Recipe Review: Silver Paper Chicken

This is the second of my recipe reviews from Steven Raichlen's Barbecue! Bible. According to Raichlen, Silver Paper Chicken "was inspired by San Francisco's celebrated dim sum palace, Yank Sing." These are  chicken thighs or breasts, marinated with soy sauce, five spice powder, and a few other things, then individually wrapped with scallion in aluminum foil and put over direct heat on the grill until done (about twenty minutes). The recipe calls for bone in thighs but I used boneless, skinless thighs and had excellent results. The finished product makes a great appetizer. It would go well as a starter for Susur Lee's Chinese Barbecued Pork.

Preparing these is very easy. Cut the thighs or breasts in half. Mix the marinade ingredients together and marinate for at least a couple of hours. When you're ready to grill seal each piece with some scallion and a little bit of the marinade in a small foil square and start cooking!

As you can see from the finished product above, these come out nice and juicy and, you can take it from me, extremely tasty. The five spice powder, a blend of cinnamon, pepper, cloves, Sichuan peppercorns, and star anise, give the chicken a distinctly Asian flavor.

If you want to impress your friends with the range of your grilling ability you definitely want to try these.

Obligatory quibble: Like the other recipes in The Barbecue! Bible, this isn't truly barbecue since it's prepared over a direct grill. Who cares? It's the taste that counts.

Recipe Review: Susur Lee's Chinese Barbecued Pork

I reviewed Steven Raichlen's The Barbecue! Bible last week. This week I'll talk about a couple of his recipes. The first one is Susur Lee's Chinese Barbecued Pork. According to Raichlen, Susur Lee was born in Hong Kong and owns a restaurant in Toronto called Lotus. Well, he used to own a restaurant in called Lotus. As I said in my review of the book, I have an old edition. Since then Lee has moved on to other culinary pursuits.

Susur Lee's current whereabouts and activities aren't really relevant to how good his Chinese barbecued pork recipe is. And it is good. One of my favorite Chinese dishes is barbecued spare ribs. The sweet glaze they use gives the ribs an exotic flavor and unique red tint. I've tried many times to duplicate this, to no avail. Until I tried this barbecued pork recipe. It uses pork tenderloins instead of ribs but possesses the same taste. The only thing missing is the red tint. I can live with that.


The ingredients are shown on the right:

• Pork tenderloin
• Celery, chopped
• Carrot, chopped
• Onion, chopped
• Ginger, minced
• Tangerine or orange zest (I used both)
• Rice wine or dry sherry (I had sherry handy)
• Soy sauce
• Maple syrup
• Asian dark sesame oil

Preparation is easy. Combine the vegetables and liquids to make a marinade. Marinate the tenderloins at least a day (two days is better). On cooking day remove the tenderloins from the marinade then strain the marinade and reduce it in a sauce pan on the stove.

Grill the tenderloins until done, brushing frequently with the marinade. Let them rest, slice, eat. The remaining marinade makes a great sauce. Steamed cauliflower goes well with this entree.

What makes this recipe so great while all my previous attempts failed? It was the sesame oil. I think that added the piece I've been missing to solve the Chinese barbecue puzzle. Now I can't wait to try it on ribs.

Obligatory quibble: Like the other recipes in The Barbecue! Bible, this isn't truly barbecue since it's prepared over a direct grill. Who cares? It's the taste that counts.

Recipe: Grilled Sausage and Vegetables

This is a quick and easy sausage and veggie on the grill recipe. The vegetable mix is really whatever you have on hand. You will need a grill pan or grill wok for this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb Smoked Sausage
• 1 pint Sliced Mushrooms
• 1 sliced Onion
• 2 sliced Bell Peppers (read and green for color)
• 1 pint Baby Corn
• 1 pint Cherry Tomatoes
• 3-4 Garlic Cloves, rough chopped
• 1/2 T Adobo Seasoning
• Salt (not pictured) and Pepper to taste
• 2-4 T Olive Oil

Procedure:

Preheat the grill for direct cooking.

Mix the vegetables, oil, and seasonings together and set aside.

Cut the sausage into 3-4 inch pieces. This makes them easier to handle on the grill.

Cook the sausage pieces on the grill until they have plumped up and the skin has good marks. Take off the grill and cut into 1/2 - 1 inch bite size pieces.

Put a grill pan on the grate and let heat for several minutes.

Put the vegetables in the grill pan and let cook for about 5 minutes. Then add the sausage to the mix.


Cook on the grill, turning occasionally, until vegetables are cooked through.

Enjoy.

Review: The Barbecue! Bible

I've had Steven Raichlen's Barbecue! Bible for several years. It's a great resource for beginning and experienced backyard cooks. Novices will appreciate his how-to tips ranging from the basics of how to tell if your steak is done to how to keep your kebob skewers from sticking to the grill grate. The sheer mass of recipes (over 500!) will keep seasoned grillers busy for a long time.

I wrote "grillers" for a reason. This book may have the word "barbecue" in the title and Raichlen may talk a lot about low and slow, but the recipes are all for the grill. He has recipes that use a variety of grill techniques and cooking times, but none are what a purest would call true barbecue.  More on the difference between grilling and barbecuing at another time.

The only other complaint I have about the book is the lack of photographs. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Illustrations in the book look like cartoony clip art. Pictures with the recipes would have been helpful in choosing which ones to try. The latest edition of the book is in color and has photos, so hopefully this deficiency has been rectified.

The depth and variety of recipes is what really makes this a bible, barbecue or otherwise. When most people think of grilling they probably think of meat. Meat is important, no doubt, but you can cook much more on the grill and Raichlen covers just about all the bases. Here's a quick sampling from the book's extensive index: potatoes a la ketchup (!), chorizo grilled mushrooms, grilled provolone, Vietnamese grilled beef and basil rolls, tandoori cauliflower, grilled eggplant, Peruvian fish kebabs. He has recipes for all the meats you expect (beef, poultry, pork, lamb) as well as seafood and vegetables.

A quick comment about his fish recipes: He describes a variety of ways to cook fish but doesn't mention planking fish (or anything else). Maybe planking is a recent fad but I would liked to have seen the method mentioned.

The recipes I've tried have all been great. "Silver Paper Chicken" is marinated chicken thighs wrapped in aluminum foil and then cooked on the grill. An excellent appetizer but also good to eat as a main course. "Susur Lee's Chinese Barbecued Pork" is as close to the flavor of restaurant style Chinese barbecued spare ribs as I've ever gotten at home. And I've tried.

 To sum it up. If you have a grill and want to cook more than steaks and chicken cutlets The Barbecue! Bible is what you need to succeed.