It’s Memorial Weekend, and do you know what that means? Time to lounge at the pool and hang out by the BBQ. We’re grilling this entire weekend; the weather is perfectly straddling between warm and hot (when it gets hot we jump in the pool … when it gets warm, we EAT!).

This week, I asked my friend, Steve, to share a grilling tip and recipe. He’s the publisher of Grilling Companion recipe site and developer of the brand new iPad app. Steve is sharing a recipe for a Grilled Whole Chicken with Balsamic Glaze and will show us how to spatchcock a chicken (i.e. flatten that sucker for even cooking!).

 
Grilled Whole Chicken with Balsamic Glaze

I have nothing against a whole chicken. It still cracks me up when I open the lid of the grill and see a bird perched up on a beer can. I just find it easier to handle a flattened chicken on the grill. A flat chicken cooks quicker and more evenly, and has the added benefit of not rolling off the platter on your way to the table (yeah, been there and cleaned up the mess). So today’s recipe is a bonus, with equal parts Chicken Butchering 101 and recipe for a delicious and simple honey balsamic glazed whole chicken. Grab a bird and a cutting board and let’s get started!

 
Ingredients:

1 whole chicken (around 4 – 5 pounds)
1/2 cup honey
6 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Kosher salt
Fresh ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Let’s disassemble a bird. Lay the whole chicken breast side down on your cutting board.

2. Feel around his (or her) back until you feel the backbone running straight down the middle. I haven’t read about any cases of scoliosis in chickens, so it should be straight down the center of the back.

3. Using kitchen shears or a knife, cut down both sides of the backbone. The bones are pretty thin in this area, so you should be able to cut through with little effort.

4. Remove the backbone completely and trim off any excess fat around where the tail used to be.

5. Ok, here’s where it’s a little tricky the first time. Spread the chicken open and locate the white piece of grissel you see here just to the right of my finger? Cut through it with the knife.

6. There is a bone starting under that piece of grissel called the keel bone and it runs down the length of the breasts. If you bend the chicken back a little farther, you’ll start to see the keel bone poke out between the breasts.

7. Work your fingers down each side of the keel bone to loosen and then pull it out. See why they call it a keel bone (boat reference)?

8. Now you can either leave the chicken flat or cut all the way through where the keel bone used to be to form two half chickens. I prefer to work with two halves; they’re easier to move around the grill.

9. Light your grill for a two zone, indirect grilling session. If you are using gas, you’ve got it easy—just light half of your burners to medium high and leave the other half off (preferably the center burners should be off). For you charcoal folks, pile up a chimney full of charcoal on one side of the grill.

10. Combine the honey and balsamic vinegar in a bowl and whisk thoroughly to form our glaze.

11. Generously salt and pepper both sides of your chicken.

12. Once the grill is ready, place the chicken skin side down on the hot side of the grill. Stay close by, the fat from the skin is going to flare up! When it does, just move your chicken off the flame until the flare up goes out.

13. Sear the chicken for 5 – 10 minutes (depending on the temperature of your grill). We are looking to crisp up the skin and create a little char, but not burn the entire skin.

14. Once you are done searing, flip the chicken over skin side up and move the chicken to the cool side of the grill.

15. Using a mop or brush, baste the chicken with the honey balsamic glaze and close the grill’s lid.

16. We want to keep the grill at as close to 350 degrees as possible and only open the lid to baste the chicken. Just like your oven, the grill loses all of the heat each time you open the lid.

17. Continue to baste the chicken with the glaze every 10 minutes or so and keep the lid closed in between basting.

18. Grill the chicken until a thermometer inserted into the deepest part of the breast reads around 160 degrees and the outside skin has darkened.

19. Hit the chicken with a little more glaze and place on a platter to serve.

20. Allow the chicken to rest for about 10 minutes before you carve.

See? Told you this was easy! Sure, you can buy half chickens, but they are little more expensive and you won’t be able to impress your family with your new butchering skills. With a little practice, you’ll disassemble that bird in no time flat. (Get it?)

 
 
Along with that grilled chicken, I’d love to top it with some Fresh Watermelon Salsa from HowSweetEats.

 
 
 
And then we move on to BLT Bites from LanaAnn. How cute are these! I’ll take 4 of them please!

 
 
 
Another summery side perfect for this weekend is Karly’s Corn with Bacon and Green Onions. Because how can you have a celebration without bacon? Love it.

 
 
 
And for dessert, to top it all off, Mangiodasola’s Chocolate Crumb Cheesecake Bars. Truly decadent.

 
 
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Jaden Hair is a food writer, television personality, and food photographer based in Tampa Bay, Florida. Find more of her recipes in her blog, Steamy Kitchen, where you can also read more about Jaden’s new book, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook, and the rave reviews it’s received!

 
My younger son, Nathan, who is 5 years old, absolutely loves oysters. Now honestly, I don’t know if he really enjoyed the taste of oysters or if it was the crowd of adults clapping and congratulating my little tot for being brave enough to down the oyster on his very first try a year ago. Brave little boy, he was, and it had nothing to do with me telling him that it tastes just like potato chips.

Most people have a preference for either raw, fried or grilled oysters. The people who love raw oysters will *sometimes* like them grilled, but the people who like grilled or fried oysters don’t enjoy it raw.

And I’m saying this as if I have such authority on the subject oysters, when in reality, I just merely questioned my neighborhood friends, i.e. 3 people.

My favorite is raw, super chilled, and served with a tangy, light mignonette. There’ll absolutely be no cocktail sauce nor horseradish touching my oysters (which serves to merely mask the oysters’ delicate seawater flavors). Sometimes, just really good sea salt and a squeeze of lemon is all I need.

I love playing with the mignonette … errr … vinaigrette for the oysters. I think technically, a mignonette is made of red wine vinegar and shallots. But I love using an Asian rice vinegar and adding some grated fresh ginger with a pinch of salt and a pinch of sugar.

 
For the perfect oyster “mignonette,” I think a mixture of tangy, salty, and slightly sweet works really well. In the above photo, I used tart green apples (finely minced), white wine vinegar, minced cilantro and minced jalapeno, a touch of salt and a touch of sugar.

But enough about raw oysters, let’s talk about fried! When I fry oysters, I love using Zatarain’s Fish Fry seasoning and using my cast iron pot to fry the oysters.

And grilled? Absolutely divine. I made these grilled oysters a few months ago, right after getting back from FoodBuzz Food Blogger Festival in San Francisco. The first night consisted of a festival of street cart food, and one of the vendors was Hog Island Oyster Company. The shucker must have gone through about 1000 oysters that night, poor thing, and I think I stood by his cart for about two hours straight, eating 100 or so myself.

He gave me a recipe for their famous Hog Island Grilled Oysters, and you’ll find the recipe on Elise’s Simply Recipes blog. And, yes the oysters are sitting on a bed of raw rice, only because I ran out of rock salt! The rice worked beautifully.

 
So I think I’m an anomaly; I love my oysters every which way—raw, fried and grilled—though my favorite is freshly shucked raw oysters that make feel as if I’m standing knee-deep in the crashing waves with my arms wide open and yelling “IIIII—–LOOOOVVVE—-TOOOO—-EAAAAAAT—OY-OY-OYYYYYSTERSSS!!!”

 
How about you? Raw, fried or grilled? (Or NOT?)

 
 
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Jaden Hair is a food writer, television personality, and food photographer based in Tampa Bay, Florida. Find more of her recipes in her blog, Steamy Kitchen, where you can also read more about Jaden’s new book, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook, and the rave reviews it’s received!

 
The moment I decided that this column was going to be dedicated to “my favorite things,” I just couldn’t get that song out of my head!

Yes, that song. You know, crisp apple strudels and even schnitzel with noodles!

Isn’t it a lovely song to have stuck in your head all day?

Originally, I was just going to pick five of my favorite kitchen items. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave any one of these items out, for fear of hurting feelings. Yes, you better believe my rice cooker has feelings. There’s no way I would risk a lifetime of mushy rice as retribution!

These 6 items (I know you think you only see 5, but the beautiful walnut board is the 6th) are things that I am madly, deeply in love with, would never trade anything in the world for and can’t imagine my kitchen without.

 
1. Starting at the top is my sauté pan with a lid. It’s not just any sauté pan—it’s a nonstick pan. Many of my cheffy/kitchen snobby friends make fun of the fact that I like to use nonstick, but the truth is, I use less oil and I spend zero time scrubbing. My sauté pan does triple duty as a frying pan, oven vessel and even as my wok. Its high sides are perfect for a stir fry (and if you’ve ever done a stir fry in a shallow frying pan, you know what I’m talking about). If I could only have 1 pan, this would be it! The one I have is a Scanpan, and while it’s probably one of the most expensive brands out there, I love it because it’s oven safe, PFOA-free and you can use metal utensils with (yes, you really can!).

 
2. Next is my trusty rice cooker. I. cook rice quite often, as it’s incredibly simple and I can set the timer to cook perfect fluffy rice at anytime of the day. Brown rice, Jasmine, risotto, wild, sweet … this baby will cook any type of rice you want, and you don’t need to watch the clock or tend to a simmering pot. If you’re in the market for a rice cooker, it’s best to invest in one that has a timer and a warming function. Also important is the ability to cook brown rice. I love appliances that have a “set it and forget it” function.

 
3. To the left of my rice cooker is my 3rd pair of green tongs. And it’s not because they keep breaking, but rather, anyone who’s laid their grimy little hands on my green tongs wants to take them home. Inevitably, every time I host a cooking party, they go missing. Thank goodness they are inexpensive, otherwise I’d have to strap an alarm on the tongs or chain them to my wrist. There’s no brand mentioned on the green silicone-tipped tongs, but I got them at Sur La Table. In fact, on SLT’s website, they’re just called “Green Locking Tongs” but I think they deserve a sexier name (and, um, also maybe some branding on the tongs themselves so that my friends know where they can buy them instead of swiping mine!).

 
4. The next product is the newest member of the Steamy Kitchen household. It’s a Wusthof Blackwood Ikon 9″ Chef’s Knife that I purchased two months ago. It just feels so good in my hands. Big, manly, strong, smooth. Oh, excuse me, I’m blushing.

 
5. If you’re a lover of hand carved wooden spoons and spatulas, you must visit James Wilson’s site called Spoonmaker. If you live near Seattle, you’re lucky, as his booth is in the Pike Place Market. James handcrafts hardwood utensils and has been doing this for the past 45 years. My spatula is one that I reach for every single day, and not because it’s beautifully hand carved, but the shape and size of it make it extremely versatile. Stir, scoop, smash and flip. Right now, I’m coveting the half-cup spoons carved out of King Apple.

 
6. Last but not least, the wooden board all those things are resting on is custom-made by Eric Childress. I told Eric how big I wanted my board, which wood to use and also edge grain vs. end grain. In my case, I wanted a large 22″x24″ walnut board that was 1″ thick, edge grain. Because I take a lot of photos in my kitchen, and my countertops are kinda ugly, I wanted a board that was big enough for ingredient and process shots. And you’ll be surprised how little it costs: this one was only $60! Eric charges by the square inch. If I would have purchased the same board at retail, I would be paying three times as much. It does take time though; I received mine in about 3 weeks. But it’s gorgeous and fits my counter perfectly. I’m glad I was patient and waited.

 
Okay, that’s it for my favorite 6! Tell me about yours! What are your favorite kitchen items?

 
 
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Jaden Hair is a food writer, television personality, and food photographer based in Tampa Bay, Florida. Find more of her recipes in her blog, Steamy Kitchen, where you can also read more about Jaden’s new book, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook, and the rave reviews it’s received!

 
Restaurant chains like California Pizza Kitchen or Wolfgang Puck’s make a killing out of gourmet pizza creations, and it is pretty fun to explore different flavor combinations that veer off the standard pepperoni and cheese combo. The problem is, most of these gourmet pizza creations are not by the slice. So, if you’ve got a family of four, you’re pretty much stuck with ordering just one or two … and most likely if you’ve got a husband like mine, one of them is bound to be sausage and pepperoni.

Instead of going out to eat pizza, we have pizza parties at home. I know many of you love to make your own pizza dough; sometimes when you’re pinched for time or are lazy (me), another alternative is to buy pre-made flatbreads or naan bread. The naan flatbread is personally my favorite. It’s got that nice satisfying chew similar to pizza crust.

I’ll lay out an entire table full of aspiring pizza toppings, and each person can make their own mini pizza. The kids have a blast assembling their own me!me!mine!domyself! dinner (are your kids in that stage too?).

My husband … well … he’s forced to go all wild and crazy with artisan pepperoni and chicken-apple sausage. What a good sport—he plays along anyway—but I know he’s thinking: “Meat. Woman. Just want plain meat.”

So I wanted to throw out a few global pizza ideas for toppings. All of them start with flatbread brushed with olive oil all over, which is then baked in the oven for 7-10 minutes at 400F.

 
Japanese (photo above)
Sauté a combo of thinly sliced shallots and Japanese mushrooms, like enoki, white beech, shiitake, or king trumpet with a little butter and a touch of soy sauce. Assemble the pizza with a base of shredded cheese and then sauteed mushrooms. Bake and then sprinkle julienned shiso leaf (or a basil/mint combo) on top. Shiso is a Japanese fresh herb also known as perilla.

 
Thai
Saute chicken breast strips with a bit of soy sauce and honey. Assemble the pizza with cheese of choice, then chicken. Bake and top with chopped peanuts, crunchy fresh bean sprouts and fresh cilantro.

 
Moroccan
Brush a thin layer of harissa sauce (a Moroccan red pepper sauce that you can find at gourmet markets) and cheese of choice. Add whole roasted garlic, olives, sliced red bell peppers and maybe sliced dried apricots that have been rehydrated in warm water (and drained). Bake.

 
Argentinean
Hmmm … how about sauté sausage with bell peppers and onions, then assemble the pizza with cheese, followed by the sausage/peppers. Bake and before serving, drizzle just a bit of chimichurri sauce on top.

 
Tell me more! I want to hear your global pizza ideas!

 
Here’s a list of countries. GO!

 
 
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Jaden Hair is a food writer, television personality, and food photographer based in Tampa Bay, Florida. Find more of her recipes in her blog, Steamy Kitchen, where you can also read more about Jaden’s new book, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook, and the rave reviews it’s received!

 
I think everyone should have a magical butter sauce recipe up their sleeves. One that you can pull out of a hat in an instant, without even looking the recipe up.

Don’t know what to make for dinner and don’t have time to think? Take any ingredient, sear, steam, broil, grill or even microwave … and pour the magical butter sauce on top. Bam!

Instant delicious.

I have several magical butter sauce recipes, and I discovered one yesterday that so far, I’ve had with four different dishes. Yes, in the past 24 hours, I’ve already paired it with pan-seared salmon (first photo), steamed asparagus, grilled artichoke halves and microwaved green beans.

That’s how magical it is!

What? You want me to share? Oh of course!

The magical butter sauce is derived from a brand new cookbook that I got called Southern Living Farmers Market Cookbook. Of course, they don’t call it magical butter sauce, but that’s my name for it, and I’m sticking with it!

 
 
Magical Butter Sauce Recipe

In a microwave safe bowl, melt 1/3 cup butter. Add 2 tablespoons fruit preserves (apricot, mango-jalapeno, blackberry, etc.), 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, a good turn of the pepper mill and a generous pinch of salt.

Pour this over whatever your little heart desires.

And then tuck this simple little recipe in your mind’s recipe box, right between your killer cocktail and spaghetti ‘n meatballs recipe. There, you’ll always have it now!

Do you have a favorite magical sauce recipe you can divulge? One that is simple yet tastes good on everything?

 
 
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Jaden Hair is a food writer, television personality, and food photographer based in Tampa Bay, Florida. Find more of her recipes in her blog, Steamy Kitchen, where you can also read more about Jaden’s new book, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook, and the rave reviews it’s received!

 
Say hello to one of my favorite cuts of beef of all time: The Skirt Steak. Yes, even more than filet mignon (which, in fact, is my least favorite cut of steak because, though buttah-tender, I think it has the least flavor). So now that you know I’m all about the flavor, it’s no surprise that skirt steak has one of the fullest beefy flavors. It’s the cut favored in fajitas and tacos.

Skirt steak can be a tricky little devil if you don’t know the secret tricks to preparing and slicing the cut. Handle it wrong, and you’re left with the shoe leather that takes five years to chew through. But just two simple secrets turn it into tender ribbons of beef.

I bet most people know that slicing across the grain does the trick, but I’ve got another one up my sleeve.

Here is a fine piece of skirt steak. See the striations running up and down the steak? That’s the grain. Take note, we’ll get back to that later.

Okay, now turn that piece of steak over. Oh, what’s that membrane!? That’s called a great way to ruin tender steak! You don’t want that.

Luckily, it’s easy to remove. Just use your fingers to peel it away and discard. That’s your first trick.

We normally like to cook skirt steak on our outdoor grill, but if it’s cold or raining outside (like this day), you’re welcome to come indoors. One thing’s for sure, you want super high heat. You want the steak to sear on both sides like nobody’s business. The searing creates flavor, and because the steak is so thin, you’ve got to get that pan superhot. You’ve only got minutes each side.

Notice that when I flipped the steak, I put it on a new section of the frying pan, where it’s hotter. Most people, when searing, flip over the piece of meat and put it right back on the same spot. If there’s plenty of room in the pan, why not use a new, hot spot?!

Grill for a few minutes on each side until it reaches your desired temperature, and then let it rest. This is a fine time to pour yourself a drink.

Okay, remember the grain? It’s running vertically. We want to cut across the grain so that we don’t get stringy stripes of meat.

In addition to slicing across the grain, I also like to cut at an angle. See how my knife is at a pretty sharp angle? That’s what I want.

Let’s start slicing!

I like my skirt steak sliced very thinly.

Like this thin!

Yummmm skirt steak for my tacos!

 
Ready to try your hand at skirt steak? Lookie what I found on Tasty Kitchen!

Clockwise from top left: Spicy Orange Glazed Skirt Steak Lettuce Wraps from Bob, Steak Sandwiches from calliemakesdo, Triple Citrus Skirt Steak from Kelly @ EvilShenanigans, and Ginger Steak Salad from Ree.

 
 
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Jaden Hair is a food writer, television personality, and food photographer based in Tampa Bay, Florida. Find more of her recipes in her blog, Steamy Kitchen, where you can also read more about Jaden’s new book, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook, and the rave reviews it’s received!

Compound butter is just butter + stuff mixed in. Though calling it “compound butter” vs. just “butter + stuff mixed in” means you have to pay $3 more for it at the store. What a marketing gimmick! Seriously, though, compound butter is just flavored butter, and the possibilities are endless. Some of my favorites are:

butter + honey + cinnamon for toast
butter + chopped cranberries + orange zest for muffins
butter + garlic + basil for vegetables, shrimp (anything really)

All you have to do is mix softened butter with your choice of herbs/spices/sugars and you’re done. But I’ve found that shaping the compound butter into logs makes for easy storage (for the refrigerator or freezer), simple dividing, and an attractive little gift.

Here’s what I do:

Here I’m making some garlic-parsley butter for garlic bread. Take a stick of room temperature butter, a tablespoon of finely minced parsley, a garlic clove smushed through a garlic press, and just a generous pinch of salt (only if you’re using unsalted butter).

Grab a piece of parchment paper and lay it on your cutting board. I find that using a slightly damp cutting board helps the parchment stick, so that it doesn’t curl back up and over the butter (it’s a pain in the butt trying to keep that paper flat!).

Okay, now use your hands to roll up that butter. Don’t worry about getting it perfect; I’ll show you a trick in a second.

Here’s my secret weapon: a $1.50 sushi rolling mat. This mat helps me roll the butter into a tight, compact, even-shaped log. Roll the mat up partway.

Then use your hands like above to tug and pull back to tighten the log. My left hand is tugging and tightening the roll and my right hand is pulling in the opposite direction to give the mat tension.

Once you’ve tugged and evened out the log, open up the sushi mat.

Twist the ends of the parchment paper and refrigerate (or freeze).

Once the log has stiffened up, it’s ready to use! If I’m only using a bit of the butter, I like to cut them into “coins.”

Just slice right through the parchment paper.

Then pull away the paper! You can use this butter to saute vegetables, add to a sauce, slather for garlic bread, top a freshly grilled steak or mix with pasta.

As I mentioned, these rolls make fantastic gifts—just tie a little ribbon on the ends!

 
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Jaden Hair is a food writer, television personality, and food photographer based in Tampa Bay, Florida. Find more of her recipes in her blog, Steamy Kitchen, where you can also read more about Jaden’s new book, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook, and the rave reviews it’s received!