CALF_News_August_September_2021

37 CALF News • August | September 2021 • www.calfnews.net than chunks. Leaving the stem end on then cutting them into quarters works best. Zucchini and squash can either be cut into chunks or sliced in 1-inch-thick slices (we will address turning round items on the grill in a minute). Don’t forget to season those vegeta- bles. Salt and pepper are usually enough, but a touch of Cajun seasoning or chili powder adds spice to what can be bland items. If you are using bamboo or wood skewers, you will need to soak those to avoid an annoying grill fire. A long casserole dish filled with water is much better than a bowl, which always leaves half of the skewer sticking out. Once the vegetables are cut, then pull out the steak, drain the marinade and pat the meat dry with paper towels. After everything is cut and seasoned, heat your entire grill to high. You are going to use every bit of your cooking space to spread those different items over different parts of your grill. Now is where we go against every fancy picture attached to a kebob recipe that has a variety of items all stuck on one stick. DO NOT DO THAT. You are smart enough to understand that a cube of steak and a slice of squash and a juicy cherry tomato are never ever going to cook at the same rate or be cooked over the same level of heat. We are not look- ing for fancy, we want uniformly well cooked items, and that means one kind of ingredient on each stick. So now assemble. Tomatoes on one stick, onions on another and so on. If you sliced your squash and zucchini then you want to skewer them lengthwise rather than through the middle. This allows you to get good grill marks on the flat sides and you can turn them as well. Like in basketball and soccer, spac- ing here is important. Leave some room between each item on a skewer. The entire point of grilling is to expose surface to the heat. If you cram items too closely, the amount of surface area is reduced. This is especially true for the steak. Everyone has had a kebob with seared (or more likely burned) top and bottom and soggy light brown sides. Cooking small cubes of meat on a grill is very different than the large steaks and burgers we are used to. Exposing more surface to heat means the center will cook much more quickly. While a good marinade will buy you a bit of leeway, the biggest danger in cooking kebobs is that you will end up with overcooked, dry meat. To avoid this, first turn down the heat to medium on one burner and put the meat skewers over that burner. The meat is going to take the longest (unless you chose to use potatoes) and will usually require about six to eight minutes per side, depending on the size of the cube. You are not aiming for rare or medium rare here. The goal is to cook the meat to about medium – stopping short of well done. Hopefully, you are using a meat thermometer and, in this case, you are aiming for 135° to 140° F in the middle of the smaller pieces of meat. The vegetables are honestly much easier. It is very important to oil either the vegetables (if using a spray, do that well away from the grill), the grill grates or both. Vegetables will stick to a grill quite happily and those lovely grill marks turn into incinerated bits pretty fast. Even those of us generally indifferent to the condition of our required vegetation can tell that is not good stuff. The good news is that most veg- etables make it very clear they are done. Cherry tomatoes cook quickly and will explode if not pulled at the right time. The rest of the vegetables are done when they show the appropriate grill marks. Remember, we eat those raw anyway so err on the side of undercooked rather than incinerated. Overcooked squash in particular develops a pretty terrible squooshy texture that even the hardcore vegetarian will avoid. Because you are cooking by eye, you can cook the veg- etables over medium high or even high heat as long as you pay attention. Be sure to turn each skewer at least once so both sides get some char. Serving is easy, as you just clear each skewer into a separate pile on a serving tray. A separate tray for the meat keeps the juices from mingling with the veggies. Salt the veggies again before serving if necessary or leave that to your guests. Now each person can select their own meal without having to discuss their culinary preferences.  Bread and Bakery Products Stale, discarded bakery products make good components in cattle rations, supplying energy and protein. They vary greatly in nutrient content and often con- tain high levels of fat. Digestive distur- bances can occur because of the quick rate of fermentation in the rumen. As with other non-traditional feed sources, bread and bakery products should be limited to no more than 20 percent of a ration. Benefits In summary, ruminants are of great value during their entire lives, prevent- ing waste and converting lower quality feedstuffs into high-quality protein. In addition, the U.S. cattle herd is the most efficient and ecologically sound in the world. They graze areas that are completely unfarmable, and convert low-quality forages into protein. Be sure to bring this up the next time some- one finds it convenient to criticize our perfect, efficient production model – bovines.  CHUTESIDE MANNER Continued from page 19 A CHANGING UK BEEF SUPPLY Continued from page 33 In the UK, all animals are registered within 28 days of birth with our national database. This records a given herd number, the animal’s unique identifier, sex, breed, date of birth and dam’s details (the sire’s number is optional at present). Once registered, a passport is created for that animal, which travels with it all its life, recording every movement it makes. Calves are also double tagged at birth and there is a move toward making electronic tagging standard, as it is with sheep. Following the lead from the monogas- tric world, recording performance data in beef production is essential, and I will go into this in more detail in a later article. David MacKenzie lives in Scotland and is currently the director responsible for the beef and sheep division of Harbro Ltd., a nutritional supply company 