12.16.2010

Chicken 'n rice

Grilling in the Summer is de rigeur, in the Winter grilling is special!  A few projects culminated in a simple and tasty meal the other night.

A few days ago, I was continuing my foray into all grain brewing.  I have been accumulating a lot of spent malted barley.  Before it got dumped in compost, I grabbed a couple hundred grams to play with.  Yes, as regular reader(s) know, I love the meatball in all its forms.  Combining the coarsely ground thighs (200 g) with the hydrated spent barley (100 g), spices (salt, pepper, oregano, basil) an egg, couple T of milk (chicken, milk and grain - add some pork fat and we couldn't desecrate Kashrut more) and enough bread crumbs to keep it together, I formed them into patties and grilled them.  I used a hot direct flame for a few minutes per side per patty.

These little grilled patties were very nice and even better as a leftover. I served them with a simple pilaf, asparagus and a dipping sauce of labne, water, lemon juice, crushed garlic (trace), honey and salt.

4 comments:

Rachel (Hounds in the Kitchen) said...

I assume you've dried spent grains for bread making already? A quarter cup or so per large loaf batch adds a nice texture.

Spent grain is also shared with the chickens in our house.

12/16/2010 11:29 PM
Dave said...

Still kind of new to using all grain in beer, so no, never tried them in bread (maybe once long ago).

They rot really quickly too, so I never got a chance to dry them. For this, I scooped some of the top of the grainbed and tossed 'em in the fridge. I'll try to dry them next time. Thanks for the suggestion! (Maybe we'll have to get some chickens for Scoopy to play with as well.)

12/17/2010 6:26 AM
Mike said...

I really like the idea of cooking with spent grain. So far, we've only gone as far as partial mash, but that still gives us some grain to try playing with.

12/17/2010 11:39 AM
Dave said...

Hey Mike. Even partial mash'll give you enough for MANY recipes. Must say, all grain's been challenging. I got a couple batches maturing into something I think may be pretty good, but I may go back to partial mash. Getting the base malt out of grain or from extract doesn't seem virtuous enough.

Next time, I think I'll save the spent grain in the freezer, I let mine sit around and it STUNK after only a day.

12/17/2010 9:24 PM

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