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Welcome to French Food
Focus. The name describes the intent of this blog. I'll focus on food
and because I live in rural I hope you enjoy my ramblings about rural France!
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This is our village. Our house is the white one at the top right. |
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BBQ'd Dinner
Despite the business I did find the time to do a complete meal on the BBQ last night. This is always a bit of a challenge as its hard to come up with a really good vegetable combination that BBQ's well. I didn't quite succeed as our starter was not done on the BBQ.
Sorry for the very poor picture, but its a salad using beefsteak tomatoes, fresh basil from our garden, chevre and a creamy vinaigrette. Simple & nice to get the taste buds activated.
Meanwhile the ribs were getting prepared. I had been lucky enough to buy a whole belly pork (potrine in French). These are the ribs from it.
Here's the slab then the slab cut into manageable portions for Linda & I. Next the ribs get a good coating of my dry rub. (recipe below)
The ribs then get put onto a pan with a wire rack and put into a low (140 C) oven to bake for about 20-30 minutes. Next I prepped the vegetables. Eggplant (aubergine to you Brits), Courgettes (zucchini to you Yanks) and potatoes.
First the potatoes. I sliced them into fairly thin slices without peeling then boiled them for about 5 minutes.
Here they are; cut on the left then boiled and seasoned on the right. The seasoning is just a bit of sea salt & cayenne pepper. Next the eggplant and courgettes.
Both vegetables were lightly rubbed with olive oil so the herbs will stick, but they won't stick to the grill. The eggplant is seasoned with tarragon & salt. The zucchini with garlic granules and Herbs de Province.
Having heated the BBQ to a high heat everything went on. As you can see I use a gas BBQ. its an American one now about 14 years old. I adapted it to the European fittings. Amazingly enough I can still order parts for it from the states. Next came the absolutely crucial ingredient.
The cooks glass of wine! Can't BBQ without it. The rest was just moving things around and turning them to avoid burning. Didn't take too long. Importantly, I brushed on my BBQ sauce as soon as I put the ribs on the BBQ. I let them cook for a few minutes before turning them over and brushing the other side. I repeated this process several times. Here are a few pictures as the cooking progressed.
Here you can see the BBQ sauce on the ribs.
The finished product. Zucchini & Potatoes on the left. Ribs & eggplant on the right. It all tasted delicious and made a great summer meal. As usual I cooked too much, but the leftovers were great the next day. As promised below you will find the recipes for both the dry rub and the BBQ sauce. Neither is particularly unique, but both are good and give a nice flavor without overpowering the taste of the meat. They have the advantage of being easy to make at home. The rub keeps well in a sealed jar and the sauce keeps for a few weeks in the fridge. RUB RECIPE (I have my friend Leo to thank for this one.) T in this recipe can stand for either TEASPOON or TABLESPOON depending upon how much you want to make.
Combine all the ingredients into a sealable container. Sprinkle/ rub over ribs. Cook in oven as described above. BBQ SAUCE RECIPE (don't know where this came from, but its good.)
Mix everything in a food processor until well combined. Brush lightly over ribs as they cook, turning frequently & brushing at each turning.
Give this a try guys, you'll be a hero to you wife & family. Ladies do this one and amaze your husband who thinks the 'girls can't BBQ' !!
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