Mid-winter BBQ oh yeah. Whoever said grillin' was just for summer?
Surely not my fire cooking enthusiast friend Yama. Because it was a Wednesday I wandered down to Fremont after work with some organic zucchinis, a few potatoes and a bottle of wine to the little house in the Center of the Universe.
Awaiting me upon arrival were these two lovely ribeye steaks rubbed in a mixture of fresh ground espresso and powdered chili from Yama's Mama. Not "chili powder" the spice mixture but straight up ground southwest chili varietal sent him Xmas from her travels.
We placed the potatoes in a seasoning bath, wrapped them in tinfoil on placed them on the grill.
When the potatoes were ready we put the veggies and steaks on the grill.
And drank a little Ravenclaw brewery ale and waited 10 minutes.
We paired the steak and simple grilled veggies with a malbec and watched a documentary on Netflix. Just a regular February weeknight with friends.
Ooooh! My former housemate (from New Mexico) had all kinds of good chilis in the house: they weren’t there for decoration only. Who knew? So I have to ask how one goes from desiccated chili to chili powder. Food processor? Mortar and pestle? Kitchen shears? I was never around to witness the amazing reconstitution that my former roommate could magically whip up.
I think you can do it in a mortar and pestle if you have lots of time and arm strength. For such feats of I go for the food processor.