Since Americans in the South began publicly roasting pigs at parties and get togethers, Barbecues have been a common item in the lives of North Americans.
For most of the population using a grill is a essential part of cooking and for the hard core barbecuers once the summer comes in it's barbecues all the way.
Every barbecue is always a good fun family event. Here are 5 ways to make your routine evening barbecue a more unique experience:
1) Who said you have to only barbecue meat? There is quite a lot that can be done with bread or fruit and veg over a naked grill. One way to make barbecues and grilling more fun to the whole family is to use pastry cutters for what ever it is you are grilling. It is up to you or your kids what design and type of food you use.
2) Try some of those foil packed recipes which cook in less than 20 minutes which are very handy and clean and kids will also love the surprise element. Combos can be great fun as you can mix it up any way you want and it makes a great game for the kids mixing different items of bread, fruit and veg.
3) They say variety is the spice of life so if you only ever cook the same old sausages and steaks why not try something different like a nice bit of cod or a juicy bit of venison. Similarly, try to mix it up with condiments and seasoning.
4) Barbecues should not be rushed, they are supposed to be fun, many of the die hard barbecue fans out there will state that broiling is an insult to the barbecuing criteria. Barbecues should represent a process of slow cooking on low to high heat and while you wait for the food to grill its a great opportunity to have a good laugh with who ever is in your party be it friends and family.
5) When we were all small children are moms told us never to play are food, well there is an except to every rule isn't there? Barbecue games are a great way to have really good fun while cooking. In the game Glutton, every player gets either mashed potatoes, turnip or mac cheese, then they must pick at random a utensil from the kitchen and eat and the first person to eat all of their dish wins
Posts tonen met het label drink. Alle posts tonen
Posts tonen met het label drink. Alle posts tonen
vrijdag 18 september 2009
dinsdag 11 augustus 2009
9 Things You Need To Know About barbecues
Its almost like a tradition but in the spring time of every year people in America blow the dust of there barbecue sets and start to bulk buy all their meats. But how much do we really know about barbecuing?
1) Barbecues originated in pig-pickin’s, before the civil war it was common to throw parties and elaborate meals outside, they would roast an entire pig on an open flame.
2) “Smoking” has been used for over 6 millenia to safely cook and store food. The meat was treated to bellows of smoke and low heat this was done to prevent any bacteria cultivating.
3) Barbecuing is not that common, well not barbecuing as we no it barbecuing is a length cooking experience that cooks at a temperatures similar to boiling water in order to tenderize the meat while preserving the juices. Today the method most commonly used is in fact broiling, cooking at in much less time and a far higher temperature, about 300 degrees higher.
4) According to surveys done by the Barbecue Industry Association, half of all marshmallows consumed in the U.S. have been flame roasted.
5) One of the insanely easy ways to check your gas tank level, use bathroom scales.
6) The origin of the word barbecue is unclear. Some believe it came from the American-Indian word barbacoa for a wood on which foods were cooked.
7) To add a Smokey flavor to food cooked on a gas grill cooked or food that you cook inside the house, use “liquid Smoke.” Liquid Smoke is a condensation of actual smoke, this product is simply added to any barbecue.
8) Brisket, this incredibly dense cut of meat taken from a cow’s chest, cooks in 1 to 2 hours per pound on a barbecue. This works out at an average of 12 hours cooking time on the grill for a basic 8 pound piece!
9) Kansas City, Missouri and Lexington, North Carolina both claim to be the barbecue capitals of the world. Memphis, meanwhile, stakes a claim to being the pork barbecue capital.
1) Barbecues originated in pig-pickin’s, before the civil war it was common to throw parties and elaborate meals outside, they would roast an entire pig on an open flame.
2) “Smoking” has been used for over 6 millenia to safely cook and store food. The meat was treated to bellows of smoke and low heat this was done to prevent any bacteria cultivating.
3) Barbecuing is not that common, well not barbecuing as we no it barbecuing is a length cooking experience that cooks at a temperatures similar to boiling water in order to tenderize the meat while preserving the juices. Today the method most commonly used is in fact broiling, cooking at in much less time and a far higher temperature, about 300 degrees higher.
4) According to surveys done by the Barbecue Industry Association, half of all marshmallows consumed in the U.S. have been flame roasted.
5) One of the insanely easy ways to check your gas tank level, use bathroom scales.
6) The origin of the word barbecue is unclear. Some believe it came from the American-Indian word barbacoa for a wood on which foods were cooked.
7) To add a Smokey flavor to food cooked on a gas grill cooked or food that you cook inside the house, use “liquid Smoke.” Liquid Smoke is a condensation of actual smoke, this product is simply added to any barbecue.
8) Brisket, this incredibly dense cut of meat taken from a cow’s chest, cooks in 1 to 2 hours per pound on a barbecue. This works out at an average of 12 hours cooking time on the grill for a basic 8 pound piece!
9) Kansas City, Missouri and Lexington, North Carolina both claim to be the barbecue capitals of the world. Memphis, meanwhile, stakes a claim to being the pork barbecue capital.
donderdag 16 juli 2009
Balvenie Scotch Whisky
Balvenie
Regional categorisation is a vexed issue in whisky: it may be a handy way of grouping distilleries together geographically, but it can be a tricky business identifying a stylistic continuity between all the whiskies in Perthshire or Speyside.
But if you can't claim that there is a 'Speyside style', or isolate certain qualities which make Speyside the best whisky-making region on the mainland, how do you explain such a concentration of distilleries in the area - a part of the Highlands which was, in the early days of whisky, a pretty remote part of the world?
David Stewart, William Grant's grandly-titled Malt Master, is happy to admit ignorance on this point. 'All of the quality distilleries are here in this central part of Speyside,' he says. That's the mystique of Scotch, We've all got highly-sophisticated equipment, but we can't tell what makes the difference'. He's pretty sure what makes Balvenie such a dramatically different dram to Glenfiddich, even though they share the same site and use the same malt and water.
The character comes from the still. Glenfiddich is coal fired, Balvenie is gas fired. The shape of the stills is different: Balvenie has bigger stills with shorter necks and that's where the flavours change. Maybe the ten per cent of floor-malted barley helps, but I think it's the stills.'
Other influential factors include great wood management and the use of old dunnage warehouses. 'It'i not just age th;ii makes whiiky great,' says David. 'It's age and wood.' This underpins his decision to make life interesting (or difficult) for himself by creating a Balvenie range in which each malt shows a subtly different wood influence.
If we were just to age the Founder's Reserve and do it as a 12-year-old or a 15-year-old, we wouldn't see much difference between them. We had to take a different route, so we produced Double Wood, [where the malt is aged for 10 years in ex-Bourbon barrels and finished in sherry butts]. Then we started doing Single Barrel, and at a higher strength with no chill filtering; then Port Wood and now vintage casks.'
This freedom to experiment is one of the advantages of Grant's family-owned status. 'We can do things quickly. The family is steeped in whisky, but we are encouraged to be innovative, we can go against the trend -with the Balvenie range, or with Black Barrel, where we were determined to make the only single grain whisky that really works.'
If the William Grant portfolio was The Byrds, then Glenfiddich would be Roger McGuinn and Balvenie would be Gene Clark, the underrated genius. David, as Grant's master blender, is in charge of the entire range, from malts to blends to single grain and whisky liqueur, and his special affection for Balvenie is obvious. 'I've been at Grant's for 35 years,' he says. 'It's been my only job
Regional categorisation is a vexed issue in whisky: it may be a handy way of grouping distilleries together geographically, but it can be a tricky business identifying a stylistic continuity between all the whiskies in Perthshire or Speyside.
But if you can't claim that there is a 'Speyside style', or isolate certain qualities which make Speyside the best whisky-making region on the mainland, how do you explain such a concentration of distilleries in the area - a part of the Highlands which was, in the early days of whisky, a pretty remote part of the world?
David Stewart, William Grant's grandly-titled Malt Master, is happy to admit ignorance on this point. 'All of the quality distilleries are here in this central part of Speyside,' he says. That's the mystique of Scotch, We've all got highly-sophisticated equipment, but we can't tell what makes the difference'. He's pretty sure what makes Balvenie such a dramatically different dram to Glenfiddich, even though they share the same site and use the same malt and water.
The character comes from the still. Glenfiddich is coal fired, Balvenie is gas fired. The shape of the stills is different: Balvenie has bigger stills with shorter necks and that's where the flavours change. Maybe the ten per cent of floor-malted barley helps, but I think it's the stills.'
Other influential factors include great wood management and the use of old dunnage warehouses. 'It'i not just age th;ii makes whiiky great,' says David. 'It's age and wood.' This underpins his decision to make life interesting (or difficult) for himself by creating a Balvenie range in which each malt shows a subtly different wood influence.
If we were just to age the Founder's Reserve and do it as a 12-year-old or a 15-year-old, we wouldn't see much difference between them. We had to take a different route, so we produced Double Wood, [where the malt is aged for 10 years in ex-Bourbon barrels and finished in sherry butts]. Then we started doing Single Barrel, and at a higher strength with no chill filtering; then Port Wood and now vintage casks.'
This freedom to experiment is one of the advantages of Grant's family-owned status. 'We can do things quickly. The family is steeped in whisky, but we are encouraged to be innovative, we can go against the trend -with the Balvenie range, or with Black Barrel, where we were determined to make the only single grain whisky that really works.'
If the William Grant portfolio was The Byrds, then Glenfiddich would be Roger McGuinn and Balvenie would be Gene Clark, the underrated genius. David, as Grant's master blender, is in charge of the entire range, from malts to blends to single grain and whisky liqueur, and his special affection for Balvenie is obvious. 'I've been at Grant's for 35 years,' he says. 'It's been my only job
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