Sunday Dinner

Hot weather seems to call for Middle Eastern food. Or food with assertive flavors, anyway. It's been hovering in the mid 80's the last couple days, and this afternoon we hit 90. And it's supposed to be this hot ALL week long.

I made a big bowl of hummus which we enjoyed with pita breads and veggies. Then we tried a recipe from barbecue guru Steve Raichlen: Jake's Coffee-Cardamom Brisket Rub. Unusual sounding, yes. But we love cardamom and coffee and beef, so why not give them a try all together?

1/2 cup ground coffee or chicory
1/2 cup coarse salt (kosher or sea)
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup hot paprika
2 tablespoons ground cardamom
2 tablespoons ground ginger
1/3 cup chopped fresh garlic
1/2 cup vegetable oil, or as needed.

Combine all the ingredients, except the oil, in a bowl or food processor and stir or process to mix. Stir in enough oil to make a thick paste. The rub should be used the day it is made. Cover and refrigerate until using. Spread on beef and marinate at least 4 hours or as long as overnight covered in plastic wrap. Grill/smoke with indirect heat.

The instructions call for using this on a beef brisket, but we used an eye of round roast. And I didn't quite have enough ground ginger but luckily had a piece of fresh ginger root in the fridge, so we added that. I made couscous with chicken stock, cardamom and dried apricots to go with the roast.

And how did it taste? Good! Other than being a bit salty, the flavors and spices melded surprisingly well. Were we chewing on nasty ground coffee? Not at all. The grounds seem to soften and mellow, and added rich color and deep caramel-coffee flavor to the beef. I think I would cut back on the salt next time, though. A lot of these barbecuing rubs and pastes are quite heavy on the salt and sugar. This beef is going to be wonderful cold thinly sliced on salads of mixed greens in the coming week. Or stuffed into pita breads with greens, cucumber slices, mint leaves and yogurt sauce. With all the food we made today, we are going to be able to coast the rest of the week without cooking at all. If it's going to be this stinking hot, who's going to feel like cooking?

I took the pics outside, but we didn't really eat out there. Nope, we ate in air-conditioned comfort inside.

Dessert is a black raspberry pie. That's Tim's reward for going out in the back yard Friday and picking enough to make a pie. We haven't cut into it yet. That will be later this evening. Maybe it will have cooled off enough to have it out on the deck.

ETA 7/3/11: Since then, we cut the salt in half for this recipe. 1/2 cup is just plain too salty. And I cringe when I look at the juice pooling around the meat in the pic. Never underestimate the value of a good rest before slicing grilled meat...