Sunday Burgers at The Burger Joint

Sunday was on the whole pretty sunny, for once. We decided meat was definitely on the cards for lunch, so we meandered around the Triangle and up to Whiteladies til we reached The Burger Joint on Cotham Hill. We have been here on a number of occasions but not since we started the blog.

Always given a superbly warm welcome in The Burger Joint by the ever present and very bubbly waitress, whom has been working there each time we've gone in and always remembers us. She makes it feel like popping out to a friend's for a spot of lunch rather than being at just a restaurant, cannot express how uber she is.

The soft drinks come with free refills and I can tell you from past experience the banoffee milkshake that uber waitress(TM) said she'd experimented in creating herself is definitely worth sampling, although it is not on the menu. Their other milkshakes are awesome as well but tough to get through if you also have a full sized burger, though thankfully they are not as thick and massive as the Rocatillo's milkshake monsters. Seeing as elderflower is my current flavour of the month I went for the elderflower and mint presse, you won't get anything more refreshing on a hot day, fact.

This time I decide to go for something a little different and chose the pork, sage and apple burger whilst Rich went for his usual peri chicken burger but with some different toppings. The great thing about The Burger Joint is that you can have 3 toppings for the bargain price of £1.80 so you can load your burger up with whatever crazy combinations you want.  I went for brie, sliced chorizo and onion rings with mine and Rich went for swiss cheese, peppers and jalapeños.

Pork, sage and apple burger

Pork, sage and apple burger with fries

The pork burger was absolutely delicious, it was moist, they don't stint on the toppings either. There was a nice couple of hunks of brie melted inside. The onion rings I took out and ate separately, probably the best onion rings I've ever sampled they were light, crispy and well flavoured. They buy all their meat from Ruby and White and you can really taste the high quality even in minced pork, it was so meaty and full of flavour. What is also good about their burgers is that they use sourdough buns which feel very light but really hold together better than any bun I've had so far. Despite the hugeness and juicy nature of these burgers the buns did not disintegrate even towards the end.

Generally I prefer a thicker chip rather than fries however with the size of the burgers it is wise to opt for fries because the chips are so chunky they become pretty filling fairly quickly. Although the pork burger was amazing I prefer their standard beef burgers but I was definitely glad I tried something different.

Peri Chicken Burger

Peri Burger Close up

Rich declared his peri burger to be delicious and the chilli's nice and piquant to compliment the chicken and cheese. I can't name a better burger in the city especially one you can get with 3 toppings, 1 side included and two dips for under £10 and with a good soundtrack to eat to, always good music in here. We were definitely two stuffed and happy customers. The plates speak for themselves...

Looking forward to seeing The Burger Joint when it moves to it's new Whiteladies location in about a month, though will miss the very light and airy venue quite a bit. But these guys deserve every success. Go Burgers! For more info and a peak at the menu check out their website

Barbecue Weekend Bonanza with the Social Smokers

The final countdown to Grillstock has begun so Joe from the Bristol barbecue team Social Smokers UK gives us the low down on his barbecue extravaganza weekend.

The sun is shining, the weather is rejoice, make you want to drink beer smoke some meat… well something like that.

Yes the weekend of the 25^th May will go down in history as the British summer of 2012.  I can’t see us having another weekend like that, it was seriously hot.  And we, the Social Smokers, were in our element.  Matt, Jon and I spent the whole weekend in the garden, cooking. 

This weekend we were practising for the chicken and beef brisket rounds of the King Of The Grill competition at Grillstock.

Saturday

First up, a sweet BBQ chicken with a citrus kick! We applied a rub of smoked paprika, salt, lemon zest, garlic granules and black pepper.  The oils in the lemon zest really lift this rub.  With the rub applied they were placed in a tray and put in the smoker at around 350F for an hour and a half. 

Barbecue Chicken

When crispy and almost done they were dunked in a lemon and mustard BBQ sauce.  The dunking sauce was made with; 

Onion, 

Garlic, 

Olive Oil, 

Ketchup, 

Sprite, (yes you read that correctly

Lemon Juice, 

Light brown sugar and Wholegrain Mustard.  

The chicken was placed back in the smoker for another 30 minutes, this time straight on the grill grates.  The results were very good.  The meat was juicy and the flavour was sweet and fruity.  The skin could have been crispier but that will come with practice.

Barbecue Chicken Mid Barbecue

Barbecued Chicken Ready to Serve

We had a few drumsticks left over so we decided to make the notorious ‘Death Legs’.  A super-hot Chilli chicken using some of the world’s hottest chillies.  They did not disappoint, the Trinidad scorpion Moruga chilli gave an instant heat whilst the 7 pot chilli had an intense long burn.

Prepped 'Death Legs'

'Death Legs' Ready to Serve (if you dare try them)

Sunday

Roast beef is a traditional Sunday staple in Britain.  We however decided to cook our beef Texan style. Beef brisket is a tough cut that requires a lot of cooking.  We smoked the beef at around 220f for 8 hours.  The rub was a basic BBQ rub of onion and garlic powder, paprika, cumin and oregano, sugar, salt and pepper.  We smoked it with oak chucks that were soaked in water to stop them from burning too quickly and basted it every hour for the first 4 hours. 

Brisket with Texan Style Rub

The mop sauce was made using sugar, vinegar, chilli flakes and dark beer or ale.  After 4 hours the Brisket was wrapped foil and cooked for a further 4 hours. We served the brisket with rolls, coleslaw and BBQ beans. 

Cooked Brisket Complete with Smoke Ring

Carved Brisket

For me brisket is the number one BBQ food.  If you have a kettle barbecue I urge you to try cooking it.  Buy an unrolled brisket with a good amount of fat on the top as this will baste the meat during the cooking process.  Use a decent coal, bricket or lumpwood, not a cheap coal as it will have chemical binders in it which will ruin the flavour of the meat and all your hard work.  I found this out recently when I cooked a lamb shoulder using a budget charcoal from B&Q.  Everything tasted of petrol.  Barbecue Fail!

You can buy a good coal and a wide selection of wood for smoking at hotsmoked.co.uk.

Thanks for the update Joe it looks amazing. Want to follow the progress of this Bristol barbecue team check out their facebook page 

Chorizo Baked in Wine

After a mini discussion on Twitter with various foodies I reveal the recipe I made for my chorizo baked in wine tapas dish. This will be a relatively short post being that the recipe is, although not a long one, a very delicious one!

You can use either chorizo ring or whole mini chorizos, this time round I used both as they take on the flavour in different ways. So if you de-skin and chop the chorizo ring into chunks no smaller than 2cm, I find that smaller pieces tend to dry out in the baking process otherwise. You will also need a ceramic or Pyrex baking dish rather than a metal one.

After chopping the chorizo add between half to three quarters of a bottle of Spanish red, enough to almost cover the chorizo. I then add 2-3 cloves of garlic chopped into strips and scatter around the dish. Add a couple of shakes of paprika and thyme and you are good to go. It should look a bit like this:

Chorizo Baked in Wine

Bake it for about 40-50mins on 180-190 with fan or you can go lower for longer if you fancy, for a more intense flavour, I have baked it for up to 2 hours before. When it comes out it should have dropped about half the liquid level and the chorizo should be much darker, see the photo below the chorizo dish, right.

The Final Product (surrounded by other tapas dishes and empty plates)

Admittedly this isn't the best final photo, We all dug in quite enthusiastically before I got a chance to take a picture. Your guests will not be disappointed serve with crusty bread to mop up all the meaty wine juices and you will be in tapas heaven. Let me know how you get on with this recipe if you give it a go. Later in the week we shall have a report from Joe from the Social Smokers barbecue team giving us an update of his very meaty weekend. Plus the upcoming report of my lunch visit at Hotel du Vin with Bristol Bites.

Pulled Pork Cooked with a Heavy Head

Another entry from our barbecue enthusiast Joe. Last weekend he tacked pulled pork, here are his results:

As the competition creeps ever closer we find ourselves BBQing nearly every weekend.  Now it’s just something we do, like you would have a roast on a Sunday. Saturday morning we find ourselves firing up the coal for starters.  It’s also a time to make mistakes so when it comes to competition day we at least know what not to do. 

Last weekend (24^th March) was a scorcher, everyone was dusting off their rusty BBQs for the first grilling session of the year.  We however, were on our 6th or 7^th BBQ and I got up before everyone else to get it started.  5:30am to be exact and I had a stinking hangover which makes everything a little more difficult. This week it was all about pulled pork.  A favourite in taste but it’s a lengthy cooking process.  

The pork hand (the shoulder also known as the Boston Butt in America) was cooked at 220f for 12 hours. The night before I placed the pork in a brine to add moisture and flavour and I added some spices to the mix.  So in the morning I drained off the shoulder and applied the rub which was made up of typical Amercian BBQ flavours. These measurements are just a guide:

• 1tsp onion powder
• 1tsp garlic powder
• 4tsp paprika
• 1/2tsp ground cumin
• 3tps molasses
• 1tsp tomato powder
• 1tsp salt
• 1tsp pepper

I covered the Pork in American mustard to act like a glue for the rub which was then rubbed in. It was then cooked using indirect heat.  Basically meaning the coals sit on one side of the smoker and a drip tray at the bottom on the other end below the pork so the meat cooks as it would in an oven.  This is achievable with your average kettle BBQ.  We also added small amounts of soaked apple wood throughout the cooking process the lightly smoke it.

The pork turned out well, we gently pulled it apart with forks and tossed it through a BBQ sauce made with left over BBQ rub, ketchup, American mustard and soy sauce. This was cooked down with sliced onion and garlic.We served the pork in buns with homemade coleslaw on the side. Lovely!

The Completed Pulled Pork

     Thanks Joe it looks amazing, I am definitely coming round next time you barbecue. Next week there should be posts on our visit to No. 4 in Clifton Village and Harvey's Wine Cellars plus I shall be gathering info and photos on food and bars to visit in Islington when we visit there on the Easter weekend.

Mouth Watering Short Ribs

A second post from resident barbecue enthusiast Joe about what he got up to last weekend...

At the moment BBQing for me is about experimenting with cuts of meat I've never cooked with before. Last weekend a visited my favourite butcher, Ruby and White's on Whiteladies Road, to pick up a rack of beef short rib.  I was pleasantly surprised with how much meat was on the bone. The cooking, I decided, was going to be similar to a brisket as it was a lean tough cut that would need a lot of cooking.

I marinated the short ribs for 18 hours in a dry rub of onion, garlic, tomato, cumin, corriander and paprika powders plus a bit of ground chipotle chilli for some smokey heat.

So the next day I got up bright and early to get the smoker fired up.  I filled two chimneys with lumpwood charcoal, fired them up and poured the rest of the coal on one half of the smoker. The idea being that you cook the beef with indirect heat.  That way it won't burn so easily.  On the other half of the smoker next to the coals and directly under the ribs I had a tray filled with hot water to keep the outside of the beef from drying out.

As well the coal I added small amounts of oak throughout the cooking process to add that smokey flavour.  Smoking can be easily over done and over smoked food can taste bitter. Thankfully this wasn't the case. The ribs were cooked for 7 hours at 220f. In hindsight 6 hours would have been enough they were then left to rest for an hour.

Now I know what you're thinking, " he's burnt it!" but the fat 'fat cap' does go that colour due to the dry rub. I could have used less dry rub to be honest, I think I got a bit carried away. The meat itself was as juicy and as tender as they come.

And the left overs made a good chilli con carne. I even have some more left over a Naga curry! Real man food I think you'll agree ;-)

Mmm thanks Joe the photos are making me drool at my desk, not a pretty look. A great second post for the week, a review of tapas at The Old Bookshop in Bedminster and a report on steak with peppercorn sauce to look forward to later in the week.