grilling Archives - A Byte of Life

Elote: Spanish Style Grilled Corn Dip

What do you get when you mix sunshine, grilled amazing food, a nice cold beer or chilled wine and a rooftop? A VERY happy lady! Grilling is one of my favorite ways to cook food. Growing up in California, my family is accustomed to grilling in any type of weather. Neither wind nor rain nor inches of snow can keep us from firing up the grill!

One of my favorite things to grill is corn on the cob. But, there are so many other great ways to enjoy corn! For example, Elote! We first experienced Elote on our trip to Sedona this past spring. The winter in Seattle was starting to chill the bones a bit too much so off to warm up with sun and family! Elote is the namesake dish of a wonderful Spanish restaurant and it is a dip which is made of fire roasted corn and spicy mayo and is traditionally garnished with lime and Cotija cheese.

We took home the Elote restaurant cookbook as a birthday present, which included the restaurant’s recipe (posted here), and couldn’t wait to get home and make it ourselves. As you may know, I view recipes a general taste and texture guidelines. I love to tinker with recipes and personalize them. The dish at the restaurant had a very creamy consistency and was heavy on the mayo. I don’t like the super creamy aspect and neither of us really like mayo so we tinkered around and came up with the recipe below. Just took it to a birthday BBQ and it was a hit!

We grill our corn to make the Elote which gives it a wonderful charred flavor but you can also use canned corn and pan roast it for a few minutes until it starts to brown. I bet you could also bake it up in the oven…I’ll give that a try once fresh corn is out of season and see how that works out.

To test, we started with one ear of corn to play with the flavors and personalize then for the bbq we grilled up 6 ears of corn and it was a great amount for a side dish. The recipe below is for one ear of corn so you can multiply as needed for how many servings you desire.

Sommer Style Elote
Serves 1-2

1/2 tsp chicken stock + 2 cups water
1 small packet mayo
1 tbsp. Cholula hot sauce
1/2 lime, juiced
Salt & Cracked pepper
¼ c fresh chopped cilantro
dashes of: fresh cracked salt and pepper, cayenne, paprika, garlic
1 ear char grilled corn
Sliced Emmental cheese (the original recipe calls for cotija but we aren’t really fond of it)

For the Corn
Soak the corn for 20 minutes in salt water to brine. Then, cook the corn in aluminum foil in the oven to cook at 400degrees for 20 minutes then finish on the grill. Set the corn aside to cool, then cut the kernels off the cobs.

Making the Elote
Mix the chicken stock, mayo, hot sauce, lime juice, salt and pepper, sugar and chicken stock in a sauté pan over medium heat. Once that’s all mixed up, add the corn kernels and stir until the corn is warmed and the water boils off. Add the sliced cheese and mix until melted then mix in the chopped cilantro and keep on the heat for a minute or two longer. Garnish with fresh cilantro and a dash of chile and serve with tortilla chips. We found that the red or blue tortilla chips were quite delicious and looked so festive! Food should always be fun!

Grilled Bratwurst…Summer’s on it’s way

“The big yellow one’s the sun!” (From stand-up comedian Brian Regan…if you haven’t heard him he’s HYSTERICAL! Check him out here)

That big blinding thing in the Seattle sky.. what IS it!? This past weekend in Seattle was gorgeous and dare I say it…it’s getting to be “that” time of year. You know which one I’m talking about…the birds chirping while the sun comes up at 5am, blinding white legs are peeking out from shorts, sunglasses sales shoot through the roof because no one knows where they placed any of the 5 pairs they used last time it was sunny in Seattle. Baseball is in season and it just seems downright American to drink beer and grill on the roof! After last years extended snowpocalypse, all of Seattle seems MORE than ready to get out and enjoy a little much awaited and MUCH deserved sunshine!

What better way to enjoy than to channel our German roots and grill up some Bratwurst! We’re spoiled to have the most delicious Uli’s Famous Sausages right down the street in Pike Place Market and Macrina Bakery two blocks away for amazing fresh Potato Rolls but I’m sure you can find your local version of each and make an equally tasty meal! Not to mention, with a few short minutes drive we can grab a fresh keg of Georgetown Manny’s Pale Ale.

This is the perfect weekend meal! It’s so easy to prep and forget while you go about your weekend chores! Then when you’re hungry you can fire up the grill and have an amazing and rewarding meal! We LOVED this meal so much we made enough for four and had leftovers the next night! Added bonus: the whole house smelled of incredible German brats and beer all afternoon while we cleaned! Talk about motivation!

Grilled Bratwurst

2 40oz cans of Miller Light
1 large onion, chopped
4 Uli’s German Bratwurst
4 Potato rolls from Macrina Bakery
1 package Sauerkraut (I use the German imported style sold at Uli’s, it’s authentic and already prepared!)
4 ear of corn, husked
Ketchup/Mustard to taste
1 keg of Georgetown Manny’s Pale Ale (okay… I guess you can use whatever you’d like but if you’re Seattle local, this is the PERFECT beer with this meal!)

To marinate

Chop onion and place in large pot on the stove
Add both 40’s of Miller Light and add the delicious brat’s
Marinate on low for 4 hours
Husk the corn and set aside

1.5 – 2 hours before you want to eat

Soak the corn for a half hour then place each ear in foil. You can place whatever seasonings you like. I simply do salt and pepper but some like butter or oil and that actually helps it char up on the grill much more evenly and swifter. Bake individual corn foils in a pre-heated oven for 20-30 minutes then transfer and grill directly on the pre-heated grill. Corn takes a while so start this a good 15 minutes before you want to finish the dogs on the grill.
Remove the dogs from pot and place in foil to grill.
Set aside to onions to pan cook or you can also wrap them in foil and do this on the grill itself if you’d prefer to not use a stove.
Miller Light

Wrap the Sauerkraut in foil and grill (or you can pan fry them but this stinks up the house a bit so I usually just warm them in foil on the grill).
At this point you should have oven cooked corn still in the foil, foiled sauerkraut, foiled brats, and be ready to either pan fry the onions or foil those bad boys
Heat up your grill as hot as it will go and cook the corn for 10 minutes, turning frequently to get an even char. Also put the foiled sauerkraut and onions on the grill to cook up (for these pictures I pan fried it since everyone in our building seemed to be using the grills and I wanted to reserve space).
Once the corn has a good char on all sides, place the brats on the grill and char those puppies up.
Toast your buns, set out your condiments and get ready to enjoy one of the most incredible meals you’ll ever set taste buds on!

Enjoy your delicious and easy meal!!!

Another amazing part of this meal… if you’re cooking for two.. this gives you leftovers to enjoy the next night like we did!!!

Grilled Cabbage Slaw

In our house there are two forms of “to do lists”, there’s a “his” and a “hers”. “His” consist of various house chores and interior renovation tasks such as sanding, painting, scrubbing grout, fixing and rearranging various wires and boxes and electrical “this and that’s”. Tasks on that list are actually being completed while I curl up in the corner, typing away on the dining room table which is against the living room wall with boxes to the right of me, boxes to the left of me, boxes in front of me… ten points and a big golds star to any of you that know that Little Rascals quote. We’re in the middle of redecorating the little perch and I’m actually quite thankful to report that I have a very dashing handyman that LOVES this type of work. Or, at least enjoys it more than I do! He’s been slaving away and I’ll post before and after pictures once we have the new carpet in.

Let me proceed to the “her” version of the to do list: banana bread, morning muffins (which I made this weekend and posted here), blueberry muffins with crumbles on top, stir fry, fajita’s… this is just a sample of the meals that are on my list. And I must say, to quote the great Ron Burgundy, “I’m not even mad.” Settling up my part of the redecoration manual labor with some good homemade meals is quite fine with me! After brand new paint in the bedroom and a gorgeous new living room painted the perfect shade of meringue yellow which at the moment is shining brightly in the rare spring Seattle sunshine, my handyman deserved a good hearty meal. I decided to follow the coupon clipping and headed to Metropolitan Market to get some steak for our fajita’s. Up to the counter I bounded, with WAY more than I went in for and happily presented my coupon with a sense of great accomplishment at a few dollars well saved, only to realize that I apparently can’t read dates and the coupon wasn’t good for another 3 days! We already had our hearts set on steak fajita’s so I put back the second of the “buy-one-get-one-free” coupon that was no more, and juggled my groceries to the car.

As all wonderful recipes transpire, parts of this meal are NOT what I originally intended and I have to say that they actually turned out much better! I meant to marinate the meat, and didn’t, yet it was more perfect that I could hope! About an hour before I was going to prep the meal I was still trying to think of a recipe enhancement. While taking a mental inventory of the fridge I stopped on the middle right shelf where 1 1/2 heads of green cabbage still lived as remnant from the post St. Patty’s Day sale at the market. SLAW! I’d never in my life made slaw and wasn’t even sure if it would go with steak fajita’s but it was going to be made and tested to world, watch out! I have to say, the slaw turned out INCREDIBLE! So incredible, in fact, that I make a brand new batch when we enjoyed our next day leftovers. The key to this slaw is fresh ingredients, an entire Anaheim pepper for kick, fresh lime juice and the Creme de la Creme finishing touch is that I pan grilled it! That deep charred taste completed the entire meal. I’ll never again eat another raw slaw… to the grill with that side!

Grilled Southwest Cabbage “Slaw”

3 c. cabbage, chopped
1 ear corn, uncooked
1 medium Anaheim pepper, sliced and diced very thin with seeds
1 good handful cilantro, rinsed and chopped
1/2 Lime, juiced
1 spoon full minced garlic and juice
Cracked Salt & Pepper to taste
Cayenne Pepper to taste

In a large bowl, mixing all ingredients and set aside uncovered, to let the flavors mix (you can set this aside for however long you’d like which makes this a great prep ahead of time part of a meal, but let it set at least 20 minutes
Heat a non-stick pan over high heat and grill the cabbage until it’s charred, turning every few minutes (approx. 10 minutes)

Grilled Cabbage Slaw Salad with Seared Flank Steak and Galaxy Rice Cheese

Seared Steak Fajitas with Grilled Cabbage Slaw and Avocado