A Quick salad

Simple, crisp and one of my all time favorites.   You will need three medium or two large tomatos,  Two medium cucumbers, 1/2 onion, 1/4 cup vinegar (your choice), 1/2 tsp salt and 2 tblsp sugar.

Peel and dice cucumbers.  Dice the tomatos to a similar size.  Dice the onion as small as possible.  Put all of your dices in a bowl.  Sprinkle in the salt and sugar, add the vinegar.  Stir the salad and refrigerate for an hour.  Check the seasoning though.  If it is too sweet, add a sprinkle of salt, stir and recheck.  Do the opposite if it's a bit too salty.

This is an easy no brainer salad that is light and refreshing.  With it's high acid content it is great with rich (aka fatty foods) like BBQ and anything fried.  If you want a twist add some time or terragon (avoid dill as it is cliche though).

By the way this is also a quick refrigerator pickle.

Yogurt, home made

A quick break from smoking here.  I made yogurt last night.

Ingredients
6oz active culture plain yogurt
1 gal milk
1 crock pot
1old blanket

Optional strainer and a paper towel or coffee filter or cheese cloth or (something else that water can flow through but not solids.

Simplicity thy name is yogurt.  Take a clean crockpot and add 1 gal of milk.  Heat on low for 2.5 hours then let rest for 3 hours.  Mix your active culture yogurt with 2 cups of the warm milk.  Add mixture to crockpot, cover and wrap in blanket or towel for 8 or so hours.

That's it you have yogurt.  Our batch is a bit runny (perfect for smoothies) but we are planning to drain it (by putting a coffee filter in a strainer and putting the yogurt in it) to thicken it up to what we like.  Total cost for 1 gallon of yogurt? 4 dollars.  Now we can add in fresh or frozen fruit or even some of my homemade jam.  It's yummy and fresh and all ours for the price of one pack of yogurt at the store.

A Gift From Texas to the World

 My cousin Joe is a native Texan and a single dad (just got engaged yesterday!!!).  Here you will learn about Brisket.  Remember it is a different piece of meat as well as a different animal, so there are some big differences.  Joe also shows good use of mixed smoke here.  I must confess I am a single smoke guy.  So here is his offering for your enjoyment.  Remember BBQ is an art form not the way to cook a quick supper.  So take the time and you will be rewarded.

 

 

Brisket, My Way

my cousin Bill has asked for a "Texan's" input on brisket for this blog....now, regardless of where you are from, your home state IS something that can be overcome, just as a public education can, in the making of a proper brisket....to fully appreciate the meat a bit of its history must be understood

(here I disagree.  The shoulder is a worse cut.  It is just as tough but in a brisket the grains of the muscle run in one direction as it is one muscle.  The shoulder is a bunch of cris crossing muscles.  WIth brisket if you slice thinly against the grain, just like a fajita [or skirt steak to the uninformed] it can be a tender mouthful.  With a shoulder there is no way to cut it where it will all be tender because the muscles are going every which way.)

brisket is actually one of the worst, if not THE worst, cut of beef....in its natural state it is very tough, stringy and not at all edible....so in the days of the old south when cut up for the family the brisket cut was given to the slaves as it was not considered worth consumption...these slaves were from all parts, Africa, the Caribbean, some had been in the deep south, some had immersed themselves with local indians and some had even been with the French settlers of the south along the Mississippi.....why is all of this important to know? well, each culture has added a bit of spice, a style of cooking and curing

by this time the slaves had already been getting inferior cuts of meat and knew that the best way to make them edible was with flavor and low heat slow cooking....time marches on, as it is wont to do, and we come to the post Civil War era...these former slaves, now freedmen were still getting the brisket cuts although now they were starting to open up their own lunch shops in fallen down deserted houses or even a stand on the side of the road.....even in the deep south at this time a crowd of any color drew looky loos and gawkers and eventually the tender juicy meat made its way into the cities and more populated areas where because of its flavor and ability to fall apart with a fork it became extremely popular

(We also differ a bit here I like a special smoker as I can hot or cold smoke.  The offset grill setup while great is good for hot smoking only unless you want to pipe smoke from the chimney included off to a seperate box which I do.)

today anyone with a back porch and the ability to press an ignite button fancies themselves a grill master....many take short cuts and claim their 5 pound brisket cooked on gas in 6 hours is just as good as the rest and this is simply not true....smoking a brisket remains an art form today just as it has for the last 200 years

there are several ways to season a brisket, you can use the injection method, a dry rub, you can season your wood in a brine and allow the smoke to do all the work, or you can simply allow the meat to flavor itself with a bit of help from the smoke

regardless of the size of the brisket you must first allow the meat to come to room temperature....doing so will ensure that it will cook evenly all the way through...starting out with a cold center will have the outer portion cooking much faster and will result in dry meat....once you have your brisket seasoned you are going to want to wrap it in foil....you can either twist one end into a "vent" or not again that is personal preference, i chose to do so for about half the cook time....make sure when you wrap you keep the fatty side up...this will allow the fat to drip down through the meat flavoring it and keeping it nice and moist

(Talk to your butcher to see if you can get a brisket without the fat trimmed.  a fatty brisket is near impossible to find in my area.  If you havn't figured it out yet, Texas is different.)

my pit set up is a weber offset smoker, this keeps the heat indirect and makes adjusting the heat much easier as i dont have to move the meat to get to the fire....i begin with a bed of coals getting them nice and hot before dropping on a few logs of apple wood....on a 13 pound brisket i will smoke it for 26 hours (2 hours per pound).....the first 18 hours or so will be done with the apple as it is much milder and wont over power the meat

(Not just for smoking the desire to fiddle with meat on the grill has ruined many a good piece of meat)
once your brisket is on the pit DO NOT MOVE IT!!!!....the only time you should be opening your pit is to open the firebox to either add wood or coals, or to vent off too much heat....now the last 8 hours or so i use pecan, it is a bit stronger than the apple but by now the meat has sealed up a bit and wont take on too much of the pecan so as to be overpowered by it.....the last half hour you will want to remove the foil....this last half hour of cook time allows the meat to firm up just enough to seal in some of the juices and be more manageable with a knife....you are now ready to enjoy the best meat youll ever have dripping in your mouth

a good way to ensure you do not dry out your meat is to get a small can (one that wont put off fumes when it gets hot like a coke or beer can) and fill it with either plain water, beer, or some type of marinade...i set mine near but not in the fire, this causes the pit to fill with humidity and keep the meat super moist

in review:

you will need 1 brisket (with a full side of fat coverage, do NOT buy it with the fat removed as it will dry out!!)
wrap in a layer of foil, fat side up to allow it to drip down
1.5 to 2 hours of cook time per pound (if youre like me and cook big, youll need an alarm clock or co-pilot to get you through fire maintenance in the small hours of the morning)
your smoker to be at 130-150 degrees F
unless you are already comfortable with your smoker you will want to temp check every half hour to hour
(good rule of thumb, each log or scoop of coal adds about 50 degrees and will take about a half an hour to show up on your thermometer
so make sure youre staying ahead of temp drops.....AND REMEMBER TO ADJUST ACCORDINGLY PER SEASON ie winter or summer)
and depending on how big your brisket is, youll need a proper amount of hungry people to enjoy it!

do NOT be scared to experiment! try a flavor, try a type of wood, try anything you like! we didnt get to where we are today by being timid around the grill!!!

Ancillary Smokeage

You've done all the prep work building your smoker, you've brined for days and woke up with the rooster to get your pork butt smoking.  There's 12 hours to kill and you see all that smoke pouring through the cracks filling the neighborhood with smoke (and envy).  You ponder what else can I do with that setup?

Well I've done some thinking (and cooking) in that direction.  If you have a nice big space put a hunk of cheese (mozzarella, provolone or parmesian are my favorites) in a heat proof bowl and smoke for an hour or four.  When it comes out place in the fridge to cool off.  The smoke would have permeated every bit of that cheese and it is heaven.  Adding to pasta or just snacking you've taken bargain bin cheese to gourmet status.

Well that's 4 out of the 12 hours so take any cased sausage and stab each with a fork in a few places (for fat drainage) and throw on the smoker in any convenient place.  Give the sausages 2-4 hours and test one for doneness.  When cooked through they are ready to eat although you may want to wait a bit longer for more smoke and a bit less moisture in the sausage.  The end result can be eaten straight, sliced thin as an appetizer or pizza topping or lastly used in a spaghetti sauce.

What you can smoke is limited only by your imagination so experiment whenever you can.

Lastly smoke is a preservative.  If you keep your smoked items away from heat, moisture & air (sealed plastic bag in the fridge) they will surprise you on how long they will last.  Smoking is an early and primitive form of preservation and helps make the food inhospitable for micro-organisms by dehydration of the materials and because most little bugs just don't like the smoke.

Daddy's smoked Pork Butt

Pork BBQ is in my opinion the ultimate pork dish.  If done correctly it yields moist succulent strips of meat, with every piece carrying the ultimate in smoky porky goodness.  I know there are many out there who would disagree in fact BBQ disagreements would escalate beyond the horror of religous wars if not for copious amounts of beer involved.  The other primary camps are ribs and beef brisket (to be covered later).

This is more of a method than a recipe and so many of the individual components can be substituted or replaced that I won't really mention them but I will specify what is essential.

Step 1 the Brine.
Many people use rubs but IMO a brine is better because 1) we are adding moisture  and 2) we are adding flavor to all the meat not just the outside and lastly the crust does not burn it just gets crusty and yummy.  Others may disagree with this but it's my blog dammit so I brine.

The brine there are two essentials to a brine salt and water.  Everything else is optional and to taste  besides I don't measure when doing this .  As to the amount of salt you will need more than you think as you want the liquid to taste like seawater when you are done.  The salt, it's all the same chemically but I like pickling salt as the small crystals dissolve easily in cold water.  Kosher salt will dissolve the least of the common salts and plain old table salt is an acceptable choice.  For other flavors I like Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, cumen, any and all herbs that will go with the primary flavor profile (dried and powdered, don't waste the good fresh herbs here). Latstly I like bourbon for flavor.  It is a complex mix of savory, sweet and pure yumminess and just goe so well with pork.  Add any booze you like though, just be aware of the total flavor profile.

The brining method is simple.  Cover the meat with the brine and refrigerate for 24-72 hours.  During this time all the flavors (along with a bit more liquid) will migrate through the entire hunk of meat seasoning every bit of it instead of just the surface half inch (a rub).

Set up your smoker and put the meat on.  You want constant smoke and a temperature between 180 & 220 degrees F.  A small pork butt will take 8-10 hours with a large one up to 12 to 16 hours.  During this time the smoke is penetrating the meat imparting a unique flavor and a characteristic pinkness, fat is melting and basting the meat, connective tissues that make a pork butt tough when roasted at 350 are dissolving leaving moist tender meat behind.  When you ca easily pull off hunks of meat with tongs.  Wrap in foil and let the pork rest and cool for about 1/2 hour.  You can eat immediately but this is a hot piece of meat. 

I like a big pile of meat (i discard most fat when hand shredding) for a side, choose something light & crisp and eat with optional BBQ sauce of your choice.  Please lightly dunk, this meat is way too good to drown in sauce

Where there's Smoke there's flavor.

First of all disabuse yourself of what you consider barbecue (BBQ or just Q).  Cooking something on a grill does not make it BBQ it makes it grilled.  BBQ is long slow cooking at low heat with smoke (we will get to smokers later on).  Grills are useful tools as they can cook quickly over direct heat (steaks, chicken, fish, etc.) in a medium time over indirect heat (roasts, whole chickens & meatloafs), or long and slow with smoke over indirect heat (the Q). 

There are also many purpose built appliances for smoking ranging in price from 60$ to the price of a small car. To break it down you need a heat source (preferably wood/charcoal or electric), a place to put the wood (for smoke not fuel) and something heat safe to contain the smoke and what you are smoking.  For fuel stay away from gas as burning gas produces large amounts of water vapor, water vapor will hit the fat in what you are cooking and prevent a lot of the smoke from penetrating.  Later on I will give you a "recipe" for a smoker anyone can afford.

Think of smoke as a flavor.  You can use just about any wood during a roasting or a grilling to impart a wonderful aroma and flavor (after grilling steaks or burgers put a pan of meatballs or a meatloaf on the grill to cook in the residual heat and you will be amazed) as this happens over a short period.  Somewhere between 6-8 hours under the smoke though and the individual characteristics of the wood come through as a distinctive flavor in your meat.

As for choice of fuel I have a cousin who swears by wood.  Nothing wrong with this but be warned it needs  a lot more attention and will vary in heat.  You have to nurse a wood smoker along and it is a labor of love.  I prefer electric as it gives me a constant heat and a constant smoke and is much less time intensive in terms of fiddling with your smoke. 

Wood choices vary in two ways flavor and chunk size.  The smaller the chunk the more smoke and faster consumption you will have, the larger chunks will last longer and smoke a bit slower.  Sawdust will burn fast with a LOT of smoke, hand size chunks will smoke for a long time with a constant amount of smoke.  Also in terms of flavor you can break it up into light medium & heavy flavors.  The lighter flavors include all of the fruit woods, medium oak, maple and almond, heavy hickory and mesquite.  The heavier flavors I relegate to grilling too much of them imparts what is to me a medicinal taste that bothers me but I am not everyone.  I prefer single wood smoking using the fruit woods for a light sweet smoky addition.  Like all flavors though play with and choose your own choices until you get what you like.  My suggestion is to stay single wood and start lighter and build heavier until you find the flavor you like best.

Smoker:
 Ingredients
small round hot plate
inexpensive metal pie pan 
round grill grate
terra cotta pot large (from your local hardware store should fit the round grill top on the inner lip)
Ceramic or cement lid that will snugly cover the large terra cotta pot
Wood chunks large for long smoking, medium for ribs and chips or sawdust for cured fish.
Smoking thermometer

Assembly:
Put the hot plate at the bottom of the pot and feed the  cord through the bottom.  Set the temperature on the hot plate to 2/3rds max.  Place pie pan on hot plate and fill with wood chunks.  Put grill in the top of the terra cotta pot.  Put meat/whatever you are smoking on top.  Hopefully there is a hole in your cover, if not drill one using a ceramic drill bit.  Put the thermometer in the top and secure.  Put top over pot and plug in.  If you are using large chunks the smoke will last 3-4 hours per refill.  Once it runs out, if the meat is not done, you will need to refill the wood, dump the old chunks in a metal pan full of water (if you dump in the mulch pile you will start a fire and burn down your fence or more trust me on this) and put the new chunks in, replace the grill, meat and top and drink another beer.  Repeat process until the meat falls apart.  I'll give you specific recipes later but hey unless you are really driven gathering the hardware here will take a few days.

One of the many wonders of Pork.

Pork, or as we call it at home, Meat Candy, offers up so many flavors and I can blog about it for a year.  That is a bit boring though.  I am really tired today because we are trying out a new sleeping schedule with the kids and that meant not too much sleep for the Daddy (that's me).  So due to lack of sleep I am going to hit you with a simple recipe.  This is my recipe for carnitas, the spanish/mexican influenced pulled pork dish. For this dish we will need a crock pot large enough to hold the pork butt you purchased.  The pork butt (it's the front shoulder the ham is the actual butt)  should be 5-10 lbs and trimmed of as much fat as you can get off of it.  Since we are not roasting the pork, the fat will just accumulate in the crock and you will need to skim it off later.  So a good trim job up front will save time later.  The muscles have a lot of fat between them so you will end up with some good size chunks of pork and lets try to leave them in chunks for now.

Mix 1 tbsp of cumen, two tbsp of adobo seasoning (found in the mexican/international aisle or spice aisle of your grocery store) and 1 tsp of oregano (you don't often notice it but oregano is very common in mexican cuisine).  Take this mix and rub it all over the pork chunks and toss them in the crock pot.  Add to the pork one can of tomatoes (any type except italian seasoned) some chopped peppers (to taste and these can be anything from bell to jalapenos to the infamous scotch bonnet or whatever mix you like or can handle) also throw in one onion medium chop (if you like you can omit all of that for about 8-10 oz of sofrito sauce as it has all of those flavors built in).  Now turn on the crock pot (I would say set it and forget it but that's a copyright violation).

In 8-12 hours on low or 5-6 on high you will have some really yummy pork that will make you drool.  Remove the pork and shred when cool enough.  From this pile of yumminess you can make tacos, just eat it over some rice or use it in place of the protein in any Mexican dish you can think of.