Picanha (pronounced “pee-KAHN-ya), also known as top sirloin cap or coulotte, is a cut of beef that most Americans know little about. Those that do probably associate it with expensive Brazilian steakhouses (churrascarias) where it’s skewered in half-moon shapes, grilled to perfection, and carved to order at the table.

A company named Porter Road Butcher gave me a 4.24 pound package of their dry-aged picanha to try, and it’s the basis of this article. You’ll find picanha at better supermarkets, butcher shops, or online meat retailers.

Picanha Defined

Picanha is a triangular roast with a lean side and a fat side covered with thick, white hard fat.

Picanha has great beefy flavor and good moisture due to abundant intramuscular fat. It should not be confused with tri-tip. Both come from the sirloin primal, but picanha is cut from the top sirloin butt while the tri-tip is cut from the bottom sirloin butt. Continue reading Picanha from Porter Road Butcher →

My first encounter with grilling cheeses was at the 2019 San Francisco Fancy Food Show. You can watch my video to learn more about my experience at that amazing specialty food show.

After trying some of those cheeses at the show, I decided to buy a few and grill them at home on my Weber Summit 450. I bought the following:

• Rougette BonFire Grilling Cheese
• Rougette BonFire Marinated Grilling Cheese
• Kourellas Greek-Style Grilling Cheese

The first two were ones I saw and tried at the Fancy Food Show. The third one was something I picked up at Whole Foods. Continue reading Grilling Cheeses →

I’ve cooked beef/bacon burgers once before, back in May 2016. On that occasion, I smoked them at 300-325°F using the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker. Delicious and smoky, to be sure. But on this occasion in August 2019, I grilled beef/bacon burgers using my Weber Summit 450 gas grill.

A company named Porter Road Butcher gave me a two-pound package of their Beef Vs. Bacon mix to try. It’s a 50/50 blend of smoked pork belly bacon and dry-aged beef trimmings. Porter Road doesn’t specify the percentage of lean-to-fat in the ground beef, only that it’s “lean ground beef”. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s 90/10 ground beef or something close to that.

If you’ve never tried a beef/bacon mix for burgers, you should, especially if you’re a bacon lover. It’s amazing how much flavor bacon adds to otherwise delicious ground beef. But these Bacon Vs. Bacon burgers had it all—the fat and smokiness from the bacon plus the hearty beef flavor that only comes from dry-aged beef. Continue reading Beef Vs. Bacon Burgers From Porter Road Butcher →

I last wrote about grilled peaches in August 2014 when two members of The Virtual Weber Bulletin Board shared their approach to grilling this wonderful summer fruit.

It’s almost the end of peach season here in Northern California, and before summer is over and we rush headlong back into our fall routines, I wanted to share some grilled peaches that I made just for you, and they could not be simpler to make.

Start with perfectly ripe, juicy peaches. Freestone peaches works best. The ones shown here are from Andy’s Orchard in nearby Morgan Hill, CA…probably the best stone fruit you’ll find still grown here in “The Valley of Heart’s Delight”.

Gently rinse and dry the peaches. Use a sharp knife to cut in half from pole to pole, twist to open, and remove the pit. Continue reading Grilled Peaches Redux →

Grilled corn on the cob is so easy to make that it hardly demands a post on the subject, but here goes anyway.

Buy fresh, sweet corn on the cob. Look for large ears that are long and even in width. I like white corn more than yellow or bi-color corn, it just seems sweeter to me, but purchase whatever corn is your favorite. Most important is that it be in-season and fresh.

Remove the husks and silk as best you can. Cut off the stem flush with the cob. Cut off the pointy end to remove those janky little kernels and to make a flat spot to insert a corn pick after grilling.

Preheat your Weber gas grill with all burners on MEDIUM for 10 minutes. Clean the cooking grates with a grill brush.

Continue reading Grilled Corn On The Cob →