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You know, you can’t say I didn’t try to make an effort. Last year I was super busy, but in between planning for my Austin trip, family’s visit, running a baking group, I snaped photos of project that I thought would be good for a blog entry. However, time flew and before I had the chance to get to them, it was already change of season. Now that things kind of slow down a bit, I think it’s a good time to go back and post one of the “toys” I have that will become crucial in my future culinary adventure.

Anyway, back in late last Autumn, after I returned from my Austin trip, I decided to get back into BBQ because I didn’t get very satisfying BBQ down in Texas. I looked around my house, I have a small charcoal smoker, and then I have a modified gas smoker. But both didn’t really do a great job in doing low and slow smoking. So I decided to break out something that has been hiding in my garage for years.

I bought this Bubba Keg smoker probably 3 years ago when they have some sort of closing out sale at Home Depot website. I ordered it online, had them delivered and I just put it in the garage as I was going through different kind of phase when come to cooking and baking. The smoker was about $700, but I got it for $450 during that sales. Anyway, with the help of my friend, we moved the whole box to my patio:

I have to say, putting together the whole smoker by myself could be challenging, especially I have no idea how bulky it could get. Upon open the box, it looked like everything was well packed, the support frame was on top of the Styrofoam.

Once I removed the Styrofoam, there is just a big metal keg inside:

The metal frame and leg doesn’t require any assembly, sweet!

Just for size comparison, putting the frame and the keg together sort of make my realize: “It’s going to be a big keg!”

I was going to lift the smoker keg out of the styrofoam base, but it’s way heavier than it look! So I had to open up the keg, and remove all the goodies they put inside the keg:

Hiding inside the keg were the handle, cooking rack made with cast iron, and 2nd tier cooking rack made from stainless steel, manual and a few more tools. No wonder the keg was heavy!

After read the manual, I put together the handle in no time.

With the handle on the keg, it’s so much more easy to handle the keg, and I was able to lift the whole keg up to the metal frame by myself, and got it snap in and secured it!

The smoker keg actually come with plastic tray that can be snap to the handle, pretty handy!

In term of feature, the smoker top has the vent control, marked with number for ease of heat level control.

The bottom of the keg also have vent that can be slide to close and open, very straight forward.

Inside the smoker keg, there is nothing complex, just a flame bowl for you to put charcoal.

You can put the cast iron grill rack on top of the flame bowl, or a few inches above it by resting the grill rack on the stainless steel stop.

A smaller stainless steel grill grate is provided, and you just snap onto the the cast iron grill grate.

By snapping in the stainless steel grill grate onto the cast iron grill grate, you can rotate the stainless steel grate out of the way to access the food below it, so well thought out!

To properly use the smoker keg, you need a special tool that they provided. It looks like a wand with a bend L shape end. This wand actually allow me to push the smoker vent, lift the cast iron grate, empty and scrap out the ash at the bottom of the air vent.

The next week or so, I seasoned the smoker based on the manufacturer’s instruction, and smoked some spare ribs:

The advantage of this smoker keg is that it holds heat very well, thanks to its double wall water flask way of insulation to keep heat in, while the outside of the smoker is cool to the touch. It performs as well as those ceramic smoker that coast a lot, and too heavy to move around.

Smoking spare ribs is very effortless. Within a few hours, I can smoke the spare rib to the point that the meat start to pull away from the bone, and the browning is very even.

I didn’t make my own BBQ sauce to base the rib since I have a lot of BBQ sauce stocked up. My favorite BBQ sauce is sticky , spicy and sweet, a few applications and it totally transform the ribs from dry looking slab of meat into moist tender smoke ribs.

My favorite meat to smoker is spare ribs, it’s because it’s meaty and flavorful, yet doesn’t take whole day to smoke.

Overall, I’m really glad I picked up this smoker when they were having close out sales, not only because it performs really well. But that company now sold the production to other BBQ companies. So now it get rename to Big Steel Keg, or Broil King Keg. Not only that you have a confusing market, it also have confusing price point, from $700 to $900. So, yes, it might have been an impulsive $450 purchase a few years back, now, you probably know who’s laughing and having some finger licking good smoked BBQ ribs!

Okay, there have been lack of food related post for the past few years. Why? That’s because I have been on a freaking diet for the past few years! I’m getting result, but still have some work to do. Anyway, I’m slowly find some food that can work into my diet, and don’t have to eat like a bird.

To be honest, I never really have a craving for burger, except when the fast food TV commercial comes on, but it was the dieted empty stomach thinking, not really my taste bud complaining. When I want to cheat on my diet, I would never thought about burger. However, once in a while I feel like I should something that’s as flexible as home made burger instead of just grill/pan sear chicken breast, fish, or salad.

You see, these days I have developed the habit of try to have balance meal, a meal that consist of carbohydrate, vegetable and protein. I also like to have strong flavor in my food, so I developed this healthier burger that is full of flavor, and is as flexible as changing different patty and cheese to make it a different burger.

I don’t buy burger buns at the store, mainly because I don’t like the fact that they’re too soft, go stale quick and just loaded with simple carbohydrate. Lately I have found a pretty good and cheap healthier “buns”:

It’s only 100 calories, and loaded with fiber because of the multi-grain:

Cooking this burger is actually easy and fit into my weekday dinner schedule, as long as you have the right tool to make clean up easy. To make eating less messy, it’s best to have a piece of dairy paper on your plate, think of it as burger wrapper like the fast food restaurant.

Now here come the stuffs that my diet council and any personal trainer would be very proud of: Lettuce leaves for fiber, thin slice of red onion to add flavor and crunch texture, sliced tomato for nutrition and moisture.

These days I just make my own burger patties. When time allow, I would grind my own meat as I have control over the fat level. Making your own burger patties also allows you to control the flavor. For example, I can mix 70% ground turkey with 30% ground lamb, so it would become a leaner lamb burger, and you’re not sacrificing the lamb flavor because ground turkey is so plain, but has the good protein. You can also mix ground beef with pork/turkey, since too much red meat could be hard on the kidney.

Oh, I also mix in different kind of seasoning, form the patties on patties paper, and freeze them. I only take out what I need the night before and let it thaw in the fridge. For this meal, I have a Mediterranean flavor burger, which consist of ground lamb, ground turkey, sun dried tomato, diced red bell paper, cilantro and some basic seasoning like pepper, salt etc.

So, to put together the burger, I just toast the bun on a dry skillet for a few minute each side. I suppose I could use a toaster oven but I have better control on how warm I want the bun to be without drying it out like in a toaster oven.

To add some saltiness, I went with Provolone cheese. When they have sales at the grocery store, I just pick up a few different flavor sliced cheese and stock them up.

These cheese can be frozen if the expiration date is approaching before you could use them up. I don’t go crazy with the cheese, as they could add quite a bit calories. I only use one slice of cheese and it’s no more than 80 calories per slice.

Back to the burger, once the bun is toasted, open them up to let the steam escape and cool down.

Next is the burger patty. Depend on what kind of burger, you can use oil in the skillet if the patty is very lean. The ground lamb I have in this Mediterranean burger is quite fatty, so I just put the raw patty on the dry skillet.

While the burger patty is cooking, here come condiment time: light mayonnaise and a few dab of yellow mustard. If you don’t wait for the bun to cool and spread the mayo on them, they will just break down and your bun will become soggy.

Next, put the lettuce leaves on the bun, they serve as barrier so that the juice from the burger patty won’t flow onto the bun and make them soggy, otherwise you will have some wet mushy bun on your hand when you eat the burger.

I like to put the sliced tomato on my bottom bun, and the sliced onion on the top bun.

Tomato tend to slide around, so it being weight down at the bottom portion of the burger, they won’t slide that much. Oh, make sure the tomato slices are not too wet, if they’re too wet, try to scrap out the jelly seed in between the tomato groove, they could make your burger too wet!

A little bit of onion goes a long way, so make sure you onion slice is not too thick, as they could become too spicy. I like to use red onion because they’re less pungent then other onion.

Half way into putting together the vege on the bun, you should have flip the burger patty to get the other side brown and cook as well.

When you think the burger is done, just turn off the flame and put the cheese slice on the patty.

The residue heat from the burger patty should melt the cheese just right, without making it melt to the point that it would drip into the hot pan and make a mess.

Next you need to let the patty rest a minute or so on the plate. Why? If you put the burger patty on the bun that you just put together, the juice from the patty will give you a wet burger. I know these are yummy meat juice, but they could also have quite a bit of fat oozing out. So just let it go and let the burger rest and it will still have enough juice to give you a moist and flavorul burger.

When you think the burger is rested and cool down to be warm enough to eat, just put it on the bun you prepared:

Ahh…… the cheese is still soft and melted.

Next is just put the top bun on the patty:

Guess what? Lunch is ready to serve!

Now, do not pick up the burger and just eat it, you will have a mess with tomato slide out from the side of the bun when you bite into it, and juice could be flowing down the lettuce drip from your palm. This is why we have the dairy paper, just fold the burger up with the dairy paper, you have a handheld food!

It doesn’t have to be a fancy fold, just fold each corner of the dairy paper into the center, and expose half of the burger so you can put your mouth to it.

When you take a big initial bite, the paper held the burger in place, so your bun and tomato is not going to slide out of your hand, and if juice start to flow from the moist burger patty, it will be sealed in the dairy paper instead of drip everywhere.

Well, I don’t suppose I need to explain how to eat a burger, but after a few bite, it’s just as satisfy as a gourmet burger could be. Do I miss the fries? Strangely, I don’t! I guess it’s because after you have spent time to cook the burger, you don’t feel like heating up a gallon of oil to deep fry, and drain then salt some fries. So, in the sense that more work do discourage you from getting your hand on the bad calories fries.

So, how much calories is in the burger? It probably would be around 400 calories if you just estimate the cheese, buns and the patty because the rest of the ingredient are just so less in calories, unless you slab a big dollop of full fat mayo on the bun.

The clean up? Just a pan, 2 plates and a spatula, that’s if you have the vege sliced up and store in a container early on.

I have been having this kind of burger from time to time while I’m on my diet. Guess what? It never shows up on my scale the next day, so I know it’s just the right amount of food to have, yet still make meal more interesting, satisfying and won’t back fire on my diet. Hmm…….. if I can only say the same thing about dessert. I don’t think there is such a thing as healthy dessert when you’re on a low carbohydrate diet!