A Sunday Stroll

Life can be pretty tough here in Brooklyn. No mercy. No forgiveness. A little view of what happens down on the docks at Sheepshead Bay.

Grilling Recipe: Grilled Curried Albacore

Here at WhiteTrash BBQ, we receive all sorts of recipes in our mail. Most are useless and have nothing to do with live fire cooking, but sometimes a real gem comes along. Here's a great one.....

GRILLED CURRIED ALBACORE

1 lb. albacore loin
1 tbsp. olive oil
3 tbsp. lime juice
1 tsp. curry powder
½ tsp. grated ginger
1 tbsp. chopped red onion
1 tsp. honey
1 medium McIntosh apple, sliced thinly

Cut albacore loin into 1-inch thick medallions. Make the marinade by combining all other ingredients except the apple. Marinate the albacore covered glass dish for at least a half hour, turning once. Remove the medallions and reserve the marinade. Lay the albacore out on a hot grill; for most loins, 3-4 minutes on each side is sufficient. Baste generously with reserved marinade just before turning medallions over. Do not overcook -- albacore should be pink in the center when removed from heat. Serve over chilled apple slices.

Recipe and photo courtesy of Oregon Albacore Commission.

BBQ Contest Foods: Fish

Let's take a look at some of the food we submitted at The Hudson Valley Ribfest. Here's a picture of our fish entry. It's grouper steak with a Caribbean pepper sauce. Unfortunately, I don't have the score sheets and I don't remember where it placed. But it didn't do great.

This entry was cooked by one of the Mikes following the recipe as published in Weber's Charcoal Grilling: The Art of Cooking With Live Fire by Jamie Purviance and Tim Turner. Almost. Mike followed the recipe as closely as he could, but it calls for a chunky pepper sauce which is something that is not allowed in a KCBS governed, NEBS sanctioned event. So instead he smashed and chopped up the sauce until he got what you see here. We tried to massage the sauce into the cooked fish with the hope that the sauce would still flavor the fish.

Looking at the picture, I can say it's really a mediocre presentation. I was so off on the boxes this weekend and our scores reflected that. I have no idea how this fish tasted. Mike bought two whole groupers and had them butchered (Do you butcher fish or is there another term for it?) into steaks. I've only seen grouper in filets, so this was an interesting choice, but Mike said that he had never had grouper fillet, only steak. Go figure. I wish there was more, but what you see was all the edible meat from the two fish. It all went to the judges. And they didn't like it.

Oh well, on to the lamb.

BBQ Life: 5 Days to Go

5 days to go until the Hudson Valley Ribfest.

When we last met, I posted my then current state of mind about the contest and it wasn't good. Since then the team's talked quite a bit and it things are looking much more positive. We've all come to agreements on the visitors, attitudes and levels of commitment. This contest will be a lot of fun and the team is beginning to gel.

Today, I thought I'd play around with Tilapia. I'd cooked this firm white fish before, but this is the first time I cooked it on the grill. We still haven't decided what fish we're cooking on Saturday, so I was combing the cookbooks for a new idea.

I settled on the recipe for Beer-Brined Smoked Catfish by Hill Country's Elizabeth Karmel that was published in Mike Mills' Peace, Love and Barbecue on page 234. Elizabeth has a great reputation and her food at Hill Country is fantastic. I was really looking forward to trying this fish. I didn't have catfish but I've substituted tilapia for catfish successfully before, so I didn't think it would be an issue here.

Boy was I wrong. This was the worst fish meal I've ever had. The brine took all the flavor out of the fish and left it a salty, albeit flaky, slab. UGH. No one, including me could eat more than one bite. I'd put up the recipe, but I don't want you to suffer like we did. Do yourself a favor and stay away from this one. This is the first time I've thrown away something I cooked since I was 18. Someone owes me $14.