It is that time of year when the weather makes you want to stay outside all day. That means patio season is officially here!
We hosted our first of many patio classes over Memorial Day weekend, and I was fortunate enough to instruct our Grilling Boot Camp, which is one of my all-time favorites. This class is a 5-hour grilling extravaganza where we make everything from brined and grilled chicken thighs to barbecue ribs. This class has so many grilling techniques packed into one exciting class, and we offer it only a few times throughout the summer.
We also offer a wide variety of grilling classes that are no longer than three hours if that is more your speed. We have everything from Italian Surf and Turf to Korean BBQ to Regional Street Tacos, and even Smash Burgers on the Grill - regardless of which class you choose, you'll learn to master both charcoal and gas grills while preparing full menus that often feature grilled desserts. We can teach you anything you have ever wanted to learn how to grill!
This year, I am super excited to announce our new Brazilian Steakhouse on the Grill running right before Fourth of July weekend. In this class, we are going to be replicating Brazilian churrasco but make it more approachable for the home cook. In Brazilian, the term churrasco means barbecue and one of the characteristics of this cuisine is skewering the meat and utilizing a spit to render down the fat to baste and cook more evenly over open flames which is key for that smoky flavor. You may have been to this style of restaurant before where you have gauchos (servers) who go table by table carving freshly grilled different cuts of meat from skewers and serving them at your table family-style.
In our grilling class, we are going to take a different approach and not use a spit but still learn how to cook the most popular Brazilian cut, the picanha, otherwise known as top cap sirloin properly at home. In all of our grilling classes, we go through the pros and the cons and the tips and tricks associated with both gas and charcoal grills in order to help you succeed in replicating these recipes. And here is a pro tip: you don't always need to spend a ton of money on fancy butchers to get quality meats. I'm a really big fan of Wild Fork Foods - we use them quite often to source meat for our classes. And they do carry a picanha there!
One of the comments I hear often in classes is: this does not seem very authentic. It's hard to define what actually is authentic with any ethnicity of food because even within that country, everyone has their own ways of making foods and they are all called something different or think their way is the best way. I find this very comical because I always say there is no right or wrong way to cook food, just different ways. Everybody is allowed to have differing opinions when it comes to their Brazilian steakhouse menu, but I think one thing we can all agree on is as long as the food is cooked properly and it tastes good, that is all that matters. That is what we focus on in our classes because how many of us have spits, or rotisseries, or giant swords to serve meat from?
I don’t want to give away the full Brazilian Steakhouse menu, but I was testing out this recipe for Pao de Queijo or Brazilian cheese bread for this class to see if it would work on a grill. They are generally baked in a 400-degree oven. I believe whatever you can make inside you can make outside, but I needed to make sure that this recipe would definitely work for our students.
This kind of bread has a very similar texture to the French Gougères recipe made with pate a choux when cooked but the process is very different. Pao de queijo is typically made with a béchamel of sorts which is a roux (equal parts fat/flour) and thickened milk. In this version, all of the wet ingredients are heated in a pot and we use tapioca starch instead of all-purpose flour. Once the ingredients are combined, you can mix in the cheese of your choice. You scoop these onto a sheet tray or into a muffin tin to bake. If the mixture is loose you can firm it up in the fridge, just make sure to stir it since the cheese will settle.
This recipe is easy enough but the chef hack we will teach you in class is placing all of the ingredients into the blender, (no heating required), then grill them off in a mini muffin tin. They are so crisp and light and chewy. These cheese puffs are the perfect accompaniment to round out this delicious menu!
Pao de Queijo
Yield: 24 mini cheese puffs
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time:15 minutes
Total time: 20 minutes
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup tapioca flour sometimes labeled tapioca starch no substitutions
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 large egg
1/4 cup freshly grated queso fresco cheese
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Optional: extra cheese to sprinkle on top and any herbs/flavorings you'd like to add. Try rosemary and/or garlic powder - my favorites!
1. Gather ingredients and preheat a grill to 400 degrees F with direct hot zones and indirect low hot zones.
2. Put the milk, oil, tapioca flour, salt, and egg into a blender. Blend until smooth.
3. Add the grated cheese and pulse a few times. You don’t want to over incorporate the cheese in this step. You can also add cheese to the top after filling the muffin tins.
4. Spray a mini muffin tin with pan spray and pour the batter into the tins about 3/4 of the way full.
5. Grill on direct heat for 5 minutes until the bottoms are starting to brown.
6. Move the muffin tin to the indirect low heat and continue to grill with the door closed for another 10 minutes.
7. The tops should be lightly golden and set. They should feel springy to the touch. Flip them out onto a tray and enjoy!
Note: you can use any and all kinds of cheese for this recipe and any dairy or non dairy products of your choice.
I hope to see you this summer on our patio for class or in any of our kitchens! Make sure to check out our class calendar for all of our summertime programming.
