Sunday cook: A trip around the world! (pic heavy!)

Rezen73

Today's cook was inspired by a new cookbook given to me by my wonderful wife for my birthday last weekend "Planet Barbecue!" by Steve Raichlen. (there are a couple of references/pictures of the BGE in the book, too!)

So, today, I cooked Thai style chicken sate's with peanut sauce, Singapore style beef sate's with spicy cucumber relish, African shrimp, Armenian potatoes, Italian potatoes (for my wife), steamed broccoli, and roasted corn.

Ton of food, yes. Enough for me to take lunches to work for the next couple of days!

Last night I started the prep: just getting the marinade for the chicken done.

First, I had to rehydrate the lemongrass. I went to a farmer's market, two "world" markets, a "spice" market, and two grocery stores... and none of them had fresh lemongrass. Oh well, no biggie



A couple of thai chili peppers, a few piquin peppers, fresh turmeric, fresh ginger, lime, shallots, brown sugar, salt, coriander, cumin, Szechuan peppercorns, soy sauce, fish sauce, coconut milk, and of course the rehydrated lemongrass



Everything in my mini food processor read to rock & roll for the marinade.



4 boneless chicken thighs washed then sliced in half lengthwise to make threading on the skewers easier, then put into a zip-top bag, ready & willing to be marinated



The marinating party is on! I turned them every few hours (while I was awake that is)



After a quick jaunt to the dog park, I continued my international quest with a cup of Hawaiian espresso and a lot of cooking! Enjoying a cup of Kuwaii blend espresso while prepping the spices for the peanut sauce.



Getting ready to make the spicy cucumber relish. For cucumber salads, I prefer to make them as soon as possible because I like them ice cold, so I usually make cucumber based dishes early in the day so they can refrigerate and let their flavors meld together



Chopped peppers & shallots. 1 habanero, 2 thai peppers, a few piquins, and 1 jalapeno... along with 1 shallot.



Cucumber relish is done!



Now it's time to make the shrimp marinade. This was inspired by a peri peri shrimp recipe I saw in the cookbook... which of course I tweaked to my liking Ingredients:



The recipe called for 1-3 peri-peri peppers.... but since I couldn't find them anywhere in Houston, I had to improvise with what I do have. Habaneros, thai peppers, and piquins. Chopped!



It also called for Tabasco sauce. Homey don't play that! Ghost pepper sauce it is It also called for only lemon juice... but since I had an extra 1/2 lime, in it went, along with some butter:



After prepping the marinade, it kept separating. So I decided to use a little yellow mustard as an emulsifying agent, which worked perfectly!



6 extra large (10-15 ct) Texas fresh shrimp, shells on but freshly deveined:



Now, on to the Armenian potatoes. When I saw this recipe, I was blown away by its simplicity, but I still had to change it up a tiny bit. So the recipe calls for new/red potatoes, parboiled then cut in half, skewered with a piece of paprika seasoned bacon inbetween the potatoes, so it looks sort of like a miniature sandwich.

I used thick cut jalapeno bacon (from HEB) seasoned with granulated garlic, ground peppercorns, and Spanish sweet paprika:



Once I skewered all the potatoes (interweaving bacon pieces inbetween), I lubed all the potatoes with a bit of rendered bacon fat then a pinch of kosher salt.



For my dear wife, she loves Italian seasoned fingerling potatoes, so I did up a small batch for her I parboiled them first, chopped into bite size pieces, lubed with olive oil, then seasoned with some minced garlic, basil, oregano, kosher salt, and black pepper.



Skewered chicken sate's & beef sate's:







Hah, one of my dogs just chilling by the fence... he smells something interesting in the air!



Sleepy doggie yawning so... hah



Beef sate's & corn on the grill.



Beef sate's all done!



What's this daddy? Can I have some?!?



Chicken sate's on the grill!



Check out the peppers on the sates!



I love the smell of sates in the morning. Err, afternoon... or something



Sates all done.



Time for the Armenian potatoes. They didn't take long to cook



Time for my wife's Italian potatoes. First, preheat the CI skillet with 3 tbsp of bacon fat:



Then cook the yellow fingerling potatoes to perfection!



Mmmmm I can almost taste it just looking at this picture! haha



After the potatoes were done, it was time for my modified African shrimp. I decided to use the residual heat from the CI skillet (and more importantly: the residual flavors of the bacon fat & Italian seasonings) and cook the shrimp in the skillet.



Mmmmm the shrimp were unbelievably good! My only regret was only cooking 6 of them. haha.



Dinner is served!

A wee bit of chicken sates with peanut sauce, beef sates with cucumber relish, 2 african shrimp, a couple of armenian potatoes, and some steamed broccoli... No room for corn :(





Was an awesome meal, but wow, it took a LONG time to cook. I think it must have taken me about 4-6 hours total from start to finish to do everything. Well worth it though

Vincent Chase

Outstanding!! What an inspiring post. He contributed some international BBQ recipes in a Bon Appetit magazine from last summer that I was browsing through today and they looked great. I'll have to look for the book you used the next time I'm at Borders - I'd be eggstatic if they came out as well as you did them. Seriously good work.

Unknown

That was an awesome photo essay! Good job. TT

Little Chef

Rezen....OK...and Yumm!! And like you said, you only cooked 6 shrimp why??? :blink: Whole cook looked superb!!! I love your ambition, and creativity!! You are in fact, a true egghead with these cooks!! Nicely done!

Rezen73

Thanks

I only cooked 6 shrimp because my wife doesn't like seafood nor extremely spicy foods. I figured I'd have a few extras for lunches this week.

It's quite funny, the shrimp turned out being the best part of the entire cook... next time, I'll leave out the chicken sates and peanut sauce... and make more shrimp!

soooo good. I actually ate all 6 today lol :(

mr toad

thanks for the photo essay - i just bought this book from amazon.com - you have inspired me to "use it" - you are truly a "planet egg-man"

mr toad

Mainegg

What a great post and the pics are AWESOME! as for finding odd peppers..... here in downeast Maine I am lucky if there is a green pepper in the grocery store...... on a good day maybe even a red one! love living here but as far as being a foodie..... thanks for sharing and that was a great cook!

Desert Oasis Woman

YUM!

Great pics and tasty looking grub

Picked up that cookbook about 2 weeks ago in the bargain rack at Walmart :blink:
and have had quite a lot of fun looking through it....thanks for the kick in the pants to start cooking some of it! Also noted the peri-peri recipe

some weekends are just made for marathon creations

Egg Juju

I just got that book myself and went to a book signing to meet Steven as well. I really like his international approach to live fire cooking.

You did a great job on the recipes... wish I was there for a sample!