Ultimate Guinness Experience

On our last day in Ireland, we returned to Dublin where our trip began.  As part of the last day's activities we toured the Guinness Storehouse.  All in all it is a pretty cool tour and very informational, being a packaging engineer, the info about early barrel making was the most intriguing.

The Perfect Pint!

 Don't be lured into using your free pint coupon any of the other tasting bars on the way the top, not worth it unless you are afraid of heights!

One of the many great views from Gravity bar

But the free pint and the views you can get at the top of the Gravity Bar are worth the tour.  The Gravity Bar is a 360 degree fully round bar lined with glass windows that gives amazing views of Dublin and the surrounding areas, plus you can sample the finest and freshest pint of Guinness you'll ever taste!
Cheers & Merry Christmas!

Perfect Turkey Every Time

I cooked a turkey for the family this year at Easter (we are not a big ham family), it came out golden brown and juicy, with lots of flavor. Several family members reactions were, WOW, as in, I didn't think turkeys could be this juicy and flavorful, as in, the other 80 turkeys I have at at family events have been dry and forgetful.

My first turkey was probably only 3 or 4 years ago, before I cooked my turkey, I did a little research on the internet and remembered an episode of Alton Brown's show Good Eats from The Food Network. Alton puts a good bit of science behind his cooking and his strategy nails a perfect turkey every time. In summary, low & slow is not the ticket & ignore that plastic button that comes with your turkey. I have yet to try his brine, as my turkeys have been great with out it thus far.

Click here to see Alton's video. If not a visual person, see recipe below.

Ingredients

• 1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey

For the brine:

• 1 cup kosher salt
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1 gallon vegetable stock
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
• 1 1/2 teaspoons allspice berries
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped candied ginger
• 1 gallon heavily iced water

For the aromatics:

• 1 red apple, sliced
• 1/2 onion, sliced
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 cup water
• 4 sprigs rosemary
• 6 leaves sage
• Canola oil

Directions

2 to 3 days before roasting:

Begin thawing the turkey in the refrigerator or in a cooler kept at 38 degrees F.

Combine the vegetable stock, salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, allspice berries, and candied ginger in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally to dissolve solids and bring to a boil. Then remove the brine from the heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate.

Early on the day or the night before you'd like to eat:

Combine the brine, water and ice in the 5-gallon bucket. Place the thawed turkey (with innards removed) breast side down in brine. If necessary, weigh down the bird to ensure it is fully immersed, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area for 8 to 16 hours, turning the bird once half way through brining.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. Remove the bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard the brine.

Place the bird on roasting rack inside a half sheet pan and pat dry with paper towels.

Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and 1 cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Add steeped aromatics to the turkey's cavity along with the rosemary and sage. Tuck the wings underneath the bird and coat the skin liberally with canola oil.

Roast the turkey on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F for 30 minutes. Insert a probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Set the thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees F. A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting. Let the turkey rest, loosely covered with foil or a large mixing bowl for 15 minutes before carving.

So sleep in, use a thermometer and follow the directions, and wow your guests!

Best I Ever Ate - Burgers

This is my first post in a blog I have had in my head for quite some time. For my hobby and my work, I get to travel quite a bit and I am a guy that enjoys good solid food. So I will be logging my experiences of dining out good and bad as much as possible.

So my first blog will be from a trip to Los Angeles back in December and the best Burger I have ever ate! On a work trip, a co-worker and I had some time to kill before catching our flight. So we made a quick detour through Hollywood. After walking around looking for a good lunch spot, we ran across the Grill'em All food truck that I remembered seeing on the Food Network on Great American Food Truck Race.

The burger I had was not on their standard menu, but a daily special, not sure how often they run this burger, but it was truly awesome. Named the WarPig, bun had a good texture and a nice toasting, burger was a perfect juicy medium, the Pork Belly was like bacon on Steroids, Sprouts added good crunch and the Kimchi & Sriracha sauce added the perfect kick!

I got a side of fries, they were very solid, but the Chipotle ketchup was nothing special. My co-worker loved his burger as well, called the Witte (pr. Wit-e)
cream cheese, deep fried bacon, beer/ Sriracha onion, malt vinegar aioli. He also scored on the H-100's, hand made cheddar filled tater tots on steroids.

In the end Godzilla had nothing on this burger and would get again if I had the chance, I actually have day dreams about this burger! This one obviously gets a 5 Burrito Rating!!