool, put in jars. Keeps for months in the fridge if you use sterilized jars.

 

Chipotle Beef BBQ Sauce

Chipotle BBQ Sauce for beef ribs!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

Cooking with chipotles!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!?

My wife loves her new Dymo labeller...

Make your own craft beer mustard

Soaking mustards seeds in delicious beer!I am big into craft beer these days. I have a particular fondness for American style, hop-crazy IPAs and double IPAs. So I decided to try and make some mustard with an IPA twist to it. If you prefer, you can use other beers as well, I have tried some strong tasting stouts and had success with those too. Mustard is easy and fairly cheap to make, and since the whole process requires no cooking, tasting and adjusting while going along is easy! So why don’t you make your own mustard to go with those delicious smoked brats?

 

 

Time: 60 minutes work, 18-24 hours total incl. waiting
Skill Level: Easy

You’re going to need:

  • 200 grams of mustard seeds (a 50/50 mix of brown/yellow works fine)
  • A small bottle (12 fl oz/330ml) good beer, I like to use a hoppy IPA
  • 1-2 tsp sea salt
  • 1-2 teaspoons of chili flakes
  • 6 tablespoons of honey, maple syrup can also work well
  • 0.5 cup of good vinegar (I prefer white wine vinegar for this mustard)

How to do it:

  • The night before making the mustard, put all the mustard seeds and your beer into a DSC_1624bowl, mix well, and leave overnight. This will allow the seeds to soak up all the beer.
  • Once soaked overnight, put the mixture in a food processor. Add remaining ingredients, pulse until you’ve got the consistency you like. If the mustard is too dry for you, add some water if needed
  • Since this is a no cooking process, have a taste, and balance out with honey, vinegar, salt and chili to your tastes
  • If you put this stuff in sterilized jars, it will last you weeks/months. Your mileage may vary here.

Quick tip: Roll’em Up!

Another quick tip for you. It’s hard to fit more than 4 baby back rib racks on a standard sized Weber kettle if they’re laying flat. Sure – a rib rack helps, but not a lot. This idea is cheaper, and it works well. Roll up the racks, use a wooden skewer to hold them in place, make sure there’s room for air (smoke..) between the meat, so don’t roll them too tight. The only downside I can see to this is that it makes glazing harder, but I managed to roll mine back out again for the glazing part. rolling ribs

BBQ Viking’s Turbocharged Canned Beans

Turbocharged can beans!

Beans are real good eats. They’re also a side that work well with almost any BBQ meal. Great on burgers, hot dogs, with steak, pork, chicken… Yup, definitely an essential BBQ side dish. Now, you can make your beans from the ground up, using dried beans and making your own chilli or BBQ sauce from the ground up, that’s phenomenal. But sometimes there’s just not enough time for doing it that way. That’s when I turn to my turbocharged canned beans recipe. It’s basically about going to the store and buying some quality canned beans, and then doctoring them with some fresh chillies and some other stuff, to get to a great side dish with little time and effort. This should recipe is for 4-8 people, depending on what else is being served. Here’s how I do it.

Time: 45-60 minutes + some baking time (optional)
Skill level:Easy

You’re going to need:
3 cans of quality beans (I use S&W’s Texas Ranch Recipe Barbecue beans)
4-8 Fresh chillies of your choosing
4 Scallions, spring onions or even some leeks
A good chunk of quality bacon (about 250 grams or 0.5 pounds)
A couple tbsp of your favorite BBQ rub (optional)
1/2 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce (optional)

How you do it:

  •  Usually I will do this a day ahead, to let the flavours really combine in the fridge overnight. Also, that makes for less side dish focus on BBQ day, and more time to focus on heating meat and drinking beer. Important.
  • Dice your bacon chunk, and heat in your pot on low, so you render as much fat as possible
  • When the bacon is starting to crisp up, finely slice your chillies and scallions, removing chilli seeds and stems if you like less heat
  • Chuck them in the pot and continue frying until everything’s nicely golden, making

    S&W Barbecue Beans cans

    sure not to burn the chillies and scallions

  • Open up and pour in your three cans of beans. Add 0.5 cup of your favourite BBQ sauce. Let simmer for 5-10 minutes. Let it cool and store in fridge overnight, or optionally if you’re short on time, serve as is
  • Next day, I put the beans in a grill-proof vessel, or just leave in the cast iron pan if I have enough space on the grill, and bake the beans with whatever I’m cooking. Before I put it on the grill, I sprinkle with my favourite BBQ rub, which helps form a nice crust on top. Put some wood chips on the coals and you’ll have fabulous baked beans with great flavour in about an hour.
  • Enjoy!

All-round spice rub without sugar

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!

Tasty, creamy coleslaw

Homemade coleslaw. Ah yeh…

Coleslaw is my go-to side for a lot of BBQ and grilling meals. It’s a must for me with any BBQ sandwich, like pulled pork, hamburgers, sliders, steak sandwiches, brisket… It also works great with hot dog, as a side for BBQ chicken, fish…. Coleslaw – what can’t it do! So here’s my standard recipe, and I will get back to you with some more exciting varieties once you’ve got this nailed. Not into the creamy coleslaw? Lactose intolerent? Check out my spicy slaw instead!
Time: 20-30 minutes
Skill level:Easy

You’re going to need:
1/2 head of a large cabbage (or 1 whole medium cabbage)
2 carrots
1 cup of mayo (I suggest the homemade one found here, without the Chipotle)
1/2 cup of sour cream
4-6 tbsp vinegar (I use clear, no-taste vinegar for this)
2-3 tbsp sugar
1 clove of minced garlic (optional)
1 tsp Cayenne Pepper
Salt/pepper

How you do it:

  •  Put the mayo, sour cream, vinegar, sugar, optional garlic and cayenne pepper in a container large enough to hold all your slaw. Whisk it all together, season with salt pepper, and adjust vinegar vs sugar levels to your tastes
  • Peel the carrots and grate them into the dressing
  • Thinly slice the cabbage (leave out the middle white stem part, it can be quite bitter)
  • Put on some vinyl gloves (indispensable), and mix it all well together
  • I like to make this some hours in advance, I think it tastes better when it sits a little bit. It will also keep well in the fridge for some days if you have leftovers.

BBQ Gallery – II

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

Easy Homemade Chipotle Mayo

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.