I love Texas. Hopefully this year I will be able to go back and eat at some of the legendary BBQ joints. For now though I spend a lot of time over at Full Custom Gospel BBQ reading his reviews and experiences.  These ribs were inspired by my last trip there.

One of the challenges that I always have is finding beef ribs that have enough meat on them. It seems that outside of a few locations this is quite a daunting task.  A friend of mine Mike the owner of Big Bone BBQ came to my rescue. His restaurant serves up BBQ Beef ribs once a week at Big Bone BBQ Barrie. I got some from him and I was all set.

  

Removing the membrane was easy with a clean bar towel. Better grip than a paper towel for this tough membrane.

I also used a spoon to scrape off the large pockets of fat. Whatever you do though don’t discard the fat. Put it aside into a small saucepan and Ill get to it in a bit. After a bit of trimming I had about 2 cups of fat and beef bits.

 

 

Decided to keep the rub super simple only 4 ingredients. Granulated garlic, granulated onion, Morton’s Kosher salt & freshly cracked black pepper.

3/4 c Salt

3/4 c Pepper

1/2 cup garlic

1/2 onion

Generously rubbed (I used about half of the rub and stored the rest for future use) they headed to the grill at 225F . I used mesquite pellets for these.

  

Then I got around to making the mop. The first step was to render out some beef fat from the trimmings. This measured out to be 1/4 cup when finished.  You could also add 1/2 bottle of beer to this Mop if so desired. In addition pay attention to the sodium levels on the beef broth. Some are horrendously high. I used a reduced sodium broth and opted not to use Soy Sauce in this recipe.

Mop Ingredients

2 c beef broth

1/2 c  Worcestershire sauce

1/4 c Apple Cider vinegar

1/4 c Rendered Beef fat

1/2  bottle BV beef upper  ( approx 1.5 oz – you can also substitute Kitchen Bouquet)

4 tbsp Tiger Sauce

2 tbsp Mustard powder

2 tbsp dried onion flakes

 

 

 

 

Bring all of the Mop ingredients to a simmer. Set aside.

About 4  hours in I started Mopping every 15 minutes. I wanted to wait until the ribs had developed a very thick bark (crust).

Before Mopping:

 

 

After mopping:

 

After two additional hours mopping every 15 minutes the ribs were done.  Rested them covered tightly in foil for 15 minutes.  They were dark and crusted over and absolutely delicious. Some of the ugliest ribs I have ever made and it just didn’t matter. Paired with cornbread, cheesy pasta casserole and green beans they made an excellent meal.

   

Trimming and tying your own beef tenderloins is a really easy process. We do quite a few of these each year for various holidays caterings etc.

Start by removing the tenderloin from the cryovac.

Running your finger to the one side you can part out most of the chain.  Then slice off the chain and set aside.

Peel off any excess membranes and bits of fat.

Scrape off all membrane and fat from the silverskin.

Insert the tip of your knife under the silverskin and run the knife pointing upwards along the length of the tenderloin to remove.

Turn the tenderloin over and trim and hard pockets of fat off.  Trim any remaining fats and membrane from the tenderloin.

Flip the tenderloin back over and tuck under the thinnest end so that the thickness of the tenderloin is even.

Tie the roast with butchers twine at 1-2″ intervals.

Ready for the grill. Use the scraps to make stock or grind for some delicious hamburgers.

Check out this excellent video for more tips on trimming & Tying a Beef tenderloin.

Skirt Steak is great when marinated. I love the texture. You have two options when cooking skirt steak- Hot and fast or low and slow with a braise.

Here is what I like to do with my skirt steak. Make sure you or your butcher removes the tough outer membrane before grilling.

Marinade:
1/2 cup canola oil
1/3 cup reduced salt soy sauce
3 spring onions
4 large cloves garlic
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground chipotle
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 lbs veal skirt steak

Mix all marinade ingredients in a bowl or ziploc bag and add skirt steak. Marinate a minimum of 4 hours or even overnight.

Remove from marinade – heat grill to medium high heat using an all natural lump charcoal (I recommend Basques).

Directly grill each steak for 1-2 minutes. Then flip and grill for another 2 minutes. Remove from grill and rest tented in foil for 15 minutes.

Slice across the grain and serve with juices from the foil.

I made a repeat visit back to Big Chris today. I had not planned on it but as I was over in that area of Barrie it was convenient. Good food is always worth it.

Today I tried their shaved roast beef. A while back I posted their beans well to put it bluntly -sucked royally. Since then however I have great news – they are really great now. Completely terrific. Texture flavor and all aspects are just super yummy now.

This time I stayed and ate with my 4 year old son.

This is how they serve their in house diners. It was a very generous portion of lovely smoked shaved roast beef (you can opt for their horseradish mayo) great french fries, side of crunchy coleslaw and the new and uber improved beans. It was plenty for both of us. Kudos to them for improving their products and reacting to customers. I have no doubt Ill be back and I would suggest anyone who appreciates good bbq goes.

No special day here or anything buts it’s not often I get to have  prime rib.

Was feeling a bit out of sorts earlier today on a personal level but I will say that spending a bit of time in the kitchen doing some prep lifted my spirits. There is something strangely & immensely satisfying about smashing the crap out of a whole bunch of herbs and garlic using a mortar and pestle. Today’s crust was made with a lot of savory, thyme, 6 cloves of garlic, some beautiful New Zealand sea salt (thanks Angie!!) , black peppercorns and some canola oil. I pounded my little heart out (seriously I really need to bring the mortar and pestle out more often) and came up with a lovely herb mash.

The prime rib was lovely. I just love the look of raw meat. I love seeing the striations of marbling. Just beautiful.this prime rib weighed approx 6 lbs

On went the slather and into the fridge for a couple of ours.

My children were seriously not impressed at this point. At this point they were giving me the oh my goodness you can’t possibly expect us to eat that for dinner tonight looks. Any parent can relate to that.

It was a lovely smelling prime rib and the color was coming along nicely. Off to the kitchen to prep some veggies to accompany our dinner. Had some portobellos with some Wisconsin Parmesan that I picked up on our last travels to the US. Its a nicely aged cheese. Lovely to eat on its own. Not sure I would use it again on the portobellos. Just didn’t have enough oomph.

Then one of my all time favorite veggies – asparagus! Love love love asparagus grilled. So do the kids. Ok 2 out of 3 of the kids love it. The other (Chaos causing , tiny terrorist also known as my son Gabe) child has determined it looks too much like a plant. I grated the rind from a really large lemon and sprinkled it on the asparagus as well as a really fragrant lemon olive oil. Salt & pepper was added as well.

The Natives were getting restless at this point and it took everything in me to keep them all (including husband) occupied until the prime rib had rested for enough time.

Overall dinner was lovely. The prime rib was delicious. I love herb crusts on beef.