Tuesday, May 26, 2009

A Memorable Memorial Day

The Mysterious Chinese Woman and I headed to the Mysterious Sister-In-Law's house for our annual Memorial Day barbecue and, this time, birthday party for Jim. As usual this is a multi-day event. We started out on Saturday night by having dinner at a new restaurant:

Eno Terra

It is very nice and a tad upscale. Not a huge menu but a nice selection. And everything on the menu is from local farms of one kind or another. Well, almost. I doubt if the tuna tartare was local. The food was great, everything from a pasta dish with short-ribs to a veal sambuca, to lamb. The service was excellent in a friendly way and the deserts were exceptional. I should have taken pictures, but I was on vacation.

Of course Bar Man is the guy in charge of the grilling and for Memorial Day I did ribs, a duck, and a chicken. I did one rack of ribs with a homemade fairly traditional barbecue rub. The other one I salted and then applied a liberal dose of a nice Chipotle sauce I brought back from Mexico. Then I slathered it with maple syrup. It turned out quite well, I thought.

Bar Man's Barbecued Ribs


I marinated the chicken with a mixture of honey, apple juice, salt (always) and about a teaspoon of the Chipotle sauce. The duck I simply marinated in half soy sauce and half water.

The Fowl Was More Than Fair


As I mentioned, it was Jim's birthday so we had a nice ice cream cake, kind of a tradtion. And sparklers, one for every ten years.

Happy Birthday, Jim


Jim often likes to challenge me with something to barbecue. One time it was a suckling pig. Another time it was a huge fish which turned into a disaster. This time he brought a nice leg of lamb.

Legging It With The Lamb


The Mysterious Sister-In-Law had some king of a spice rub that had all kinds of stuff in it, cumin, rose-petels, and who knows what. I should have written down the ingredients. The name of the rub is Bed of Roses by Elements of Spice. I said it would be good for lamb, and it was.

The Lamb Just Fit


The Finished Product


After The Carving


This was one of those weekends where everything turned out just perfect. Part of the reason, I suspect, was that I used the remote thermometer and kept a close eye on the temperature. It turns out that when the chicken hit an intermal temperature the ribs were just perfectly done as well.

I also used a new type of charcoal, Kingsford Competition Briquets. They seem to burn a bit hotter and I didn't have to replenish them while I was doing the smoking, so that was good.

All and all it was a great weekend and the weather cooperated fully. I hope you all had a pleasant one as well.

1 comment:

WhiteTrashBBQ said...

I've always wondered about rolled ribs. Do they cook any differently than flat ribs, or ribs cooked standing on edge in a rack? How is the bark on the inner ribs? The smoke penetration?

Would they do this at the Waterfront Ale House?