So why did I decide to brew a Tropical Stout? Cuz it sounded delicious, and there aren’t a lot of commercial examples. Turns out my amazing local beer store carries one: Dragon Stout from the same Jamaican brewery that makes Red Stripe. I got a six-pack of it to calibrate what the style should be and to see if I like enough to make five gallons of it. Its amazingly delicious. So if you’re curious about whether Tropical Stout is “your jimmy-jam” (as Mrs. Piehole would say) go to your beer store and ask for Dragon Stout from Desnoes and Geddes Limited (D&G), Kingston, Jamaica.

The Beer Judge Certification Program Style Guidelines that defines competition beer criteria describes “Style 16B: Tropical Stout” as “a very dark, sweet, fruity, moderately strong ale with smooth roasty flavors without a burnt harshness”. In practice that means smooth roastiness from dehusked dark malts. A little coffee and chocolate flavor from those same dehusked malts (no actual chocolate or coffee added to this one). A dark sweetness reminiscent of dark rum from a grain bill of 10-12% caramel malts. And a fruit forward hoppiness that you’d expect more in an American IPA than you would in a stout. To achieve this hop profile I opted for Amarillo for bittering hop, and a combo of Mosaic and Motueka hops for late addition aroma hops.

Not a lot of narrative to share on this recipe. Its COVID lockdown, it feels like “Groudhog Day”, and I got an itch to create an original beer. Wanted to brew a style I’ve never brewed before, and it being winter and all I like a good stout in the colder months. So for no other rational reason than that I chose Tropical Stout.

Here’s the recipe. If you brew it let me know how what you think of it. If you have your own Tropical Stout recipe I’d love to hear from you about how you developed it.

“No Woman, No Cry” Tropical Stout

5 gal OG: 1.071 FG: 1.016 ABV: 7.5% SRM: 41 IBU: 44

Ingredients

• 11 lbs Maris Otter Pale Malt (80%)
• 12 oz Caramel Malt 60L (5.5%)
• 12 oz Caramel Malt 80L (5.5%)
• 8 oz Carafa III Malt (3.6%)
• 8 oz Midnight Wheat Malt (3.6%)
• 4 oz Special B Malt (1.8%)
• 1 oz Amarillo Gold Hops (60 min)
• .5 oz Motueka Hops (10 min)
• .5 oz Mosaic Hops (10 min)
• .5 oz Motueka Hops (5 min)
• .5 oz Mosaic Hops (5 min)
• 1 tsp Wyeast Yeast Nutrient (15 min)
• 1 pkg Danstar Nottingham Yeast

Method

Mash at 150° for 75 minutes. Sparge to collect 6.8 gallons. 90 minute boil. Hop additions to schedule above. Chill to 65°, oxygenate, and pitch yeast. Ferment at 65° for three days then raise temp 1° per day to finish clean at 70°. Keg or bottle to a carbonation level of 2.3 vols.

The post Tropical Stout: A New Recipe for an Underappreciated Style appeared first on Thoughts From the Grill.

There are a couple of small challenges of creating a new Manhattan recipe. First, you need some basic barware including a good cocktail shaker with a strainer, a double jigger, and a cocktail spoon. Optionally, have a silicon ice cube tray for making large ice cubes or (even more awesome) molds for making sphere ice cubes. None of this stuff is particularly expensive, and you get kitted up with all of this bar gear for about $25 of online shopping. (Repeated disclaimer: I’m not selling anything or making any money with this website. I write here cuz I like to. Any products I mention or recommend are because I’ve used them and like them, and I receive no consideration – financial or otherwise – for mentioning them. And that’s why you’re not seeing any links to barware right now. I’m happy to make barware recommendations for any budget, just ask.)

Second, great ingredients make great results. But for a Manhattan (or any mixed drink) you don’t want the ingredients to be “too” great. I’m of the opinion that a truly great whiskey is like an expensive steak: don’t cover it up with other things, let it be its awesome self standing there naked and alone. You want to select a really good whiskey that can stand alone neat, but probably not a whiskey that is SO good that it should ONLY stand alone neat. Know what I’m sayin’? There a good number of whiskeys in this category, some of which I’ll call out in the recipes below. So leave the Pappy 20 Year and the Blood Oath on the shelf for this, they don’t belong in a Manhattan.

“Shaken, not stirred” is a classic James Bond tagline. Does it really make a difference? Oh hell yes it does. Shaken or stirred: one is not better than the other, but the method does makes a big difference to flavor and mouthfeel. In a shaken cocktail the liquor ingredients are put in a cocktail shaker with a lot of ice, shaken until the shaker is almost too cold to hold, then strained into a glass either over ice or neat. The net result is an ice cold cocktail… but also a mildly watered down cocktail. Rigorous shaking breaks up the ice in the shaker adding more water to the drink. This leaves you with a beverage with a brighter flavor and thicker mouthfeel and without the alcohol bite, but at the expense of losing some of the more subtle flavors in the liquor. Shaking also suspends tiny air bubbles in the ice cold cocktail, which makes the cocktail appear cloudy or “foggy” until the drink warms up enough that the air bubbles are released. That’s why shaken vodka martinis look milky when they’re first poured.

Stirring is obviously a gentler approach to blending the ingredients. It dilutes the cocktail to a lesser extent, but leaving the alcohol “burn” and a drink not as ice cold. Again, neither shaking nor stirring is better or worse. Despite all of the debate one way or the other it really comes down to what you personally prefer. And for me, shaking or stirring depends on the recipe and, honestly, my mood. How’s that for scientific. If stirring, add all ingredients in a shaker or pint glass with ice, stir with a bar spoon for at least 30 seconds, then strain into a glass.

Neat or on the rocks? Again: personal preference. Neat means a Manhattan strained into a coup or a martini glass without ice. “On the rocks” means strained into an ice-filled Old Fashioned glass. I strongly prefer – and recommend – that if you go “on the rocks” for your cocktails that you use a single large ice cube or ice sphere. Why? The larger cube or sphere will keep your cocktail just as cold as glass full of ice cubes made by your freezer, but the larger ice has less total surface area so it doesn’t melt as fast and dilute your cocktail as quickly.

So here are my five favorite Manhattan recipes created after extensive… umm.. “research” during Covid quarantine lock down.

#2 The “90 Days WFH” Manhattan

#3 The “Tinder in Place” Manhattan

#4 The “Heidegger Met a (Ver)Fallen Angel” Manhattan

#5 The “Italian Test Kit” Manhattan

The post My 5 Best Manhattan Recipes: Results from Quarantine Cocktail Research appeared first on Thoughts From the Grill.

I had the good fortune of studying philosophy as a young man, graduating with a bachelors degree in the subject.  I attended a small Catholic college in Miami where the philosophy department faculty was made up primarily of Cuban exiles, professors and intellectuals who had fled Castro’s Cuba and landed in Miami, some as adults, a few as children.  They were deep thinkers and committed teachers and people of high integrity who provided me a challenging education that has influenced and informed me throughout my entire adult life.  My four years there fostered my intellectual curiosity and gave me a solid grounding in the history of Western philosophy from the ancient Greeks through to modern times, with a particular focus in a school of thought called existential phenomenology.  They taught me to think critically, to challenge my own presuppositions, and to be precise in my use of language to properly convey an idea (I’ll leave it to the reader to determine if I learned that last lesson adequately).  I remain immensely grateful for the education I received from those people in that time at that place.

Three of the 20th century philosophers that I focused on most in my undergraduate studies significantly contributed to a school of thought called existential phenomenology. Each of these three were affected differently by the collective crisis of the rise of fascism in Europe in early 20th century. This crisis profoundly influenced their circumstances, their choices, and their ideas.  

Edmund Husserl was a philosophy professor for many decades at the University of Freiburg in Germany.  Jewish by birth, he converted to Christianity in 1886 by being baptized as a Lutheran.  Notwithstanding his conversion decades prior, the racial laws passed by the Nazi Party banned him from publishing or teaching in Germany until his death in 1938.  

Jean-Paul Sartre was a philosopher and author who had been drafted into the French army, was captured by German troops, escaped from a German POW camp and created a subversive underground group in Paris that supported the French Resistance.  For nearly early 70 years he was a leading, often controversial, intellectual in Europe, but ultimately was never able to comfortably rationalize his philosophy of individual freedom with his sympathies for communist ideology.  

Martin Heidegger, an extreme introvert and protege of Husserl, was a philosophy professor and later rector of the University of Freiburg.  He joined the Nazi Party, ostensibly in order to maintain his leadership position at the university.  But he got a taste of power and briefly embraced Nazism full on. He later appeared to question this choice, resigning as rector of the university in 1934 and withdrawing to a cabin in the Black Forrest.  He refused to discuss his brief embrace of fascism even until his death in 1976, yet he is still considered as one of the greatest philosophers in Western history.

Three men, all brilliant philosophical thinkers, each with a very different personal experience within the same crisis.  Each man contributed profoundly to 20th century thought, each man’s thought was formed and informed in myriad ways by his qualitatively different experience of the same crisis.

So what were their core ideas?

Here’s my “one paragraph” personal take on Western philosophy: prior to the 20th century Western philosophy spent over two millennia devising increasingly elaborate abstract systems designed (successfully or unsuccessfully, depending on who you like) to determine how – or even if – human beings can know objective truth.  Then the German phenomenologists arrived on the scene in the early 1900’s with the shocking idea that grand philosophical systems aren’t what matter.  What matters, said the phenomenologists, is how we consciously and intentionally interact with people/things/the world around us.  It’s the things themselves as we experience them that matter, objectively stripped of any preconceptions or presuppositions we have about those things.  Then along came the French existentialists who said sacrebleu! You Germans almost got it right but what you missed is that human consciousness can’t separate itself from its own existence, so it can’t be “objective” about anything!  Humans are conscious of the things around them, but, since consciousness can’t separate itself from the thing it’s being conscious of, there is no way for human beings to have any objective experience of anything.  Its all subjective and personal!  To which the Germans responded Geh’ kacken, Frenchies!  We will merge the method of phenomenology with the concepts of existentialism into existential phenomenology. And with this we will address the most important question of all, which is: what does it mean for a thing to be – what does it mean for me to say that I exist? – and how can the phenomenological method help me let Being and beings reveal themselves to me as they are, not how I preconceive or wish them to be.

And that is my irreverent subjective one paragraph survey of 20th century western philosophical thought.  Let’s have a slightly more serious look at Husserl, Sartre and Heidegger’s philosophy and how it can inform our lives and behavior in this time of quarantine.

Edmund Husserl is considered the father of phenomenology.  Phenomenology is more of a method than a comprehensive philosophical system.  That method is of casting aside preconceived notions and biases to experience things as they are, a method for describing experience.  Western philosophy prior to Husserl tended to lean on the “rational” nature of Man, the primacy of Man’s ability to reason and understand himself and the world around him.  “I think therefore I am” is the classic line from René Descartes that permeated centuries of philosophical thought.  But the phenomenologists kinda kicked that to the curb by pointing out that we experience reality in many, many ways, not just in thought.  We perceive it through our senses. We experience it emotionally.  We can allow reality and people and objects and events to present themselves to us without us “thinking” about them at all.  

One of my philosophy professors long ago used an example of phenomenology that sticks with me decades later: wine tasting.  Have you been to a wine tasting?  Its not a lecture on the history of winemaking, nor a workshop on contemporary theories of oenology or viticulture (couple of fancy words right there, baby!).  A wine tasting event is a pure phenomenological exercise in the experience of a glass of wine: what color do you see?  How does it smell?  What flavors do you taste?  How does it feel on your tongue when you sip it and when you swirl it around in your mouth?  What emotional reaction does the wine evoke from you as you taste it?  And most importantly: how do you use words and language to communicate your experience of this glass of wine? This is phenomenology as sure as the day is long.  This was Husserl’s contribution.  Experience the things and people and events around you as you experience them.  Don’t worry about how/why/if they have an objective truth behind your experience, or if you can fit them into a “system” of truth/knowledge/experience.  To phenomenologically experience something is to allow your consciousness to fully embrace what you are experiencing then finding a way to communicate that experience.

“To begin with, we put the proposition: pure phenomenology is the science of pure consciousness.”  — Edmund Husserl

*. *. *. *. * 

Jean-Paul Sartre was the stereotypical black turtleneck wearing, black coffee drinking, chain smoking French existentialist.  His particular flavor of existentialism held that every human being has absolute freedom to make any choice within the boundaries of their circumstances, circumstances that are thrust upon them.  But with that freedom to choose comes the responsibility for the consequences and outcomes of one’s choices.  For Sartre, freedom to choose is the very core of what it means to be human.  We are free to decide how we will react to, and act upon, every situation we encounter.  And every choice we make changes us in such a way that influences and informs the next choice we make.  And the one after that.  And the one after that.  Rinse and repeat.  

For Sartre, to blame circumstances, or to blame others, for the choices we make is to fail to meet the demands of what it is to be human.  To shirk responsibility for ourselves and our actions is, as Sartre would say, a failure to live “authentically”.  Eventually, awareness of the weight of our freedom to choose – along with the burden of the outcomes of our choices – creates an anxiety that may spark a person to a self-awareness of how to be their authentic self by fully embracing this freedom and standing honestly in their choices and consequences. But if that anxiety doesn’t lead you to self-awareness and authenticity, it will just leave you freaking out and depressed.  (As an aside, the 19th century philosophy Søren Kierkegaard offered a third option to this anxiety: “take a leap of faith into the arms of God”.  In fact, it was Kierkegaard who coined the phrase “leap of faith”.). In the end, Sartre points out to us that having free will is difficult and demanding… and we have this difficult and demanding free will whether we like it or not.

“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.  It is up to you to give [life] meaning.”  — Jean-Paul Sartre

*. *. *. *. * 

Martin Heidegger was Husserl’s student, protégé, and presumed successor.  But Husserl and Heidegger had a personal and professional falling out which led to Heidegger going his own intellectual way.  Heidegger’s contribution to philosophy centered around modes of being, that is to say: what do all things have in common that make them something instead of nothing? Heady, deep (and brilliant) stuff.  One of the three “modes of being” Heidegger spends a lot of time discussing is dasein which translates literally from German as “existence” but for Heidegger meant specifically “human existence”.  Unlike, say, a tree or a hammer, people are aware that we exist and can therefore choose to examine our own existence.  Or choose to ignore it.  For Heidegger dasein refers to “the being for whom Being is a question”.  He saw this self-awareness that we exist not as a philosophy but as a precondition for even having any philosophy at all.  So while a glass of water does not spend any time pondering what it means to be a glass of water or how it can become a better, more fulfilled, more authentic glass of water, I as a human being can and do ask myself these questions about what it means to be human.  But sometimes we forget to ask these questions. We forget that we exist, we forget that that we are dasein.  We forget that all being is connected, connected by the simple fact that we exist simultaneously in the same place at the same time with other things that also exist.  

The routine of our lives, of our immediate circumstances, causes us to forget that we have the capability to ask these questions… so we forget to ask them.  We forget to be our free willed selves, which leads us to confuse the circumstances we are in with who we actually are.  For Heidegger this is almost like falling asleep, falling into an unawareness of our own consciousness.  But by remembering we are dasein we are able to reexamine these circumstances, remember that who we are is a separate something from our circumstances, then in that awareness rise above our circumstances to live as our free, authentic selves.  

Conversely, we could fall into a state Heidegger calls verfallen (“everydayness”) wherein we drift through our short lifetimes, surrendering to the insubstantial superficialities of career ambitions, social pressures, fashion trends, consumerism, gossip, and reality TV. To Heidegger it is human nature to retreat to verfallen when we are unable to cope with our existential anxiety.  He didn’t consider this good or bad, its just who we are.  But this state of everydayness is unsatisfying and empty; it is not our true selves, and it holds us back from reaching our potential.  We know it is unsatisfying and empty even as we live it.  We just sometimes forget this and need to be reminded to snap out of it.

“Asking the question of being is one of the essential and fundamental conditions for the awakening of spirit[…] it is indispensable if the peril of world-darkening [Weltverdüsterung] is to be forestalled.”  — Martin Heidegger

How can this help us today?

For many months earlier this year I was waking up in the middle of the night thinking about work, unable to fall back asleep.   I’d pop awake around 3AM, my mind churning with work stuff: project timelines at risk, corporate strategy gaps, revenue shortfalls, leadership politics, people resigning, getting new hires up to speed.  All the things that happen in a company, some I could control and some I could not.  The continuous loop would just play over and over and over again until dawn.  I simply couldn’t figure out how to turn my brain off and fall back asleep.   

One day I was running on the treadmill in the basement, and my mind wandered to memories of long ago undergrad and philosophy studies.  This memory thread took me back to Husserl and Sartre and reminded me that consciousness must be conscious of something.  I remembered then that Sartre wrote I was “condemned to be free”, so… This sparked an idea.  For the next two weeks when I woke up in the wee hours, my mind gnawing away on the objects of my stress, I chose to change the mental topic.  I realized it was pointless to try to force myself back to sleep; that wasn’t going to happen.  But what I could do was chose to change the mental topic to something positive.  So I chose to lay awake and think of something else.  I mentally replayed favorite past vacations with my family.  I walked through in my head every little step it takes to smoke a perfect rack of ribs.  I thought about things and people and places that make me happy.  I was still awake, and still not getting enough sleep, but the energy was more positive.  I was making a free decision within the confines of unchosen circumstances.  And while I continued to wake up in the middle of the night stressed out, by changing the subject in my head I really was able to eventually able to start drifting back to sleep.  And then one day I wasn’t waking up in the wee hours at all.

I had reminded myself that – whether I like it or not, whether I want to or not – I have the freedom to choose every day.  Even in quarantine.  My world in these circumstances may be smaller, and nature of the choices are very different in scope than usual.  But the choices throughout the course of any given day – big and small – are mine to make. 

How can we best use our freedom to chose in these challenging times?  For me I am trying to take this as an opportunity to experience anew aspects of my life that are meaningful to me.   The opportunity is that life has slowed down with less “doing”: fewer social obligations, no dining out with friends, no staying late at an office I’m no longer going to nor the post-work activities that accompany work life, no fraternal activities or volunteer work or weekend errands to run.  It’s all slowed to a “little to none” kinda pace in quarantine, and my trips off of my property are currently infrequent and very utilitarian.  So less “doing” and more “being” has been the menu of the day, and quite honestly Husserl’s method of phenomenology has been a useful tool to help me take a look at things. 

Maybe our current quarantine circumstances are an invitation.  An invitation to reexamine and reconnect with what’s important, a reminder who we are is not the same thing as our circumstances.  This lockdown can be an opportunity to reexperience without preconception your marriage, your friendships, your career, your home, your family, your workspace, your pet, your hobbies and interests.  Yourself.  Have you created these in an intentional way that is healthy and meaningful to you?  If not, how would you change them – because you are free to change these things in any way you like.  Even in the confines of quarantine.  Indeed, there is no one except you who can make these choices.  You can chose to make them, or you can choose to wallow in the anxiety that not choosing causes.  That last thought may land harshly (in fact, I’ve typed it and deleted it three time now…), but it is truth.

Snap out of Heidegger’s “everydayness”.  Quarantine has shrunken the world for all of us.  We don’t get out as much as we would like.  Our favorite restaurants, bars, museums, music venues, coffee shops, parks, and churches are not available.   Clothes and cars and work promotions and celebrity gossip and are we going to the in-laws for dinner on Sunday and who’s sitting at the figurative “cool kids” table right now… it all feels less important.  For now.  As Heidegger would say: that’s not good or bad, its our nature.  We forget we are dasein and need to be reminded about it.  Speaking for myself, this Corona virus quarantine has been a wake up call, as it has for many people (even if their vocabulary for describing it is different from mine).  We don’t see our friends and extended families and coworkers much, and if we do it’s with social distancing and no physical contact allowed and other boundaries that feel awkward and artificial.  The comfortable and the familiar are temporarily unavailable to us, and this makes our personal worlds feel much smaller. But this is Being screaming an opportunity to “snap out of it” and re-embrace our dasein.  Make the most of it.  Choose.

Additional Reading

Mild

• Bakewell, Sarah. At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Others.  Other Press, 2017
• Sartre, Jean-Paul.  No Exit & Other Plays.  Vintage, 1989
• Watts, Michael.  Heidegger: An Essential Guide for Complete Beginners.  McGill-Queen’s University Press,  2011

Hot

• Sartre, Jean-Paul.  We Have Only This Life to Live: The Selected Essays of Jean-Paul Sartre 1939-1975, edited by Adrian van den Hoven, Donald Aronson.  NYRB Classics, 2013
• Sartre, Jean-Paul.  Essays in Existentialism.  Citadel, 2000
• Smith, David. Husserl.  Routledge, 2013
• Wrathall, Michael.  How to Read Heidegger. Granta Books, 2014

Extra Spicy

• Heidegger, Martin.  Being and Time. Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Reprint Edition, 2008
• Heidegger, Martin.  An Introduction to Metaphysics. Yale University Press; 2nd Edition, 2014
• Husserl, Edmund.  Logical Investigations.  Routledge, 2001
• Husserl, Edmund.  The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy.  Northwestern University Press, 1970
• Sartre, Jean-Paul.  Being and Nothingness. Washington Square Press; Original ed. Edition, 1993

The post Resolving Anxiety in Quarantine: Advice from 20th Century Philosophers appeared first on Thoughts From the Grill.

As I’ve posted before, I can’t source in the U.S. a lot of the Oaxacan chiles that I love to cook with, so I grow them in my backyard. This year I got a fantastic late season harvest of chilhuacle rojo and chilehuacle negro that I’ll use to make molé, a sizable haul of chile bolita, and a bunch of chile de agua. All of these varietals I first discovered in the markets down in Oaxaca, Mexico.

The chilhuacles I dried. The chiles bolita I froze. The chiles de agua I… well… they’re all gone cuz I loved them so friggin’ much that I’ve eaten them already. All of them.

So after I had already dried and stored my crop of chilhuacles last weekend I had ONE SINGLE chilhaucle negro get ripe on the plant late this week. One. One last soldier standing. Now, I’m not going to spark up everything to dry one single chile – even if it is a chilhuacle negro – so… I decided to make a pot of chili with it. I know. I crazy choice. A super decadent choice. Some would even say a waste. I don’t care. It was the star of the show in a pot of the most rich, earthy, delicious chili I’ve ever made. And I’ve made hundreds of them.

Recipe is below. I’m not trying to rub it in that you probably don’t have a fresh chilhuacle negro laying around. Hell, until this week I never thought I would either. So feel free to substitute any fresh chile you like into this recipe for the chilhuacle/bolita combo. My substitution suggestion would be one jalapeño (or chipotle) and two serranos. But use whatever favorite chiles you have available.

One last note: I prefer 85% lean ground beef for my chili. 90+% is too dry to me due to the low fat content, 80% or less gets too mushy in a long simmer. But to each their own.

Chrome Rims on a Ford Fiesta: A Texas Chili Recipe

Ingredients

2.5-3 lbs 85% ground beef

Ingredient Batch 1

• 2 cups beef broth
• 1 8 oz can tomato sauce
• 1 can Ro*Tel Original Diced Tomatoes & Green Chiles (drained)
• 1 fresh Chilhuacle Negro Chile (stemmed but otherwise whole)
• 6-7 fresh Oaxacan Chiles Bolitas (minced)
• 4 ts onion powder
• 2 tb Gebhardt chile powder

Ingredient Batch 2

• 3 tb Hatch green chile powder
• 3 tb Ancho chile powder
• r3 tb Gebhardt chile powder
• 1 tb smoked cumin powder
• 1/2 ts white pepper
• 1/2 ts black pepper
• 1 ts dark brown sugar
• 1 ts Goya Sazon con culantro y achiote

Ingredient Batch 3

• 4 ts Gebhardt chile powder
• 1 tb smoked cumin powder
• 1/2 ts smoked salt

2tb blue masa

1/4 cup warm water

Method

Over medium high heat brown beef in a dutch oven or large pot.  Drain fat.

Stir in Ingredient Batch 1.  Reduce heat to simmer.  Cover with lid and cook 45 minutes.

Remove chilhuacle negro chile from pot.  Mash it with a fork in a bowl, and return it to the pot with any juices.  Stir in Ingredient Batch 2.  Cover with lid and cook another 30 minutes.

Stir in Ingredient Batch 3.  Cover with lid and cook another 20 minutes.

Mix blue masa and warm water in a bowl to make a slurry.  Stir masa slurry into pot.  Cook with no lid for another 10-15 minutes.

Serve with warm tortillas or cornbread.

The post Chrome Rims on a Ford Fiesta: A Texas Chili Recipe appeared first on Thoughts From the Grill.

This is the kind of recipe I look for as the cooler weather of autumn starts rolling it. Something hearty and meaty and spicy. Something that’s going to warm me up after I’m done raking leaves. The foundations of this recipe are pork braised in green chiles and other spices. Variations range pretty far and wide, but pork and green chiles seem to be the common thread that runs through them all.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I grew some pretty uncommon chiles this summer with some unique flavor profiles. I haven’t been able to find too many recipes that showcase the awesome flavors of these chiles, so I’m making my own recipes and sharing them here. A personal take on Enchantment Stew seemed like a good opportunity to experiment in the kitchen.

My chile of choice for this recipe is the Oaxacan chile de agua. I’ve really developed a love for this chile, and I’m trying to come up with as many ways to cook with this gem as I can think of. Its earthy and fruity and has the kind of “slow build” heat I like in spicy food. The kind of build where the first bite tastes like there is zero heat in the dish, but by the last bite your lips are burning and forehead is starting to sweat.

So I highlighted Oaxacan chiles de agua in this recipe. But its unlikely you have these on hand, so serranos might be a good substitute.

I really like pork sirloin as the cut for this recipe, its got just the right amount of fat to render out into the stew. Tenderloin is going to be too lean and won’t impart the porky deliciousness into the broth that you’re going to want. Pork butt is going to go to far to the other end of the spectrum and be too fatty.

PIEHOLE WILLIE’S ENCHANTMENT STEW

Ingredients

The post How to Make Enchantment Stew: New Mexican Pork Stew appeared first on Thoughts From the Grill.

Cowboy beans, if you’re not familiar with them, is a style of Southwestern bean and meat stew. The recipes range far and wide from an ingredient perspective but the two key ingredients in Cowboy Beans are pinto beans and beef of some sort.

Since pinto beans are key to this recipe let me share a quick story about my favorite pinto beans on the planet. I’ve been a Certified BBQ Judge with the Kansas City BBQ Society for about 10 years now, and in 2019 I had the opportunity to judge the New Mexico State BBQ Championship. Judges at an event like this typically get a little “swag bag”, and the judge’s swag for this one included a two pound bag of pinto beans from a local purveyor called Horner Farms in Artesia, NM. Turns out they’re the best damn pinto beans I’ve ever had. Thick and creamy and full of flavor. (Usual full disclosure: I have no financial interest whatsoever in Horner Farms nor am I being compensated in any way for mentioning them. I just love their beans.)

So back to Cowboy Beans. I smoked a Texas-style brisket for Labor Day. Texas-style for me means a simple rub of 16 mesh black pepper and course salt, then smoked with pecan wood, no sauce. It came out great: solid smoke ring, crisp bark, and deep beefy flavor. Mrs. Piehole and I were eating on it for days. Then I came up with the idea of using some of that brisket, along with some Oaxacan chiles de agua growing in the backyard, in a batch of Cowboy Beans.

But wait: there’s more. I also recently smoked some home cured bacon, also with pecan wood. Brisket AND bacon in Cowboy Beans? Yes please. So that’s where I landed. Bacon, brisket, Horner Farms pinto beans, and homegrown chiles de agua. Smokey, spicy, beefy, bacon-y beans. Absolutely delicious. Uses a slow cooker or Crock Pot. Recipe below.

PIEHOLE WILLIE’S OAXACAN COWBOY BEANS

Ingredients

Method

In a large pot over medium heat cook the bacon 3-4 minutes until it has rendered a good amount of fat. Add onions, stir often until onions soften and get golden (8-10 minutes). Add garlic and chiles and stir constantly for one minute. Stir in diced tomatoes, including juices (don’t strain), and remove from heat.

Pour contents of pot into slow cooker and cook on high for 4 hours. Check taste and season with salt & pepper as needed. Add brisket and cook on low for another hour. Serve. (I served mine with skillet corn bread.)

OPTIONAL STEP: I like my cowboy beans thicker, Mrs. Piehole likes her cowboy beans soupier. If you prefer thicker like I do: just before adding the brisket remove a cup or two of beans and liquid, puree in a blender or food processor, and add back into the slow cooker.

The post Oaxacan Cowboy Beans: A Recipe with Chiles de Agua appeared first on Thoughts From the Grill.

Every winter for the last ten to twelve years I’ve placed an order for chile plants order from a nursery called ChilePlants.com for delivery in spring. (Full disclosure: I have zero financial interest in that company, not getting paid or compensated in any way to promote them. I’ve just a super satisfied customer who wants them to be around for many, many more years.) These folks offer hundreds of varieties of chile plants for sale, and I enjoy browsing through their catalog over the winter, getting ideas for chiles I’d like to grow, getting inspired for dishes I’d like to cook with them. Its kinda like planning for a fantasy football draft but with chile plants.

This past weekend was Labor Day, summer is winding down. This time of year the chiles with the long grow times are starting to get ready for harvest. Some of the shorter ripen time chiles I’ve been grabbing and cooking with all summer, but the ones that take time to get ripe take time and I only get one round of harvest. Sometimes, unfortunately, the clock runs out on them before the cool Midwest autumn weather kicks in, and I’m left with plants full of frost killed half ripe chiles…

Depending on the type of chile I’ll dehydrate some in a food dehydrator, freeze some, use some immediately. Whatever it takes to keep coasting with these flavors in the kitchen through the winter months.

So as I’m starting to think this through myself I thought I’d share some random thoughts on the chiles I’ve grown this summer and the ideas I have about how to cook with them. The thing about growing uncommon or rare chiles is that there’s usually not a lot written about how to use them or recipes that showcase their unique flavors. So I’m just going to throw some ideas out there and hope others find them useful. If you have grown or cooked with any of these varieties I’d love to hear your thoughts/ideas/suggestions. Feel free to either post comments below or email me directly.

Piehole Willie’s 2020 Chile Crop

Jimmy Nardello Peppers

I love these things, and they’ve been prolific all summer. An Italian pepper, long and bright red, sweet with a mild fruitiness, no heat or spiciness at all. My awesome wife, Mrs. Piehole, cuts them into rings for her salad. I’ve sautéed them a little olive oil and used them as a condiment on steak and cheeseburgers. And I posted about it being the star of the show in The Ultimate Grilled Cheese Sandwich. Up next is using a couple of Nardello peppers in some homemade Mac & Cheese.

Portuguese Hots

Another long, red chile…but this one packs some heat. Been using this all summer in batches of Portuguese Piri Piri sauce, and using that sauce as a marinade for pork tenderloin, boneless chicken breasts, and shrimp on the grill. I’m sure there are other uses for Portuguese Hots, but right now I’m totally hooked on fresh Piri Piri sauce and will keep grilling with it until… I don’t know… until I run out of them. Also had the thought of adding some of this Piri Piri sauce into a smoked cheese potatoes au gratin, maybe pairing it against smoked cheddar or smoked gouda in that dish. I think that’s an idea worth trying.

Orange Habaneros

There’s a ton of article and recipes on cooking with habs. This was the “accidental” chile plant purchase this year. I wouldn’t typically grow these but the totally amazing wife picked up this plant as a spontaneous purchase earlier this spring, and its been surprisingly prolific. My past experiences with growing habaneros is that they take forever to mature, but this one has just been cranking out ripe orange habs at a record pace this summer. My goal for these is to come up with a Jamaican jerk sauce or marinade, smoke some a spatchcocked chicken or a goat shank with this jerk sauce using pimento wood. I love Jamaican food but haven’t spent a lot of time cooking it, maybe this is the time. (N.B. I know scotch bonnet chiles would be a hair more authentic in a jerk recipe, but sometimes ya just gotta go with what ya have. And at that level of tongue scorching heat I doubt I’ll be able to tell the difference.)

Chile de Agua

I’ve really fallen in love with this Oaxacan chile. To me it tastes uniquely earthy and fruity, with a pleasant amount of spicy heat that builds over time. First thing I did this summer when I got some ripe ones was make a simple salsa to understand its flavor. Next up is to make pure red chili sauce with them, brush some sauce on some chicken thighs, wrap those thighs in Hoja Santa leaves and slow cook them over indirect heat on the grill. This idea was inspired by a similar dish I had in Oaxaca many years ago that I still dream about. Hoja Santa is kinda hard to find, though. You might find it in the produce section of a good Mexican grocer. I couldn’t find it where I live, so I grow it. I’ve had my Hoja Santa plant for several years in a pot that I bring indoors during the winter months. It looks like a leafy fern or foliage plant, requires a lot of water but not a lot of sun, and – seriously – tastes insanely like root beer. Strange but true. If you are unfamiliar with Hoja Santa there is an older article from Saveur Magazine about cooking with it here.

Chilhuacle Negro

Holy cow this one is the Holy Grail of Oaxacan chiles. Hard to find in the States, expensive if you do manage to find it. Chilhuacle negro is THE key ingredient in traditional Oaxacan molé negro. There is no substitute for its rich, robust, fruity, earthy awesomeness. It is a completely and utterly unique flavor. I’ll dry a few of these in a food dehydrator and store them in a cool, dry airtight container for use all winter. Will definitely be making some Oaxacan molé negro soon. It takes about a day to make it, so I’ll typically make it on a Saturday then on Sunday grill up a ribeye, a pork tenderloin, a couple of chicken thighs and a duck breast… and just slather the grilled meat in molé negro and feast on it with friends (assuming we get through this Wuhan quarantine anytime soon, otherwise I’ll be eating that feast alone with the Mrs.). I can’t tell you how much I love molé negro, it is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever tasted. Additionally, I’ve fully dehydrated chilhuacle negros in the past, powderized them, and used them as an ingredient in a dry rub recipe I came up with a couple of years ago (will write that up and post it one day soon).

Chilhuacle Rojo

Another chile I’ve been unable to find at any price in the U.S., this is the first year I’ve ever grown chilhuacles rojos. I’ve got a four foot tall bush on my patio in a half barrel container with about two dozen chiles starting to ripen. Like the chilhuacle negros I’ll dry whatever I get in a food dehydrator and store them. These chiles are a key ingredient in two other classic Oaxacan molés that I’d like to try my hand at in the kitchen this fall: molé rojo and molé coloradito. I’ve never made either of them before, but will be cooking them soon now that I’ve got the key ingredient. More posts to follow on this topic, I’m sure.

Chile Bolita

This is the hottest Oaxacan chile I’ve grown this season. From the Chiltepin/Tepin family of chiles. Very similar to the firecracker pequins I’ve grown many, many times in the past. Its a small bushy plant, about two feet tall, covered with dozens of small chile pods that a slightly larger than a green pea. Ate one of these straight up when it got ripe, tasted fruity and smoky… and then my whole mouth was on fire and my eyes were watering. In other words: “a perfect chile”. I’ve got a few ideas for these. First, I’ll keep most of these in an airtight bag in the freezer and grab 2-4 for of them when I want to add some spicy heat to whatever I’m cooking. A utility player of chiles, they’re small enough to calibrate pretty easily how much heat I’m adding to a dish, so I can just gauge appropriately. Second, I’ll be auditioning them in my signature Jack & Coke BBQ Sauce recipe and see if they become the new regular in that recipe. I prefer a just a little bit of flavorful heat in the sauce I put on my pulled pork, and chiles bolitas might be the next big idea in my BBQ endeavors. Third, I’m going to have to whip up a pot of chili with chiles bolitas in a starring role. I’ve recently been reading about “cowboy chili”, a style of making chili in a smoker by cooking it in a cast iron pot directly on hardwood charcoal. That’s completely in my wheelhouse. My last idea for chiles bolitas is a pork marinade with chiles bolitas, orange juice, oregano, other herbs/spices. Kind of “Oaxacan salsa meets Cuban mojo criollo” marinade for grilled pork tenderloin and boneless chicken breasts. This last idea is still percolating in the back of my head, more to come on this.

That’s my 2020 chile crop, and that’s how I think I’m going to use them. As I said, would love to hear from anyone who has experience cooking with any of these varieties.

The post Cooking with Rare Chiles: Ideas on My 2020 Chile Harvest appeared first on Thoughts From the Grill.

I don’t know how or why I got the idea, but lately I’ve been on a creative mission to come up with the greatest grilled cheese sandwich ever. Its a thread that’s been kicking around in the back of my head for weeks, and it’s become something of a running gag with my friends and I.

So here’s where I landed: sautéed Nardello peppers and aged provolone on thick cut multigrain bread.

Nardello peppers, if you’re not familiar with them, are a sweet Italian pepper. When fully ripe they are bright fire engine red color, about 8-9″ long, with a bright, sweet, slightly fruity flavor with little to no “chile” heat. You might find them at a grocer with a solid specialty produce section; I’ve also seen them at several farmers markets by me. But I’m growing them in a large pot in my back yard. The plants is about 2 1/2 feet tall, and its been producing peppers for us all summer long.

I’ve read several stories online about the history of Nardello peppers. Not sure if they’re true or urban legend, but the story goes that Giuseppe Nardello and his wife Angela migrated from Italy to Connecticut in the late 19th century with a handful of these pepper seeds, which they began growing in Connecticut, and that pepper farm supported the Nardello family in their new life in America.

I thought sautéing some of these peppers would be a great addition to a grilled cheese sandwich. And to compliment the Italian heritage of the peppers I decided that aged provolone would be the cheese of choice. And that’s how this recipe was born.

My amazing wife, Mrs. Piehole, got a fresh loaf of multigrain bread from a local bakery. So let’s start there. Two thick cut slices of that bread. Then I sautéed up a Nardello pepper in a tablespoon of olive oil in a cast iron pan until it was soft.

While the pepper is sautéing microwave a tablespoon of butter for a few seconds until it’s melted. Brush the melted butter on one side of each of the two slices of bread. When the pepper is soft remove it from the pan onto a paper towel. Put the two slices of bread in the warm pan, butter side down. Lay a slice of provolone on each slice off bread, then half the sautéed peppers, then another slice of provolone over the peppers.

HOT TIP: Got this suggestion from a chef friend of mine. Put the cast iron pan with the open face sandwich under your oven boiler until the cheese is completely melted. This was a game changer, folks. Completely, consistently melted cheese.

Take the pan out from under the broiler and put it on a stovetop burner on medium heat. Now flip one of the cheesy breads over on top of the other and finish frying it up like any other grilled cheese. This concoction was amazing and made me very happy. The sweetness of the peppers shines, complimented by the sharpness of the provolone. I love this. The ultimate grilled cheese sandwich.

The post The Ultimate Grilled Cheese Sandwich: Nardello Peppers & Provolone appeared first on Thoughts From the Grill.

My amazing wife, Mrs. Piehole, was at the garden nursery earlier this spring (ostensibly to buy tomato plants), and one of the things she came home with was this “combo pot” of four different basil plants. Four varieties of basil in a single pot. Before these plants got overly root bound with each other in their shared pot we split them up into their own separate containers out on the patio, where they each grew into big bushy plants that we’ve been clipping off of all summer. What we had were: sweet basil, lettuce leaf basil, purple basil, and Thai basil.

I love sweet basil. It’s the basil most people think of when they think “basil”. It’s prolific, grows insanely fast, and is a staple in Italian cooking. We use it to make homemade pesto all summer.

Lettuce leaf basil I’d never had before. It has leaves are pretty large by basil standards, and it (spoiler alert!) really does look like lettuce. Wavy and green, it looks like a cross between looseleaf lettuce and romaine.

Purple basil tastes of clove and anise, and it has a deep, deep purple color to it. I’m really intrigued by it, but I haven’t been able to come up with any ideas yet on what to put it in or how to cook with it. If you have any suggestions for this one I’d really appreciate it if you’d put them in the comments section below, because I really like this flavor but it has me kinda stumped on how to use it.

Lastly, the Thai basil. Ahhh… I love Thai basil. Its very anise-y and fresh. I love it in Thai food and pho, the Vietnamese noodle soup. Since we had so much of it I knew I had to come up with some sort of cocktail recipe with this, and since this is the Summer of the Margarita I landed on the Strawberry-Thai Basil margarita. Recipe below.

Note on this one: I typically prefer mezcal to tequila owing to mezcal’s smokiness. But I found that the smokiness just didn’t work for me this time with the sweetness of the strawberries nor the anise flavor of the Thai basil. Its just too much, in my opinion. So I strongly prefer and recommend a tequila reposado for this recipe, I think the result is much more balanced.

Piehole Willie’s Strawberry-Thai Basil Margarita

Ingredients

3/4 cup fresh strawberries (thawed if using frozen)

1 oz Cointreau orange liqueur

2 oz tequila (reposado preferred, or blanco… but not mezcal)

Juice of half a lime 

8 Thai basil leaves, washed

Method

Add all ingredients to blender. Blend on low until smooth. (Note: blending on a higher setting will heat up the drink unnecessarily). Pour over ice and serve.

The post Summer in a Glass: Strawberry-Thai Basil Margarita Recipe appeared first on Thoughts From the Grill.

One of these Oaxacan chile varieties I’m growing this year is Chile de Aqua. Its a varietal from the Valles Centrales region Oaxaca and is pretty much limited to growing in that small region due to the amount of water this chile requires. Hence the name “chile de aqua”, in English “water chile”. My plant is in a large container on my patio and has grown to about two and half feet tall with about a dozen chile pods on it at any given time. On the heat scale, these chiles ring out at ~30,000 Scoville units, which makes the slightly hotter than a serrano chile.

Recently I had a few pods ripen and was trying to figure out how I wanted to use them. I was surprised to find a lack of recipes online that use this chile, or any tips for cooking with it, so I’m going to have to come up with my own. The first thing I thought of (mostly ‘cuz its easy) was to make a quick salsa. Recipe below. Me and the Mrs. really love how this came out. The flavor of these de agua chiles stands out with rich, unique earthiness, with a hint of fruitiness and a pleasant heat that builds. I swear: the flavor tastes like my memories of Oaxaca. I’ll post additional recipes that use this chile as I come up with them.

Highly recommend growing these chiles de agua if you get a chance, you won’t be sorry.

PieHole Willie’s Chile de Agua Salsa

Ingredients

4 chiles de agua

4-6 tomatillos

1 clove of garlic, peeled

Juice of 1/2 a lime

1/2 bunch of green onions, chopped (green parts only)

Salt & pepper to taste

Method

Roast the chiles de agua in a cast iron skillet until blackened on all sides. Put chiles in a paper lunch bag and close the bag up. Let sit until cool. Peel and discard skin and stems, reserving the flesh and seeds.

While chiles are cooling, roast tomatillos and garlic clove in cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Set aside, also reserving any juices from the skillet.

Once everything is cooled, put all ingredients in a blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Serve with tortilla chips and a margarita.

The post Tastes like Oaxaca: Recipe for Chile de Agua Salsa appeared first on Thoughts From the Grill.