Pork Kebab 2 With Proper Skewers

Same cooking as in "Pork Kebab on Big Green Egg" but using proper skewers which I finally have got from Amazon.

Same cooking as in "Pork Kebab on Big Green Egg" but using proper skewers which I finally have got from Amazon.




As expected the skewers were a little bit shorter than necessary for a medium size BGE

so I straightened out the handles.


The skewers came blunt and sharpening was required.


Cooking itself and the result were absolutely great.



A perfect Sunday evening.


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Pork Kebab on Big Green Egg

Big Green Egg is not a kebab kind oven, but if you like meat on skewers why not. Pork is very easy to deal with in this case.

Big Green Egg is not a kebab kind oven, but if you like meat on skewers why not. Pork is very easy to deal with in this case.

Cooking is straight forward. For this time I've got 4 pounds of boneless pork rib ends:

Wash it and cut into 2 inch cubes:

Peel a couple of onions and slice them:

Put cut meat into a pot or a bowl layer by layer interleaving with onion rings. Pour a marinade of your choice into the pot. Sometimes I use 1% vinegar solution, some other times nothing but seasoning. I heard that some people like to use a table wine or even a beer - one day I'll try that. For this time I've chosen a "garlic and herb" marinade from a shop. Stir up the meat gently to let marinade spread over the whole volume. Put the pot in a cold place for at least 30 minutes. Soak smoke chips.

Clean BGE, put fresh charcoal, start the fire. Kebab needs high temperature and fire under whole cooking area:

While BGE temperature is climbing up, thread cubes of meat interleaved by onion rings on skewers. From my experience meat pieces should be pressed tight one to another on a skewer, in this case it will be cooked well and stay juicy.

When temperature has reached 600F

drop smoke chips on the periphery of the burning charcoal, then place some skewers on the cooking grid or if skewers are long enough on the edges of the oven.

close the BGE cap and cook for 2 minutes or so, just to let one side of the meat catch the color, then rotate the skewers and repeat until all sides look good:

In my case I wanted it cooked to "well done" grade, so it needed some extra cooking time. In order to avoid over-frying I lifted skewers upper, away from burning fire,

and finished the cooking.

Served!

I have to say that this particular cooking was a little bit spontaneous and I used random skewers which I could quickly find around. The skewers had too narrow blades and that made difficult to rotate skewers along with meat. Meat simply did not follow rotation of the skewer keeping its center of gravity down. To avoid that some people use double skewers. I still prefer one blade variant and to make it working proper skewers should have blade width of about half an inch and an in-pressed groove or metal bending along the blade to increase rigidity of the skewer. I'm planning to get skewers like that for the future.

PS. Finally I've got appropriate skewers - check out "Pork Kebab 2 With Proper Skewers"


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Big Green Egg BBQ Rib Eye Steak - For a Few Dollars More

Rib eye is the king of all steaks - great taste and great look, cooking is easy and not very different from, for example, the pork steaks, but result is a true poetry.
Rib eye is the king of all steaks - great taste and great look, cooking is easy and not very different from, for example, the pork steaks, but result is a true poetry.

1. From what I heard: when you come to a store the best rib eye pieces have been already taken by restaurants and what you can choose from is just remains - but that can be a conspiracy rumor :) This time I've got reasonably good looking chunks.
   
   


2. Wash the chunks gently in cold water, salt and season them.
3. For cooking rib eye steaks the temperature should be high, so clean up the BGE from ash and small pieces of charcoal which can block air flow to pass through and load it with middle and big size charcoal pieces. Start fire in the center of Big Green Egg.
   
   
   
4. Let temperature reach 600F
   
   
5. Then drop some smoke chips on the charcoal if you like and put rib eye chunks in the center of the grid right over the hottest area.
   
   
6. Let the meat get nice grid marks on the bottom side and then flip the pieces to another side.
   
   
7. Repeat the step #6 two more times. For the last time place the chunks at periphery of the grid (away from the hottest area) - that will finalize the cooking. I prefer to have a reliable reference for internal meat temperature - cooking thermometer does the job for me.
   
   
   
8. Close the BGE top cover and wait when the temperature inside the meat get reached a desired value. Cooking thermometers usually have settings for the corresponding tastes, mine has presets for beef as
   

   Rare      140F
   M. Rare   145F
   Medium    160F
   Well Done 170F

   I prefer medium.
   
   
   
9. Just great!

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Big Green Egg BBQ Pork Steak - The Quick аnd The Easy

Pork steak is not the top kind of a steak dish, but still is pretty delicious, quick and easy to cook.
Pork steak is not the top kind of a steak dish, but still is pretty delicious, quick and easy to cook.

1. Salt and season the pork chops. If you like, marinade the pork in 1% vinegar solution (roughly 1 part of 5% table vinegar + 4 parts of water) interlaced with onion rounds, or any other marinade of your preference, but it is not really necessary.
   



2. For this dish high cooking temperature is required. For the best result first it is necessary to clean up BGE from ash and small pieces of charcoal which could block free air flow through the area of burning, load only relatively big pieces of charcoal, then start Big Green Egg.
   



3. Keep bottom vent about 3" open and top one half open to support strong burning. Let temperature reach up to about 600F.
   



4. If desired, smoke chips soaked in water in advance can be thrown right over charcoal. This addition can drop temperature significantly down, so be careful not to over cool the BGE, add small quantity of the chips, let temperature get back to the high level again... or just don't add the chips. Adjust air vents to the position of stable temperature (low vent with 2" opening, top one with big circular cover closed and small holes all open). Put pork chunks on the BBQ grid and close the BGE cover. I have the medium size BGE, and there is not enough room for all 8 pork steaks I had that time, so I divided them into two batch of 4 steaks each.
   
   
5. Depending on temperature it can take just a few minutes to have the pork done, so do not leave the BGE unattended. You can use a thermometer for better control how the cooking is going on, or simply check the meat every 1-2 minutes. When one side is roasted, flip steaks on the other side. I like steaks well done, so when there is no blood leak from a small cut, I take them out on a plate.
   

Here is the first batch of steaks - and that was The Quick.


6. Load the second batch and repeat the step 5 - that will be The Easy.
   
   
7. Enjoy!
   

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Big Green Egg BBQ Ribs - the path to success

After some experimenting with parameters we have found what works for us with the ribs.

After some experimenting with parameters we have found what works for us with the ribs.

1. Rinse the ribs in cool water, remove any bone bits and membrane from the back side.


2. Soak smoke chips (Mesquite works for us), start the Big Green Egg.


3. After temperature in the BGE has reached > 400F deg,


put smoke chips into a smoker box or just wrap them with aluminum foil and punch some holes in the foil.


Place the smoker pack right on the charcoal, install the BBQ grid and place ribs in rack on it.


This is the roasting stage, the goal is to let the ribs get a crust of a beautiful color. As soon as you like the color - the stage is complete. At 400F deg it took about 45 minutes, at higher temperature it can be much faster - keep an eye on it.


4. Spread your favorite BBQ sauce over each chunk of ribs and wrap with a piece of cooking foil.


Install ceramic "plate setter" to cut off direct heat from the charcoal, put BBQ grid over and place wrapped ribs in the rack on the grid.


Set temperature to 250F (240F...270F is fine) and leave it for 4 hours...


After that it's done!


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