If you have trout in the freezer left over from this summer, now is the time to smoke them for a future feast – don’t let them go bad.
All you need is a Little Chief or similar electric smoker and a little know-how, and you can turn fish and meats into tantalizing gourmet fare.
This is how to do it:
Little Chief: The Little Chief, an electric smoker with three trays, measures 2 feet high, 12 inches wide and 11 inches deep. At cabelas.com, a Little Chief costs $75. A Big Chief costs $95.
Preparing trout: If the trout are fresh caught, gut them and remove gills, entrails and blood line along the backbone. If frozen, thaw the fish slowly in a refrigerator. When thawed, cut off the trout’s head (and if quite large, the tail as well). Then, with a cutting board, hold the fish on its back so its open cavity is facing you. With a sharp knife, starting at the neck, make a clean cut through the ribs and along the backbone to the skin, and continue the cut all the way down to the tail. Then open the fish so it lies flat, skin down. This is called “butterflying” a trout.
Seasoning: Sprinkle Lawry’s Seasoned Salt or my personal favorite, Lawry’s Black Pepper Seasoned Salt, heavily across the open skin of the butterflied trout. Some people soak the fish in a salt brine, and I’ve tried many concoctions (brown sugar, sea salt, honey, ground pepper, etc.), but I think trout and salmon are far better smoked with no brine to avoid the salty taste and enhance the smoky flavor.
Preparing smoker: Remove the three trays from the smoker and spray them with Pam. Place hickory chips in a metal pan at the bottom of the smoker, which sits over the heating element. Plug the cord into a grounded outlet.
Getting started: Place each tray into the smoker and then place the door over the front of the smoker, sealing the smoker.
The process: After 60 to 90 minutes, open the smoker and switch the top tray with the bottom tray. The bottom tray cooks hotter so this evens out the cooking process.
The result: After about 3 to 4 hours, the length of a football game, the trout will be done. So even if the quarterback is a dud, you still have something to look forward to. Eat immediately or freeze for a fall or winter feast.
Tom Stienstra
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Not to long ago I posted an article on eating snails from the garden, this is the second half of that article where you get delicious instructions on cooking them!
This recipe is based off of Gordon Ramsay’s Escargot salad recipe from the F Word. As lunatic as this seems, I’m excited about it and experimenting myself.
I’ve added a video at the end of this article of the whole snail catching, snail cooking process. You can find the cooking instructions about half way into the video.
Cooking this dish is a snap. Boil enough water to cover your snails and dump them in to give them a bath. Let the snails boil for a couple of minutes and then take them off the range and strain them. Use Escargot tongs or any other small kitchen device (tweezers anyone?) to remove the snails from their shells.
Dice the Pancetta and fry until nice and crispy. Add fresh sage and snails and toss a bit then add some fresh parsley and olive oil, then toss a little more. Success! You have finished cooking your fresh, organic, free range snails!
Add snail mixture to a bed of fresh, lightly dressed salad and enjoy.
I can’t wait to try this recipe! I’ll let you know how it turns out when my snails are ready.
Gordon Ramsay showed the world how to make a great Shepherd’s Pie on his hit show F Word.
This dish is so delicious that you can mess it up and it will still leave you feeling as if you’re in heaven! As always, use fresh herbs and vegetables. When using the freshest ingredients, it’s hard to make a meal that doesn’t taste good.
I prepared this dish for my family tonight and totally bungled it, yet everyone still left happy! I was attempting to cook on a deadline, while allowing my eight year old son to help, and hold conversations with my fiance. I was also attempting to use an ingredients list from another food site which was lacking many of the main ingredients. Tonight has made it even more clear to me that the web needs this site, as so many others get the ingredients and recipe wrong! So on to the meat and potatoes (literally).
This is a recipe that I firmly believe should be left to the taste of the cook. Please use your own judgement on the amount of each ingredient unless specified.
Watch the video of Ramsay at the end of the post to see it done by the best.
This part is easy as pie (no pun intended), just boil some water, throw some salt and your potatoes in, and set a timer for 15 minutes – start on your filling. Upon the timer going off, take your potatoes out and strain the water off. Put potatoes back into the pan, or into a medium mixing bowl. Mash the potatoes with their ingredients from above and keep warm (your filling should be about done by this point)
Pour Olive Oil into a hot, rather large pan, then add meat. Stir meat as if your life depends on it for a few minutes so it’s nice and brown, and broken into very small pieces. Add your Rosemary, Thyme, and Garlic, then stir some more. Quickly add your Carrot, and Onion, stir a little longer. The idea at this point is to get everything to a minced consistency.
Add Worcestershire Sauce, stir, add Tomato Puree, stir, add Red Wine and sweat down for a minute or two. Add chicken stock and cook for 3 more minutes. I made mine without the stock because I didn’t notice it the first time I watched the show. You can add it, or leave it out.
Scoop your meat mixture into a deep casserole or other oven safe dish and then spoon the mash over the top. Spread the mash over the top of the mix with the bottom of the spoon and then sprinkle a generous portion of Parmesan cheese over the top. Poke the top with a fork several times to give it a peaked look and stick it in the oven at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes to brown the potatoes and set the pie. Serve it up and watch people melt! Oh I love Shepherd Pie!
You can watch the video below to get a better idea of how it’s done.
Admit it, you’ve suspiciously eyed those little snails in your backyard and wondered if they were the same thing being sold at the posh french restaurant down the street. If you’re a fan of Escargot, you’re in luck, because you can get it right out of your garden!
I was watching Gordon Ramsay’s F Word a few days ago and he paid his kids to get some snails out of the garden and cooked a great looking salad with them! Now before you run outside and begin greedily stuffing snails in your mouth, you should be aware that there’s a little bit of work which should be done before cooking the snails. Snails in your garden may have consumed toxins so you should purify them.
I would suggest gathering the snails right after or even during a heavy rain. Snails like to come out onto the sidewalk when it rains (they probably don’t like drowning). If you don’t anticipate rain anytime soon, you can spray the yard down with a garden hose and then wait awhile for the little guys to come crawling out. I don’t know how long it takes them to come out when it gets wet, but they are snails, so it’ll probably take a few hours.
After you’ve gathered your snails, place them in a jar with a tight fitting lid and a few holes for breathing and leave them alone for two days without feeding them. You want to make sure you don’t skip this step as it’s the detoxification process and will allow your snails to purge any toxins they’ve consumed recently. Gordon suggests putting a carrot in their jar after two days of detox and leaving them until their poo starts turning orange. I’ve also heard that you can feed them cornmeal which is supposed to make them taste good (I’m going to go with Gordon’s suggestion on this one). After they’re pooing orange, put them in an airtight jar and leave them in the fridge until they stop moving. Your snails are now ready to cook!
I’ll post a great recipe or two for Escargot and link to it soon. For now, I’m off to collect some snails since it just stopped raining (really, it did)!
As I’ve become more serious about cooking, I’ve realized that my old J.A. Henckels Eversharp knives just aren’t doing the trick. If you’re not familiar with Eversharp knives, they’re basically serrated like those infomercial knives so that they never need to be sharpened. They don’t really cut anything, but rather tear everything. Tearing through my food was fine for the most part (although defrosted meat is really tough) when I was only cooking occasionally, but now that I’m a serious foodie, I need some real cutting power.
I took my hunt for new knives very seriously and scoured the net for reviews after visiting Bed Bath & Beyond for a precursory look at my options. After reading countless reviews, I narrowed my choices down to three different knife sets. I was very interested in J.A. Henckels International Classic Series, Wustof’s Classic Series, and Calphalon’s Katana Series sets. Upon deciding on my chosen three, I ventured back to Bed Bath & Beyond with my 20% off coupon in hand.
I must credit Bed Bath & Beyond’s sales staff for their patience, as I held one hostage for over an hour! Upon my return to the store, I accosted the first rep I saw and asked to see the fine cutlery (see as in hold). J.A. Henckels International Series knives felt fine, but nothing about them really stood out, so those fell to the wayside almost immediately. Calphalon’s Katana Series felt amazing in my hand and looked so cool that I had a hard time moving on to the Wustof knives. Wustof makes an amazing knife! When the sales associate handed me the Wustof, I immediately fell in love! These knives fit my hand perfectly; unfortunately they don’t look nearly as cool as the Katana Series and they carry a slightly heftier price tag. So after holding the Wustof and Katana knives about ten more times, I finally settled on the Katana Series. I still think that the Wustof knives are better knives, I just couldn’t get over the amazingly cool look of the Katana knives!
Armed with my brand new knives, I immediately headed to the local Butcher and delightfully purchased ingredients for the first meal I would prepare with professional quality knives. When I got home, I went straight away to cooking and let me tell you, the Katana Series knives cut through everything as if it where warm butter. I could probably slice onions by dropping them on the blade.
I am thinking about getting the Wustof Classic 3.5 Paring Knife as a stand-alone addition to my set. The Wustof Pairing Knife feels much better in my hand than the standard 4″ that comes in most block sets. The smaller blade is easier to work with and the bolster is positioned just right.
If you’re stuck cooking with mediocre knives, treat yourself to a set of real knives, you won’t regret it!
I just prepared this recipe for dinner tonight and “oh my God”, it’s delicious! It’s a cinch to make and so tasty that I stuffed myself to the point of being uncomfortable! This is a quick recipe that would be good for lunch or dinner.
I couldn’t find Toulouse Sausage, or a can of Mixed Beans, so I used Italian Sweet Sausage, and a can of Black Beans.
This Recipe comes from Gordon Ramsay’s Fast Food
Pan-fry the sausage with the olive oil and the thyme, then add the garlic and cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally. You want the sausages to be a nice golden brown at this point.
Add the mixed beans and the tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Loosely cover the pan and stew for 10-12 minutes until the sausage are cooked through.
Season with salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar if the tomato sauce is too sharp. Serve in bowls with the bread.
Serves 2 (or 1 really hungry person)
This is a quick recipe which also uses up your leftover chicken from last night (you did eat chicken last night, right?). If you’re going to pack the lunch to go, make sure to store the chicken and watercress in different containers and mix them when you’re ready to eat.
This recipe comes from Gordon Ramsay’s Fast Food which is a wonderful cook book. You can get it on Amazon.com for about $20.
Trim 7oz watercress, removing the stalks, then wash and dry on paper towels. Slice or shred the meat from 1/2 roast chicken.
For the dressing, mix the juice of 1/2 lemon with 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, adding any pan juices from the roast chicken and salt and pepper to taste. Toss the chicken in the dressing.
Add the watercress to the chicken just before serving and toss to mix. Serve with lemon wedges on the side and a few chunks of crusty baguette. <br /> <img src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/noscript?tag=gordonramsaysrecipes-20″ mce_src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/noscript?tag=gordonramsaysrecipes-20″ alt=”" /><br />
This Recipe is so simple that anyone should be able to pull it off. Dive right in and have yourself a quick homemade lunch. You’ll be glad you didn’t get a ready made meal.
You can find this recipe and many more like it in Gordon Ramsay’s Fast Food
Split two poppyseed bagels in half. Toast them lightly
Mix 3.5 oz of cream cheese with 1 tbsp of whole grain mustard, add salt and pepper
Spread the cream cheese mixture over the bagels.
Arrange 2 or 3 pastrami slices, a sliced large gherkin (or cucumber if you can’t find a gherkin), and some arugula leaves on each bagel base. Put the top half of the bagel on and you’re set! Umm, umm…
Variations You can substitute milk for the water which will provide a duller finished product. You can also use yolks only with cream for shiny, darker brown finish.
This recipe was featured on The F Word and was a huge hit with the customers. It’s probably a little advanced for a beginner, but it’s a meal fit for a King (or a Queen). I’ve had to convert the measurements from grams, so they may seem a little weird. As always, use the freshest ingredients you can, and support your local butcher by getting your meat from them (added benefit is they’ll actually cut you .88 lbs, even though they may think you’re a little strange for asking).
1. Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Heat oil in a large pan and sear the meat on all sides. Don’t cook the meat, just brown each side. Let it cool and then brush it with the mustard.
3. Chop the mushrooms in a food processor to make a puree. Throw the puree in a hot pan with no oil and sweat out all of the liquid. Let the water evaporate and then set it aside to cool.
4. Lay four slices of parma ham down on a large piece of cling film, slightly overlapping, then brush with mushroom mixture.
5. Put the beef in the middle of the ham and roll the ham around the beef using the cling film. Twist the ends of the cling film to tighten the roll, then refrigerate it for 15 minutes to let it set.
6. Roll your puff pastry and then brush the edges with Egg Wash. Roll the pastry over the beef completely covering it. Cut off any excess pieces. Egg Wash the top. Put your roll back in the fridge for 5 minutes. Egg Wash again and bake for 35-40 minutes. Let it cool for 10 minutes before slicing.
7. Par boil the potatoes in salted water. Quarter them and leave the skin on. Sauté in olive oil and butter with the garlic and thyme, until browned and cooked through. Season. Remove the thyme and garlic before serving.
8. Separate the outside leaves of the baby gem (leaving the smaller inner ones for salads) and very quickly sauté them in a pan of olive oil with a little salt and pepper – just enough to wilt them.
9. Serve hearty slices of the Wellington alongside the sautéed potatoes and wilted baby gems. A classic mustard vinaigrette makes a great dressing.
