Another Hungry Boy

Eating food in Melbourne, Australia.

[anotherhungryboy]

Bacon wrapped egg and bacon fatty

[anotherhungryboy]

Ham and cheese meatloaf-sandwich - bacon wrapped of course!

[anotherhungryboy]

Fajita-ish Steak Tacos

Tacos made with char-grilled flank steak are popular at my place, so with a recently arrived bottle of Dizzy Pig’s Fajita-ish spice rub at hand it was time for another meal.

A good sprinkle over the entire slab of meat and a couple of hours in the fridge for the flavours to penetrate the meat we were ready to go.

A half-chimney of heat beads got the Weber kettle hot enough to give the meat a good sear when it landed on the grill.

After about fifteen minutes cooke time total, I brought the meat inside and let i=t rest for ten minutes before squeezing a lime over the the top prior to serving.

Home-made guacamole, made with avocado, green onions, salt, pepper, mayonnaise, sour cream and lime juice ...

Water melon salsa, for some freshness and a bit of heat from some jalapenos.

Ready to eat ...

So let’s eat ...

Flank steak is a wonderfully tasty cut of beef, you should make sure to try it soon.

[anotherhungryboy]

Dexter, Preston

Dexter is described as a non-traditional meatery with a no rules approach to american BBQ. It was only opened a couple of weeks ago (July 2015) and has become pretty popular as it was almost full when I dropped in for lunch yesterday. 

Seen above is the Big Dexter, brisket, pulled pork, slaw and pickles.

We also had a bowl of fries that had been sprinkled with the house seasoning and served with a small bowl of aioli for dipping/

The green chilli slaw was excellent, a nice bit of heat which is unusual for a slaw, I really enjoyed it.

Here’s the front-of-house takeaway menu.

I’m sure it won’t be long before I’ll marching through the front doors at Dexter again.

[anotherhungryboy]

Tri-tip with cherry glaze

I'm a big fan of trip-tip, so is my family, so we have it regularly and I sometimes look for a different way to prepare it, aside from just seasoning it with SPG. Here's some pictures of a cook recently ...

When I was in Port Macquarie for BBQ Wars in March I met lots of great people. One of the people I met was an artisan sauce maker who let it be know on his Instagram profile that he had some bottles of his Contraband Sauce available on Instagram. I got in touch with him and grabbed one each his Cherry and regular flavours.

As I was planning on smoking the trip-tip I decided to put the cherry sauce to good use by using it as a glaze after smoking and an indirect sear for additional flavour, and of course some on the plate!

I made some bacon and beans, and mashed potatoes with spring onions for sides;

I stopped the glazing process when the internal temperature had reached 135˚f internal and let it rest for 20 minutes before slicing.

The tri-tip was great and the cherry sauce made it even better, it's not too sweet and has a spicy but not too hot, kick, yum! Thanks for looking.

[anotherhungryboy]

Blues Hog Tri-tip Sliders

Blues Hog make a very tasty barbecue rub and a sauce that, without doubt, is one of my favourite combos for flavouring beef, chicken and pork. I recently received a package of rubs and sauces from Firecraft that included the

Blues Hog rub and sauce, so I picked up a fresh tri-tip to smoke using the Blues Hog products.

I used a meat tenderiser so the flavours would sink in deeper into the meat.

Then I applied a coating of Blues Hog sauce so the rub would stick to the meat better.

A generous coating of the Blues Hog rub was applied to the outside of the tri-tip and then it was left to marinate for a couple of hours.

Intending to do a reverse sear, I fired up the Weber kettle, added some apple wood to the charcoal and then smoked the tri-tip for an hour or so until it reached and internal temperature of 120°f.

After the smoking, I seared the tri-tip directly over the charcoal for until it got a charred exterior ...

Then I glazed it with some of the Blues Hog sauce and waited until it reached an internal temperature of 135°f internally, a nice medium rare.

Medium rare is my favourite way to eat tri-tip, how about you?

I grabbed some small oval-shaped soft rolls, shredded some lettuce, finely sliced a fresh jalapeno and then spread some some lime/honey/jalapeno jelly on the rolls instead of butter.

I was very happy with the cook and the flavours and those rolls didn’t take long to disappear!

Thanks for looking.

[anotherhungryboy]

Country-Style Ribs and Beef Short Ribs

On a recent visit to Costco I found two meat products I hadn’t seen there before; country-style pork ribs and beef short ribs, so I grabbed a package of each of them.

When I got home I seasoned the beef ribs with Blues Hog Rub, and seasoned the pork ribs with a rub from the book "America's Best Ribs" book by Ardie Davis and Paul Kirk, the recipe Smoked Orange-Glazed Country-style Ribs http://tinyurl.com/qegmen3, I also made the matching sauce for glazing the pork ribs with during the cook and on the table as an accompaniment.

I put the boneless ribs on the Weber kettle at about 250°f and added some apple wood for smoking.

After about ninety minutes I started glazing the meat with the sauces I had prepared for the task. The pork had the orange-flavoured sauce from the book and for the beef I mixed half and half Blues Hog sauce and pure maple syrup with a quarter teaspoon of chipotle powder.

I made a potato salad to accompany the beef and pork. I usually make my dressing with mayo, sour cream and something else depending on what’s in the fridge, today I add some jalapeno-flavoured vinegar from a jar of pickled jalapenos which spiced it up nicely.

The country style pork ribs were amazingly tender and with a nice smokey flavour under the orange-flavoured glaze, a butter knife easily cut through them.

The beef short ribs came out really tender and juicy, the Blues Hog/maple syrup glaze was just a perfect addition to the beefy goodness!

Can’t wait to get either of these on my plate again one day.

[anotherhungryboy]

N2 - Dirty Banana Split

Any time is good for an N2 ice cream made using liquid nitrogen. From the selection on the menu board I chose the Dirty Banana Split.

Banana ice cream with crushed cookies, cocoa nibs and salty peanuts while on top it has whipped cream with peanuts, a chocolate drizzle and a cherry.

It also comes with a syringe filled caramel sauce that you can inject into or onto your ice cream or just inject it straight into your mouth!

[anotherhungryboy]

New York Minute Burgers

New York Minute is a burger joint located about twenty minutes drive from home so we headed there for dinner recently to try out their burgers.

I ordered the New York burger, two beef patties, spinach, special sauce, cheese, pickles and onions.

The burger wasn’t too bad, however, the bun deteriorated quickly and was very messy. The fries were very good though, hot, crunchy on the outside and soft inside, go there for these and have a burger too!

[anotherhungryboy]

Kustom Burgers, Thornbury

Kustom Burgers is a reasonably new burger place that you’ll find at the Preston-end of High Street in Thornbury, Victoria.

Kustom Burgers has motor vehicle theme with the burgers named after famous Australian cars such as the F150, F250, FJ Holden Aussie Burger a couple of examples.

I ordered the EH Smashed Burger which has two grass fed beef patties smashed flat, two slices of American cheese, two slices of bacon, lettuce, onion with a house-made special sauce on a brioche bun.

You can order some of the best fries you’ll eat to go with your burger, these incredible beer-battered fries are outstanding, hot and extremely crunchy they were hard to stop eating.

This is the take out bag you’ll get if you order to-go, and you should go, go to Custom Burgers as soon as you can.

[anotherhungryboy]

Rangers Valley Black Angus

I paid a visit to Vic’s Meats and picked up a 7.5kg, 270 day grain fed, Rangers Valley Black Angus brisket with a marble score of 3+ for a family celebration;

I was planning on doing this brisket Texas-style, so I made a rub with salt, pepper, garlic and paprika and then prior to starting the cook I injected the brisket with beef stock;

I set my Weber Smokey Mountain to a cook at a temperature of 250°f and threw a few chunks of hickory wood on the charcoal for smoke. Two hours into the cook things were looking good;

I spritzed the brisket every hour, here’s how it was looking after five hours;

About six hours into the cook the bark was looking good and the internal temperature had reached 160°f so I put the brisket into a cooking pan with some beef stock. 

After a total of 12 hours the brisket’s internal temperature had reached 202°f so I took it off for a bit of a rest before serving.

I cut a couple of slices off the end and I was happy with the smoke ring and texture;

I gave one of the slices the ‘brisket bend test’ which it passed with flying colours.

[anotherhungryboy]

Pork Ribs

I made some pork and beef ribs recently. The pork ribs seen in this post were seasoned with Butcher BBQ’s Honey Rub before being smoked with apple wood. 

I glazed the ribs towards the end of the cook and with a combination of honey and maple syrup to get this wonderful glaze.  

[anotherhungryboy]

Bacon-topped, Bacon Mac ‘n’ Cheese stuffed, BBQ Meatloaf

Bacon-topped, bacon Mac and cheese stuffed meatloaf served with mashed potatoes, broccoli and bacon lardons sauteed in bacon fat with a slice of sour dough bread.

First steps in this process is to make the mac ‘n’ cheese then let it cool. Cover the bottom of the cooking vessel with half the meatloaf mixture, add the cooled mac ‘n’ cheese then put the rest of the meat.oaf mixture over the top.

Cover the top of the meatloaf with bacon, I’m using some home made bacon in this recipe.

WHen the bacon roof has been completed, sprinkle your favourite rub over the top for some additional flavour.

I used Big Poppa Smokers ‘Money’ rub to add some flavour and help create a nice crust of top of the meatloaf.

I put the meatloaf on the smoker at 250°f with some apple wood for smoke and let it cook until it reached an internal temp of 140°f.

While the meatloaf was cooking I sauteed some bacon lardons and broccoli florets - apparently you’ve got to have some green stuff on the plate.

When the meatloaf was cooked, I took it off the smoker let it cool for about ten minutes before removing from the cooking vessel.

The money shot! This was delicious and went down a treat especially with the kids in the house.

Let’s eat!

[anotherhungryboy]

Beef Ribs

I picked up some beef ribs from my local butcher, cur the slab in half and rubbed one side with salt, pepper and garlic and the other half with Blues Hog rub.

I pulled the ribs off after almost five hours on the smoker and let them rest for half an hour before cutting them into individual bones.

Very happy with the results of both slabs, they were nice and tender on the inside with a crunchy bark on the exterior.

[anotherhungryboy]

Black Rice roll

I was waiting for my plane to leave and was wandering the departure lounge of Sydney Airport and came across Hero Sushi selling black sushi rolls. Never having seen one before I was intrigued and had to try one.

I chose the tuna and avocado roll from the numerous variety available, it came with a minute bottle of soy and a small packet of wasabi, which i can’t stand so it never got opened!

The only difference between a white rice sushi roll and a black rice sushi roll is colour. The texture and taste of the black rice were much the same as any sushi roll i’d had before.

[anotherhungryboy]

Krispy Kreme And Coffee

Krispy Kreme produced a great Easter donut this year. A glittering blue egg with green and pink decorations.

There was pink and blue iced donuts available, pink or girls and blue for boys, I suppose.

The donut was filled with vanilla cream and a egg-yolk-coloured cream, sort of like the Cadbury Cream Egg.

Hope you had a great Easter!

[anotherhungryboy]

Bacon

A couple of gratuitous shots of some bacon that I fried to make some BLTs (Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwiches).