Recently I attended a master smoking class given by bro' Ian. Well, actually it was a demo for suppliers of his ProQ smokers. And look at this, I think we had four on the go at one stage - collective noun for smokers? A 'smog' of smokers? No, thats not right..
You can do a lot of food on this many smokers, and we did! Everything from chicken to big pork joints, and fantastic ribs - but more about those in later posts.
Ian had prepared a couple of items that were a bit out of the ordinary:
Rolled and stuffed chicken breast
The demo catered for many, bit for a family bbq I'd probably recommend two fillets per adult (always more than less, you can always eat leftovers, but you cant just decide to not be hungry if there's too little).
You'll also need:
- two or three red and green peppers
- goats cheese/brie (we chose brie)
- string to tie the rolled and stuffed fillets
- bbq rub (some paprika, mixed herbs, salt and pepper) or buy a rub of your choosing. I've tended to use Steven Raichlen's (of BBQ Bible fame) rubs.
Place the fillet between two sheets of cling film and fatten out a bit with a roller or other blunt instrument. Cut the peppers into small pieces, and slice the cheese into thin pieces. Take the fillets and lay them out, now spread some of the pepper pieces and cheese over about half the exposed fillet, maybe slightly more, but make they're not so full that they cant be rolled and tied up.
When done and on the bbq they should look like this:
They were simply superb.
Whilst most smoking tends to take quite a while, these weren't done for much more than 45 minutes or so.
For those of you who think that chicken is a vegetable, we also smoked some sirloin fillet, flattened, rolled and stuffed in exactly the same way, except we used goats cheese instead of the brie. These were good too, but the chicken won the day.
Last but not least have a look at this skewer:
This was sirloin steak, cut into strips, vacuum marinanded overnight, and threaded onto skewers that were hung within the smoker. We hung four or five skewers in one smoker - each skewer easily enough for two. Interesting bits - the skewer is flat, not round, so the meat doesnt spin around the skewer once its threaded on. As its hanging in the smoker, tie a piece of string at the bottom of the skewer to make sure the sirloin doesn't slide off.
Soon as I have been able to replicate this for myself I'll post the details of the recipe for the marinade, just thought I'd share the great idea of all this meat hanging inside the smoker.
