Brisket Pho: the greatest leftover recipe hack ever

It doesn't get any simpler. Boiling water. Leftover brisket. Instant Pho. And it is so incredibly delicious. To my peeps in San Antonio, you might have caught the episode of me making this Brisket Pho on the show Texas Eats with David Elder. And if you didn't, not to worry, this is as easy as it gets. (more…)

Ultimate Steak Taco Recipe

If you haven't seen it yet, head over to Variety.com and watch the Ultimate Steak Taco recipe video here. I was flattered and pumped when they asked me to participate in their Binging Bites series and I can't think of a better go to recipe to share than this Ultimate Steak Taco recipe. This should be the last Carne Asada, or should I say Khané Asada recipe you will ever need to search for. Let's hit it. (more…)

Warm Lentil Salad: a BBQ leftovers recipe hack

My favorite part about the Austin barbecue experience is over ordering. When you order meats by the pound, a quarter pound sounds kinda minuscule right? And a pound of brisket per person is clearly reasonable. It is that kind of thinking that brings butcher wrapped leftovers to my fridge. Don't weep too hard for me. Now one can easily reheat that barbecue in a cast iron skillet or low and slow in an oven. But here is a better idea: Leftover BBQ healthy hack recipes. Sounds far fetched? Well, keep this number in mind: 251 calories.

That is how many calories are in a single serving of this warm lentil salad made with leftover coarse ground sausage link from Micklethwait BBQ, one of the best barbecue joints in Austin, which means pretty much anywhere. Here is what you will need . . . (more…)

Tater Mac: a Big Mac Slider

Big Mac Slider could have been the best google search I could have done lately, second only to my search for Big Mac Sauce. If you have been keeping up my recent wave of recipes; you may have caught my previous slider recipe: White Castle in your own Castle. Well now it's time to take on a Big Mac Slider. Meet Tater Mac: my take on a Big Mac Slider. (more…)

An Easy Dal Recipe

This easy dal recipe post has been a long time coming. Dal is the comfort food of my people. Growing up in a Bengali household in the Midwest in the 1980s, "Indian food" was seldom something we would go out for. It was the food we ate at home on weeknights and on weekends at friend's homes. It was a cuisine I took for granted until I went off to college and found myself 2000 miles from my mother's kitchen. Now one might think I'm about to share her recipe but truth be told: she was not a great cook. Still, her dal was a favorite of mine and to this day the site of yellow split pea dal sends me back to the days of my youth. This truly is an easy dal recipe thanks to the time saving hack of reaching for the Instant Pot. It might seem like a lot of effort to reach for two pots, but the final product will make the time spent digging through your cabinets totally worth it. (more…)

Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder

Easter rolled around and rather than have a barbecue because of this once in a lifetime global pandemic called Corona, I decided to make a slow roasted pork shoulder and let my oven do most of the work. For me, holidays mean a hearty roast dinner and if I can prepare the sides at once, or at least in the drippings of the roast . . . I am a happy camper, COVID-19 be damned. If you have ever made Suzanne Goin's herb and mustard pork roast from her Sunday Suppers at Lucques cookbook, you know the power of fresh herbs, garlic, dijon mustard and olive oil have on a pork roast. And once again I am salivating as I type. (more…)

Leftover Roast Chicken Soup

Leftover Roast Chicken soup is exactly that: an act of leftovers. Nobody heads into the weekends bragging about the soup they are gonna make but it's the smart play to make when you want to turn one dinner into two, or three or four. Soup tastes better the next day, you can freeze it and its one dish that is simply better made at home than anywhere else. If you made the simple roast chicken recipe I shared last week, get ready. This the perfect companion recipe. (more…)

Simple Roast Chicken

I have been roasting whole chickens for over a decade now. At one point I was into a Jamie Oliver recipe where you made a prosciutto herb butter and stuffed it under the skin. That was pretty darn good but a bit time consuming and frankly not any better than a simple roast chicken. I'm going to show you a very basic recipe that hones in on the essential elements of a perfect roast chicken dinner: juicy meat, crispy skin and delicious fat soaked vegetables as your sides. Honestly, I salivate while just thinking about it. (more…)

Coffee Rub Steak

This isn't the first time I have made a coffee rub steak on the grill. But in the age of the Coronapocalypse, my grilling has kicked into overdrive. The age of #selfquarantine has also got me looking at a big fat shelf of cookbooks I have collected over the years that I just don't crack open often enough. Well that is all about to change. I'm starting a new chapter of Bang for your Burger Buck: Cook the Book, where I test drive recipes and share the results. And with that, let's get down with Cool Smoke's Coffee Rub Steak . . . . (more…)

a Slider Recipe

A slider recipe. Really? Yeah, it seems so simple you don't even need one but consider these two fundamental burger realities:

Everybody loves the sound of making burgers on the grill but they don't always come out primetime.
Everybody loves the sound of sliders but lots of restaurants serve up overpriced lil' burgers and let's be real: White Castle is awesome in idea, less so in reality. Unless you are hammered.

Which brings me to an enchanted recipe that merges two great ideas to into an easily executed reality: making sliders in the backyard. (more…)