Tequila Tuesday

My grilling availability will be sporadic this summer, what with trips to NYC and Washington D.C.  Today seemed like a good day for grilling, and a good day for fish.  I hadn't grilled much fish recently, especially any new fish recipes.  Further, this last weekend I had purchased some nice corn at Findlay Market that I hadn't cooked up yet, so it was high time to resolve that issue as well.  So when I got home from the various food markets today, it was time to take care of business.  I sit here typing, rather proud of myself for what I accomplished this evening.  I combined two of Weber's recipes into a creation of my own.  Last summer I learned a nice technique for grilling corn, but I was interested in taking it to the next level.  In the spirit of Julia Child, it was time to add butter!  Those of you who were awesome enough to read my blog last summer saw me roasting garlic to make garlic butter.  While it was part of a bigger recipe, The Guide also has it as a stand-alone recipe in the beginning of the book.  Why not add roasted garlic butter to the corn?  This seemed logical.  So my story this evening begins with the Roasted Garlic Butter on page 50.

While I documented this procedure before, it is worth revisiting.  The process begins by using a serrated knife to remove the top of the garlic bulb.  Cut just enough to expose the cloves.  Drizzle a little olive oil over the exposed cloves.

Wrap the bulb in aluminum foil and place over indirect medium heat for about 45 minutes.  If you feel like cheating, use your oven at 400 degrees for the same amount of time.  WARNING:  This will make your house smell amazing!

 Now that the garlic was getting happy on the grill (read: slow roasting into caramelized sweet goodness), it was time to prep the corn.  In order to make the husks more pliable and resistant to the direct heat on the grill, they needed to be soaked in water for at least half an hour.  There is a problem with this...corn floats.

I solved this dilemma by placing the corn in a roasting pan, weighting them with plates, and then filling with water.  This completely submerges the corn, which is necessary.

Garlic bulb roasting on the grill...check.  Corn soaking...check.  It was time to introduce the second recipe being used tonight to improve the garlic butter (like it needed it, but hey, I had plans). To make the butter even more interesting, I wanted to spice things up a bit.  I decided to make use of the Texas Dry Rub on page 54.

Nothing shocking happened next...I mixed it together in a bowl.

Here is where things begin to advance levels.  The garlic looked/smelled terrific, so I pulled together the remaining butter ingredients.

I previously uploaded a video of me doing this, but right now I am far too tired and lazy to find and link to it.  If you feel saucy, track it down and leave the link in the comments section.  I may have a prize for the first person to do so.  :)  Anyway, this is what your bowl will look like after you squeeze the cloves out of the bulb.

Use a fork and mash, mash, mash!

Here's where I started to use my own creativity...I took half of the garlic butter and put it in second bowl.  Do you see where this is going?

That's right!  I added the Texas Rub to the butter!

It was time to begin applying the spicy garlic butter, so I got out my favorite brush (silicon, so it is easy to wash, as opposed to an animal hair brush).

The corn cobs were now coated in a delicious compound butter, and I was quite pleased with myself.

Gently bring back the husks to cover the cob, and I even used a longer string of husk to tie off the top.

On to the grill with them, to make the neighbors jealous!  The aroma took about two minutes to fully disperse throughout the neighborhood.

Finally, it was time to get to the main course!  I had picked out the Tequila Salmon on page 298.

This is easy!  Make the marinade and submerge the fish.

Whisk together the dressing for the salad.

The corn was perfect!  I used the spicy garlic butter on three of the cobs, and the "plain" garlic butter on the other two.  Don't freak out if the husks burn!  My husks were almost completely black by the end of the grilling time, but inside the husks the kernels were perfectly cooked!   While these were wonderful on their own, I wasn't done!  As you can see in the background, I was beginning to use my chef's knife to remove the kernels from the cob.

That's right!  It's SALSA TIME!  Some grilled onions and jalapeno is called for as well.

Weber, this recipe is A-W-E-S-O-M-E!  Bogdan's Spicy Garlic Corn Salsa could make a fortune for me, if only I would apply myself.  :)

The fish went on to the grill, I mixed up the salad, plated, poured the Kool-Aid (although this SCREAMED for a margarita), and informed The Bride that it was time to eat.

As amazing as the salsa is, and as good as the salad dressing is, the salmon didn't hold up its end of the bargain.  It was okay...just nowhere near as impressive as some of the other salmon recipes have been.  Oddly, Weber has two different ways of cooking the same-sized same-cut pieces of salmon.  For some recipes, only indirect heat is used, and the fish is never flipped.  In others, like this one, the first seven minutes are flesh-side down over direct heat, and then is finished for the last three minutes over direct heat after flipping.  The latter method creates a nice crust and set of grill marks (like in the picture above), but I think I prefer the indirect method.  It's more manageable and less risky as salmon can come apart easy in the process of flipping.  The chile-lime salad dressing was a nice change of pace as far as salad dressings are concerned, and even helped out the flavor of the salmon, which was a little lacking.  I certainly didn't detect any tequila notes in the fish.  The star, for me, was still the salsa.  Maybe I'll make you some if you're nice to me!