Mahlzeit - Food without Borders

I have not had Kassler in ages. Searching the internet I came across this video:  Home Made Kassler  . The recipe can be found  here . I didn't feel like making to much. At the end of the day, I really don't want to have Kassler for a week. I opted for slices of pork chops. The package had about 1.5lbs. I still decided to use the recipe as is. It could turn out a little bit salty (which it did). Anyways. I marinated the meat for 3 days in the fridge. I think 2 days would be enough as well. Then it was time to prepare my smoker. Now my wood pellet smoker smokes also with low temperatures. Oh well, lot's of smoke it is. The smoker has not seen a lot of action in the past 4 or 5 months. Like a windows computer, it wants to update first....ok.... Now the pork chops go onto the smoker. Eventually I added a thermometer into the meat. Smoke after 2.5h the inner temperature was still 125 F. Time to speed this up a bit. I increased the temperature to 210 and about 40 min later the...

Last night I went to Walmart. I wanted to get some tomatoes and cucumbers. It turned out a different kind of shopping. The tomatoes and cucumbers did not look good. I ended shopping for other things. There was a nice piece chuck roast in the meat section. Now that is going to go on the smoker tomorrow. I have not used the smoker much this year. The spice rub: 3 tbsp light brown sugar 1 tsp of ground Allspice 1 tsp smoked paprika 1 tsp ground chipotle 1 tsp onion powder 1.5 tsp fine sea salt 1/2 tsp of black pepper Rub the meat all over. Also cover the sides.  Any left over can go into a little glass container and be used for the next steak. While in the kitchen I was watch the Pioneer Woman make bacon wrapped steak. Wait, I got bacon last night as well, I am going to put a few pieces of bacon on smoker. They taste so much better then coming out of the store. The smoker goes on 220F. I left the bacon on for about 1 hour. The meat was smoked until the inner temperature was 131F. The ...

Time to put some more mileage on my smoker and grill today. Baby back ribs with smoked/baked potato and a side salad. Aside from what is shown, I added some salt and pepper on the meat side only. Then a liberal sprinkle of the sweet and smoky spice mix (does not contain salt). The woodoo sauce is for basting. I smoked 4 hours3 should at 210F and 3 hours at 250F. After 1 hour remove the bacon slices. Those slices are way better then anything one can buy at the store.  Baste about once an hour with the woodoo sauce. 3 hours into the smoking process I washed 2 russet potatoes, put them into Aluminum foil and added it to the smoker. 1 hour before the smoking is done, the potatoes were transferred into an oven at 450F to finish the cooking process for 1 hours. The spice combination makes a nice sweet taste with a good kick at the end. The side salad 1.5 cups of ripe water melons 1/2 onion finely chopped 2 tomatoes chopped into small bites 5 babybell mushrooms cut in half and then cut...

I picked up a small pork loin yesterday. It is supposed to go on the smoker today. I decided to brine it over night as follows: Fosters beer, so it is all covered 10 allspice kernels 10 juniper berries 1 medium red onion coarsely chopped All of this goes into a bowl and then it goes covered into the fridge over night. I took them out of the fridge this morning and let it come up in temperature for about 30 minutes. During this time I made the basting mixture. 2 tsb balsamic 1 tsp smoked paprika 1 tsp sweet paprika 1 tsp ground Allspice 1 tsp salt 1 tsp pepper 2 tbsp pomegranate molasses  Mix all of this in a bowl. Remove the meat from the brine and pad dry. Baste the spice mix on to the meat from all sides. In the smoker it goes, at 210F until the inner temperature reaches 148F. I had different bags pellets left, so I just emptied all of them into the tray. Use what ever is your favorite. If the temperature is 145F. 148F or 150F does not matter to much either. It all depends on how...

Time to get my smoker to work again. This morning I took a Boston Butt de-boned that I bought 2 days ago out of the fridge. My spice mix: 1 tbsp + 1 tsp light brown sugar 1.5 tsp salt 1 tsp black pepper 1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp onion powder 1 tsp sweet paprika 1 tsp smoked paprika 1 tsp all spice 1/2 tsp chipotle pepper   I mixed all of the spices. Note, brown sugar tends to get hard over time. The light sugar tends to take more time to turn into rocks. Dark brown sugar can turn into rocks a lot shorter time. The internet suggests to take the dark sugar rocks. add a wet paper towel and put it into the microwave between 20-30 seconds. I had mixed results with that. Anyways. I covered the meat with the entire spice mix.  I did let the meat sit for 2 hours on the counter to come up to temperature. Smoking temperature 225F, extra smoke for 2h, total of 6h, then I decided tp up the temperature to 350F. At 189F internal temperature I turned off the smoker 2 hours later.   Oh, ...

It was finally time to get the smoker to work again. I had a back leg of a deer in my freezer for some time. This was my choice for this weekend. It look 2 days to get it defrosted. But finally it it was all ready. The spice rub: The smoker was set for 225F using a brisket pellet mix from Traeger. About every 45 min or there about I did some basting with the Voodoo Sauce. This is really stuff is spectacular. Old Bay seasoning has enough salt. For me it was ok to use other salt free seasoning. After about 8h, the inner temperature was at 137F (medium). I don't like it when meat goes chewy. After about 30 minutes rest time, it was time to cut.   Yummy, yummy in my tammy. I was expecting some gaminess, but there was none at all. This is a home run. -Mahlzeit-        

Time to deal with the country style pork ribs. The spice rub will be easy this time, just Old Bay Spice. During the smoking I will be basting with  Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen Voodoo Sauce. It is sweet and spicy and tangy. I like it a lot. I also added 4 slices of bacon and some meat balls on the smoker. I removed the tray with the bacon and the meat balls after 90 minutes. Now this is smoked bacon. Any so called smoked bacon from the grocery store may have walked past a smoker, but that is about it. Next time I reduce the smoking time to 60 minutes as 220F. The meat part of the bacon got a little dry. This is the taste of bacon I remember growing up.  The pork stayed on the smoker for another 2 hours. Every 30 minutes the meat gets basted with the VooDoo Sauce. Serve with what ever sides. -Mahlzeit-          

I think I am reversing my opinion about not smoking a duck again. I came up with the following strategy and that turned out great. Recap: When I removed the duck from the smoker, I put it on a plate and covered it with heavy duty aluminum  to rest. A lot of the juices ended up on the plate. When it was time to eat, I quartered the duck.  All the rest ended up in the fridge. I have a small roasting pan. I think that thing is now about 30 years old. It is German size = a lot smaller then a roasting pan for turkey.  I preheated the oven to 375F. 2 cups of water into the roasting pan, the remaining duck quaters skin side up into the pan as well as all the solidified fat and liquids. Into the oven it went for 1h. Every 20 minutes I poured some of the liquid over the duck parts. I had to add another 1/2 cup of water after 40 min, so the fat does not burn. After 1h I removed all of it. The liquid was made into gravy with a little salt, sauce thickener and half and half. The skin...

I thought it was a good idea to try to smoke a duck. I read up on the internet and here is what I came up with. The defrosted duck gets the skin pierced so the rendered fat can drip off. Then I salted it generously from all sides and in an open container it went into the fridge over night. Before I went to bed I turned the bird around and drained the water.  The next morning I rinsed the bird so that all the salt gets removed. I filled the cavity with an apple and a peeled orange. The outside gets coated with olive oil and a Moroccan  BBQ spice powder.  The smoker was preheated to 225F. The challenge was a bit to find a spot to get the probe inserted. After 3.5h the internal temperature was at 160F. The skin was still a little on the light side. So I bumped up the temp to 350F for 15 min. Then I pulled the bird, put it on a plate , wrapped in heavy duty aluminum foil and let it rest for 30 min. In the meantime I finished the sides, potato dumplings and red cabbage.  ...

After 2 days of rain, we have sun today. Time to put the smoker to work.  And now my smoker plays windows and tells me: OK, then I have to wait. I hope the reboot goes ok...lol... For spices I decided to go very simple, Kosher Salt and black pepper only. The smoker get preheated to 250F. Then the roast goes in with a thermometer. I don't remember what the time said for smoking. I decided to go by temperature. At 112F I pulled the roast out, packed it into extra strong aluminum foil and let it rest for 20 minutes. The smoker gets set to 440F and the roast goes on without the foil for 10 minutes. Now the roast gets removed and wrapped again and left resting for another 30 minutes. Nice medium rare. -Mahlzeit-  

I only wanted to get some things to bake a cake. And then I saw brisket at the store. Change of plans. the smoker got to work. The spice rub: 4 tsp kosher salt 3 tsp ground pepper 2 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp onion powder 1 tsp smoked paprika powder There was a lot of trimming that needed to be done. This are about 1.5lbs of fat that got trimmed.   The smoker is heating up to 250F. The meat is getting seasoned.     Waiting until we get to 165F. We are there now. Remove the brisket into a tin foil container, add 1.5 cups of beef broth, insert the thermometer back. Cover the tray with heavy duty tin foil and back into the smoker it goes until the inner temperature is 210-215F.    Lets make the serving really American. Bush's baked beans, some sour cream and a BBQ sauce. -Mahlzeit-      

Salmon is for some time on my list to smoke. A friend did send me this video .  Yesterday morning the journey began.  3 got myself 3 filet of salmon, removed the thin ends.  I mixed  1 cup of kosher salt  1 cup of light brown sugar 1 tsp of Prague Powder #1 I had to descale the salmon a bit more. I don't know why this can't be done before it gets sold. In a glass container I put down a  layer of the salt/sugar mixture. Then I added the 3 filets. I left a little bit of room between them, so I can press the salt/sugar mixture down between them. Add all the remaining sugar/salt mix and make sure it is all covered.  The video talks about adding weight. I did not do that. I simply covered the glass container and into the fridge for 36h it went. After 36h I removed the salmon. Then I rinsed it with cold water. In a clean glass container, submerge the fillets for 20 min to remove the access salt from the fish. Now it needs to be dried up. On a rack it now go...

Let me start and spill the beans from the beginning. This cut of meat does not have enough fat for smoking. On the outside it ended up a little chewy. However the taste was great. Th rub is a keeper. The rub: 2 tsp salt 1 tsp black pepper 1 tsp smoked paprika 1/2 tsp onion powder 1/2 tsp garlic powder 2 tsp dark brown sugar 1 tsp allspice powder 1/2 tsp Chipotle powder Remove the meat from the fridge about 1h before you want to put it on the smoker and let it come up to temperature. Mix all the spices in a bowl. Wash and pad dry the meat. Try to get it as dry as possible. Cover all sides with the spice mixture. My piece of meat was less then 1" thick. It will not need a lot of smoking time. In about 2h at 220F the meat was ready. 1hour into smoking I added 3 potatoes, washed and each wrapped into aluminum foil. (Turned out, I should have added them from the beginning...). Smoked potatoes are actually really good. The potatoes still needed about 30 min at 450F in my counter top ove...

Meat prices are up pretty much 100%. I better don't budge anything. This Sirloin Tip Roast did cost me a pretty penny. Spice rub 2tsp salt 2 tsp black ground pepper 1 tsp smoked paprika 1 tsp sweet paprika 1/2 tsp ground allspice 3 tsp dark brown sugar 1/2 tsp onion powder Heat the smoker to 225F. I used hickory pellets. Cover the meat in well mixed spice rub on all sides and put it on the smoker. I have a Traeger smoker, for the first 2h I had the extra smoke added. I decided I want some baked/smoked potatoes. When I turned off the extra smoke , I added a few potatoes in an aluminum foil pouch into the smoker. When the meat reached 142 (medium rare in my case) I put the smoker into shut down mode.The potatoes were not done yet. In a countertop stove I turned it on convection at 450 for 30 min, added the potato pouch,  and all was hunky dori. Time for dinner.  Serve with sour cream for the potatos and if you like with a side sald. Remove the net. -Mahlzeit-

I am trying chicken again. I like chicken thighs, because they are usually by itself juicy. Reading through several recipes on the internet. I came up with this. First I got to brine it.   Brine: 12 cups of water 1 medium onion, cut in half and then sliced 1/2 cup of kosher salt 1 cup of dark brown sugar 1 tsp of smoked paprika 1/2 tsp of thyme 1 tsp chipotle rib rack spice mix 2 tsp sweet and smokey salt fee seasoning 1 tsp allspice 2 cloves of garlic sliced 1/2 cup of orange juice with pulp 1 tbsp Worcestershire   All of this goes into a pot. Bring it to a boil, let it boil for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it cool down to room temperature. Wash and pad dry the chicken thighs and submerge them in the cold brine. In the fridge they go 8-24 hours. Based on current planing it will be about 14h in my case.   Saturday: The smoking starts. Temp is set at 200F. Remove the chicken from the brine and put on the smoker. After the first hour of smoking I did drip some BBQ s...