The Hungry Hussey: big green egg

Showing posts with label big green egg. Show all posts

Chicken Fried Rice

Around our house, we love fried rice. We do all kinds of variations. The skys the limit here. We've done leftover pork tenderloin that was smoked, chicken, veggie, smoked sausage, and even Italian sausage fried rice.

So you see, it can be whatever you want it to have in it, not necessarily the exact ingredients as a cooking show or a recipe.

So the below is the ingredients I used. They include:

Two eggs

1/2 cup green and red pepper (combined)

1 cup bean sprouts

1/2 cup julienned carrots

2 green onions, tops reserved till the end

2 cups dried jasmine rice

2 cup cabbage (just standard green cabbage)

2 chicken breasts (marinated for at least an hour w/ 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1 teaspoon dijon mustard, 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, 1 teaspoon fresh garlic, teaspoon cracked pepper)

Soy sauce (1/4 to 1/2 cup for fried rice)

Sesame oil, 2-3 teaspoons

Canola oil, 1/4 cup total

Fresh garlic, 1-2 teaspoons, for veggies

Fresh ginger, 1-2 teaspoons, for veggies

Optional: For heat, add some red pepper flake or some jalapeno.

Here's a little tip for garlic and ginger to get very fine. Use a micro plane to really get small and unnoticeable.

Here's the rundown of how I do fried rice. A wok is a great tool to have, but if you don't have one, a nice large heavy skillet will do. High heat is your friend here.

1 - Add a little butter and canola oil and fry your eggs first. Bust the yolk up and fry until done. Remove from wok/pan and set aside.

2 - Let the pan get hot again and add a little more canola oil and a few drops of sesame oil. The veggies are next to be cooked. I like to add a pat of butter too, just because, well, I like butter :) . Also add the ginger and garlic. This helps layer the Asian flavor. After they're tender, remove and set aside. Put the pan back on the heat for the chicken next.

3 - After the pan is nice and hot, add the chicken and leave alone for around 30 seconds. Let the pan recover from the heat loss before mixing. You don't want the pan to cool and start losing juices in the meat.

After the chicken is done, remove and set aside. Place the pan back on the heat.

4 - Little more canola oil and sesame oil (is this like a broken record here?). Let that heat up and add the rice. Let the rice sit for 30 seconds or so and then start mixing around. You want to get a little fry to the rice to firm it up some. A nicely seasoned pan shouldn't stick.

Tip: Cook the rice way ahead of time and allow to sit in the fridge. This drys the rice out making a better fried rice. I made this rice about 2 hours before. Poured on a sheet pan and placed in the refrigerator (uncovered) to dry out and worked out well.

5 - Add the veggies and chicken to the rice and mix well. After 1-2 minutes, pour in the soy sauce and incorporate well. If the rice still has a lot of white to it, add more soy sauce. I prefer low sodium soy sauce (green label).

Here's a little video I shot also to help.

6 - After all that is incorporated, add the eggs, then place on your serving dish and top with green onion ends.

wok on big green egg

Onion Rings

Last weekend the wife wanted fried pickles and this weekend she requested onion rings. What did I say? "Yes dear". Well, not really, but I said "sure thing, no problemo".

I couldn't tell you how many hundreds of pounds of onion rings I have made in my life from working at Skipper's Seafood, so I didn't even need to rely on my terrible memory. It was like riding a bike :).

So now to the business end of things. Vidalia onions are in season these days, so we grabbed some of those at the grocery store. You can use regular ol yellow or white onions if you want.

1 -

Sweet Vidalia onions straight from Georgia (in my Ray Charles voice)

2 - Cut onions into nice sized rings. Say about a 1/4" to 1/2".

3 - I used about 2-3 cups buttermilk in the right bowl and thinned it out with a little water (1-2 cups). Middle bowl has bread flour in it. You can use all-purpose flour too if you like.

Little tip: Use your right hand for dipping in moisture and left hand to bread the onion rings. Makes it less messy and your onion rings better looking. They will not have excess breading on it nor on your hands.

4 - Take your flour breaded onion rings and place beside your milk mixture. You will need to re-bread the onion rings. Not in flour, but in cracker meal. Salt and pepper your cracker meal.

5 - Same breading technique as noted above with this step.

6 - They should look similar to this.

7 - Here's the cracker meal I used.

8 - Fry in hot oil at 350°-375° until golden brown.

9 - Should look similar to these. I dusted with Lowry's seasoning at the end.

Ingredients:

2-3 Vidalia onions

2-3 cups flour, for first breading

2-3 cups cracker meal, for second breading

Oil for frying (just enough to cover the rings while frying)

Salt (for cracker meal) 1-2 teaspoons

Pepper (for cracker meal) 1-2 teaspoons

Lowry's seasoning (for the end) 1/2 teaspoon

vidalia onions

Fried Pickles

South of the sweet tea line, we have a delicacy that some do not know about. That delicacy is fried pickles! Oh, and with plenty of ranch dressing too! No bottle of that either now, please fancy yourself, and make your ranch. Back to the pickles. I use straight up Mt. Olive Dill Pickle chips. Here's how I do it.

First, drain most of the juice from the pickles using a strainer. In a separate bowl, pour some buttermilk and add a few dashes of hot sauce if you desire. In this particular instance, I didn't.

Dip the pickles into the bowl to get coated with milk, then place back and drain excess off with the strainer. Dump the pickles into another bowl with House of Autry Seafood breading. Coat well, then fry.

The setup.

Added the pickles to the breading.

Fry in hot oil around 350°-375°

Pull and drain on paper towels when pickles are nice and golden brown.

I added a hotdog to the mix too... Yum!!!

Ingredients:

1 Jar dill pickles slices, 1-2 cups
1 bag House of Autry Seafood breader, 1-2 cups
Buttermilk, 1-2 cups
Oil for frying

Now, for this instance, I used my Medium Big Green Egg and my wok to fry these pickles. You can use whatever you have on hand, just be sure the temp is around 350°-375°.

My setup...

Big Green Egg setup for fried pickles

So, you're wondering about the homemade ranch dressing too, huh? Well, look no further.

1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup good quality mayo
1/2 sour cream
1 package Ranch seasoning mix

Mix well and refrigerate. Best to refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

pickles

Center Cut Bone-In Pork Chop with Balsamic, Honey glaze/sauce

Center Cut Bone-In Pork Chop with Balsamic, Honey glaze

Around our house we love pork chops. Preferably bone-in as I feel there's more flavor with the bone in meat. However, I'll eat a boneless pork chop in a minute as well! Picked up two nice, thick chops for our meal and headed home.

To start things off, I decided to brine the pork chops. Not familiar with brining? Well, here's your chance to know. Brining is a saltwater mixture for meat to sit in for an extended period of time to add flavor and tenderness. The sky is the limit with brining meats really. There is no right or wrong way really. Well, I guess if you really threw in too much salt or some other type of substance.

For this brine recipe, I used salt, pepper, garlic, lemon, lemon peel, and brown sugar. Oh and of course, water.

3 cups water
1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup light brown sugar
Juice of lemon
Lemon peel slices (make sure to not cut into the white part of the lemon)
Peppercorns
2-3 cloves garlic (or 1-2 teaspoons garlic powder).

Here's a picture of the chops in the brine mixture.

About an hour before cooking, drain liquid and pat dry. I then took canola oil and drizzled over the chops. I then seasoned with salt, pepper, season salt, and white sugar. I just placed a tablespoon of each in a little bowl and combined well, then season liberally over the chops. If you're feeling adventurous, add some coffee to the mixture. It is divine!

Also, you will want to get your grill ready for direct cooking (cooking directly over the heat source) at roughly 425-450°.

Here I have the chops seasoned and I was feeling adventurous and added some coffee....

The balsamic glaze.

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup honey
1 green onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Half stick of butter, cubed

In a small sauce pan, bring the vinegar, honey, green onions, garlic, salt, and pepper to a boil over medium-high heat. You will want to stir every 30 seconds or so. The key is to let the balsamic reduce some to where it's getting thicker and coats the back of a wooden spoon nicely.

Remove from heat, and add butter. Taste for seasoning. Add and adjust accordingly.

By now, your grill should be nice and hot ready for your chops. I like to take a rag and wipe with canola oil over the grate just so no sticking happens.

You will want to place these on the grill for and let cook for 2-3 minutes. After that rotate 45° and cook for another 2-3 minutes. This will give you those nice diamond looking grill marks like the pro you are!

Flip after that amount of time and do the same rotate business. You will want to ensure the internal temperature is 145° of the chop. Some like to pull at 140° and the heat internally usually makes the meat creep to 145-150°, but I personally like my pork a tad more done. So I pull at 145° and let creep to 150°.

To layer more flavors, I brushed some of the honey balsamic glaze over each side a couple times during the cook, near the end.