Drinkable, but deceiving. Before you know it, you’ll be down for the count.
With Spring around the corner, lighter beers are on the way. I wanted to make a lawnmower beer that refreshed you, without making you feel like you have to drink 5 to loosen up.
Welcome… Wit’s End.
This is the updated recipe for Red Blooded Ale. It’s geared toward being along the lines of Arrogant Bastard with its high IBU, but this will have more malt in it. Hoping it comes out very well balanced.
Thanks a ton to my friend Robert Williams for our new logo.
Courtesy Melek Design http://melekdesign.com/
It was soup night at the brewhaus tonight.
My wife made French Onion soup, with my Oil Spill Stout, and she also made her awesome Baked Potato soup, as well. I decided I’d make my own contribution in the way of something completely different: Ginger, Chile Sweet Potato soup.
(My wife is a professional photographer, so that’s the picture of the soup that she took)
If it piques your interest, here’s the recipe…
You’ll need:
1 roasted large sweet potato
1/4 medium yellow onion, sliced thin
1 medium apple, cored and sliced 1/4 inch slivers
1 tablespoon bacon fat or standard pork fat
1 large green onion, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons fresh grated ginger, divided in two
2 cups beef broth
1/2 cup half n half
1 cup milk
1 tsp chipotle powder or chipotle hot sauce
Shredded white cheddar – Just about any shreddable cheese will work here. I like the white cheddar for the contrast in color.
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
A few slices of bacon cooked and crumbled into 1/4 inch sized bits
And a dollop of greek yogurt for it in the bowl
Roast the sweet potato with the skin on in a 400 degree oven until it’s fork tender (could be as long as 45 minutes or more)
While the sweet potato is roasting, toss the apple slices in a little olive oil, salt and pepper.
Once the sweet potato is done in the oven, kick it up to 425 and place the apple slices into the oven until they start to caramelize. Shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes.
Put the bacon fat in a 6 quart soup pot, and set the heat to medium. When it’s up to temp, sauté the onion slices until they just begin to caramelize, adding a little salt along the way to draw out some of the liquid.
Toss the softened apple slices in with the onions and mix them all together. In goes half of the shredded ginger at this point.
Add the beef broth.
Use your immersion blender in the pot and grind all that beauty up until it’s silky smooth.
Then, add the sweet potato to the mix, squishing it between your fingers as you do to mash it up.
You’ll want to wash your hands, obviously, and then stir it up for a minute or two in order to combine.
Add the milk and the half n half and continue to stir, then use the immersion blender again until it’s as silky smooth as possible.
This is when you’ll want to add the rest of the ginger, and the chipotle powder or chipotle hot sauce. At that point, you’ll let it simmer for about 10 minutes, salting to taste.
Once it’s done, pour some into a bowl and drop in a dollop of Greek yogurt. Then, top it with some of the green onion slivers, the cheese, and bacon crumbles.
This was the only prime rib I’ve ever made, and it was by far the best prime rib I’ve ever eaten. I’ve grown to be able to sing my own praises when they’re valid… and in this case, they’re valid.
It’s so simple. You have got to make this.
Get yourself a ribeye roast. Bone-in, or boneless, that’s your call. I prefer bone-in. The roast I made was about 3.5 pounds pre-cook weight.
Generously and liberally coat the roast with kosher salt. This process is what kosher salt was born for. Don’t skimp here AND DO NOT USE TABLE SALT OR PICKLING SALT – it will all melt into the meat and not help the process. For kosher salt, I like Morton’s simply because the grains are all consistent in size.
After you’ve koshered the roast, apply the spices you like. I used garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, fresh cracked black pepper, and ancho chile powder.
After you rub your meat (get it? rub your meat? ah… never mind… sheesh), you need to find a platter or tray or cookie sheet to put the roast on. Something that doesn’t cover the roast. Find a spot in the fridge to put the roast on its tray where nothing will touch it. Do not cover or tent the roast at all, with anything. Leave it in the open air of the fridge. It won’t go bad. Nothing bad will happen to it, I promise. Make sure there is plenty of room for air circulation around it. I put mine toward the back of the fridge, on the very bottom shelf.
Leave it alone… no, really… leave it alone and don’t touch it. Do nothing for 3-4 days (longer if you want).
This is what it looks like after 4 days of dry aging in the fridge…
You can see on the left side, that the surface had started to crack a little. That’s a good thing. Some moisture had started to leave the meat, and it had begun to concentrate the flavor of the meat. The fat had begun to become just a little waxier, instead of “fatty”. It was dense and tight. I let it sit out for about a half hour, so it had a chance to warm up a little. I always like to let my meats come up closer to room temp before cooking them.
I set the oven as high as it would go. In this case, 500F. Then, I found a nice roasting pan, and used a small rack sitting on four mason jar lid rings to keep the roast up off the bottom of the pan (and to keep it out of its own juices as it cooked). After situating the rack on the rings, I covered the roasting pan bottom with about 1/4 inch of water.
So, at that point, I rubbed the meat down with a compound butter. I covered the entire roast on every side. The butter had some Italian seasoning, garlic powder, and some salt/pepper, and the butter was room temperature. After rubbing it down with the magic goodness, I set the roast on the rack, as the buzzer went off letting me know that the oven was ready.
I set the roasting pan in the center of the oven, and set the timer for 24 minutes. The “rule” at 550F is to cook the roast for 5 minutes for each pound of pre-cooked weight. Since I could only get the oven to 500F, I set it for 7 minutes per pound. This is when magic happens in the oven, and it’s also why you put water in the pan… the meat begins to sear simply from the air temp, and the fat begins to render out. The water keeps the fat and drippings from burning on the bottom of the pan, but you may actually have to add more water periodically due to evaporation from the high heat.
Ok, so the timer went off, and then I set the temp down to 170F. This is to give it the low and slow cooking method. I let it go for 1 hour and 50 minutes. At that point, I jacked the heat back up. It went to 450F this time, just to dry out the surface of the meat. That lasted for 10 minutes.
At this point, I pulled the entire rig out of the oven and let the meat rest, tented under foil, for 20 minutes.
And then… I started shaving meat off of it… below is the glorious result… Prime Rib in all its wonder. This picture depicts about a half inch of meat shaved from the prime rib…
That’s it… simple, right? Ok, now get to it!
