In 'Que We Trust

First practice turkey. Can’t wait for thanksgiving!

Okay, I admit that I did not follow the book and I ignored the author’s admonishment not to skip Lesson #2 (brined chicken) and go straight to ribs.  But I couldn’t resist.

I did, however, use his rub, which is different from the rub I usually use in a couple of ways.  Whereas my rub has brown sugar and mustard powder in it, the rub I used this time had no sugar, and the book’s recipe called for rubbing yellow mustard (from the bottle) directly on the ribs.  The idea is that the mustard acts as an adhesive that helps your rub stay on the meat.

The ribs with the mustard and rub applied

I used the same method for building my fire in the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker (WSM): 2 chimneys full of unlit charcoal, 3 blocks of hickory, another half chimney of unlit charcoal, all covered by 1 lit chimney’s worth of charcoal, topped off by another 3 blocks of hickory.

Once the smoker was ready, I put the ribs on for their 2.5 hour cook.

The book’s advice was to put the smallest rack in the middle of the top grate, with the two larger racks flanking it.  Because the ribs were a bit too big, I had to finagle them on there so that the lid could close.  The book advised to put the racks bone side down, which is the opposite of what I’ve done in the past, so that the meat stays tender.

After about 2.5 hours, I checked on the ribs to see if they were ready.  As you can see, they cracked when I tried to bend them with my tongs, which is perfect.

The end result?  Delicious ribs.  I usually cook spare ribs, and usually use a different rub, but this was very good.  The rub had a lot of spice and kick to it, and I enjoyed the mustard taste.  But the best thing was the SMOKE.  The ribs had good bark and a good smoke ring, and just tasted awesome.  Tender, moist, and smokey ribs.

I’m very happy that the blog is back and that I finally have my very own Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker!

I followed Gary Wiviott’s book step by step, and lesson no. 1 was smoked chicken.

The first step was to load charcoal, 2 chimneys worth, into the round charcoal holder thingy in the lowest part of the smoker:

Next, I added some hickory, and lit up some more charcoal in the chimney:

I then poured the lit charcoal on top of the unlit coals and threw on some hickory, about 6 chunks in all:

Look at the beautiful smoke:

Now, it was ready to throw some chickens on.  I went to the nearby Fiesta, which is unsurprisingly close, as I’ve been told that the realtors in this area refer to my block as “Juarez.”  I got 2 whole Tyson Chandler chickens, and cut them in half after removing the backbones, and marinated them for 6 hours with mojo criollo, which was purchased from the aforementioned Fiesta.  It’s basically a marinade of bitter oranges, garlic, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Very tasty:

This was a very easy smoke, and a great test run of my smoker.  It only took an hour and half to smoke, and I knew it was done by puncturing each breast with a fork…if you see clear juices, you are good to go.  Here’s the final product:

I can’t wait to see what else this thing can do…(read, brisket)….

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted, but man what a great place I have for you.  Katie and I were visiting family in Arizona, and we came across this place in a strip mall in Anthem.  At first, I was skeptical of Arizonan barbeque and peered down from my Texan rose-colored glasses.  In fact, I didn’t even mention it to Katie, and didn’t even think of seeing if she’d want to go.

When were shopping and starved, and Katie was wanting sweet potato fries, I found via the Google that this place indeed has SPFs.  So we stopped in.  I’m very glad we did.

This place had not been open for very long, but the smells coming out of the kitchen were unbearable.  As we were looking over the menu, the proprietor started talking to us in great length about how he started the place.  A former banker, he began going to BBQ competitions, and winning them.  He finally took the plunge with his family (his son makes a mean double cheeseburger) and opened up his own place.

We got his $25 sampler platter, which came with ribs (amazing), brisket (delicious and moist), chicken (outstanding), pulled pork (incredible), and sides.  We of course ordered the obligatory SPFs (sweet potato fries, remember? See supra).

This place is amazing and anyone going to the Phoenix area needs to make a trip.  I tried to get the owner to put himself in a bbq category, but he refused to be caged in.  He calls his ‘que a mix of Kansas City-style and his own unique Californian/Arizonan style.  Whatever it is, it is awesome.  Try the platter, but I say his pulled pork may be the best I’ve ever had.  The brisket made me smile and my stomach (at this point bulging, see below) happy.

Go there.

Now that I’m settled in at work, I’ve finally had the time to start on my odyssey of low and slow cooking. The first challenge of Gary Wiviott’s book is Mojo Criollo BBQ chicken. While chicken isn’t exactly the sexiest pick for the first dish to tackle, it is a staple that can always supplement ribs or brisket. On to the meat! The first step consisted of buying a whole chicken and decimating its very core, its structure, and its principles—the chicken’s backbone. I’ve never bought a whole chicken that hadn’t been already cooked, much less split one myself. It was…fun. I took my kitchen shears and cut done each side of the backbone, each movement accompanied with a satisfying crunch. Crunch crunch crunch and then yank! The backbone is gone, and then on to the easy part. I flipped the bird over and sliced through the breast until what once was a whole, happy bird was now sawed in two. The next step was marinading the chicken. I’ve never been much of a marinade guy, because I have never been much of a patient guy to begin with.

The recipe calls for some of the Goya brand of mojo criollo, which I’ve been told is a cuban recipe.

After a solid six hours of sitting in the fridge, it was time to fire up the Weber.

Again, lump charcoal and hickory would do the trick. This time, I arranged the most tender parts of the chicken away from the fire and let it sit there for about half an hour. It was smelling great, and this is what I saw:

After pulling the intake vents in a bit and checking the fire, I let them cook for another hour. Finally, I knew they were done when I poked them with a fork and only clear juices came out. The results:

Delicious. Smoky and tasty. Unfortunately, no real smoke ring, but it was very juicy. Maybe next time I’ll use more hickory and let them go a bit longer to try to get the ring.

The blog is not dead, folks (wish I could say the same for the Cowboys’ season). As you may know, your illustrious bbqer just started a new job and has been a bit busy trying to get adjusted. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t still love bbq, though.

Since moving to Dallas, I got really hungry one day and stopped at the original Sonny Bryan’s.

I ordered brisket and sausage, which came with sauce, and beans and slaw.

I had pretty low expectations based on a previous visit, but it was decent. At least it wasn’t Dickey’s BBQ.

The coolest thing, though, was that the Rangers game was on when we were in the ALCS. The decor inside was neat and historic looking without being fake. And, there were like 20 bikers there boozing.

Not too bad, Sonny Bryan’s, not too bad.

Yesterday was Katie’s final mini-trial of her first quarter of PC, and as a reward and by way of celebration, I decided to make her dinner. 

So, readers, you get to follow along as we make some delicious smoked pork loins. I love pork loins because they are pretty affordable (at the HEB, there’s usually two loins per package) and taste great. 

For those who have never smoked (or cooked in an oven) pork loins, there are a few things you need to know how to do. First of all, pork loins have this evil and dastardly thing called “silverskin” that blocks your rub from penetrating the meat and makes the pork loin really chewy and gross. See below for an illustration of what it looks like:

Note the large chunk of fat; under it is the long silverskin.

The first thing to do is to remove that junk. To do that, I recommend getting a paring knife (or any pointy object) and cutting in just below the fat, and lifting it up so you can get your fingers underneath. Then, just slide the knife down the loin until you lift and remove all of the fat/silverskin there. 

It should look like this:

See? No silverskin there!

Alright, after the silverskin’s gone, it’s time for our rub. I use a cajun recipe for pork loin, so I first coat the pork loins all over with dijion mustard.

After it’s fully coated, I put my rub on there.

Now, I had some pre-made cajun pork rub and also some pre-made pork rib rub, see here for recipe. Turns out that some labeling of said rubs would have been a good idea, because I put the wrong rub on. Thankfully, they have almost the same ingredients, except the rib rub has some celery seed in it that was noticeable with this batch of loins. Oh well, it tasted great. So put some rub on there:

It should look like this after it’s all on there:

Okay, now it’s time to smoke. I used Gary Wiviott’s (remember, the author of my Low and Slow book?) method for getting my Weber kettle ready. That means I put 3/4 of a Weber chimney starter of dry lump charcoal on one side of my kettle to set up a two-zone fire. I tossed a hickory chunk on top. Next, I put 1/2 of a chimney starter of lump charcoal to the fiery sword. Once that 1/2 chimney was ashed over on top, I poured that on top of the unlit charcoal and let it all get ashed. Finally, I threw another hickory chunk on top. It was time to cook.

After about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, it was up to the perfect 150-160 degree internal temperature, and I just let it sit there a while longer to get a nice smoky bark on it. Here’s how they turned out:

Look pretty good, huh?

They had a great bark on them, the inside was juicy and moist, and best of all, the smoke rings:

Here was the final result (with a bean salad as a side) for our dinner:

So, there you go! Pretty easy cook if you ask me. Try it, and let me know how it turned out. If you’ve got any questions, lemme know. Enjoy!

This was somewhat of a pilgrimage for me. Katie and I took a day off to drive down to Austin, and I was able to persuade her to let me stop in Round Rock for some ‘que.

This is a pretty famous bbq restaurant, and while the original location is in Driftwood, TX (and about an hour past Austin), this was a great place. The first thing you saw was this:

Pretty much says it all. They had tons of neatly stacked wood out back, which is a good sign, of course. 

What struck me as different was that this was a sit-down, here’s a hostess, there’s a waitress type of restaurant. I wasn’t expecting that. In fact, every bbq joint I’ve ever been to consisted of a long waiting line where you went up to the counter, ordered what you wanted, and seated yourself. This was unexpected, but actually pretty cool.

Our waitress was great—and did a good job of upselling us, by the way—and friendly. The whole place was packed on a Saturday afternoon, and football was on plasmas strewn about the restaurant.

I wanted to try a little bit of everything: brisket (obviously), pork ribs, sausage, and turkey. But what I found was that they had beef ribs (!) and also pulled pork. I thought what the hell, let’s go for it. So we ordered a bit of brisket, turkey, pork and beef ribs, sausage, great cole slaw, and sweet potato fries for the lady. Then the waitress told me how great their pulled pork was, and that I really would be amiss to skip it.

The food was awesome. I mean, awesome. Everything was pretty much perfect. The brisket was good (although it got dry quickly), the turkey was good, the pork ribs were delicious, the sausage was great, and the beef rib was an experience. But what totally stole the show was the pulled freakin’ pork. It was stellar. The best I’ve ever had (and that includes my time on the east coast). 

What was so great about it was that it was not drenched in sticky-sweet sauce like they do out east. This was not your granddad’s Carolina pulled pork. This was plain and simple pork butt smoked over hickory for hours and pulled apart with a fork. That’s it. And it was excellence. I want to make pulled pork like this.

So, in conclusion, this place is awesome. I’d recommend it to anybody ever on the I-35 corridor or heading down to Austin. I want to see the original Driftwood location (which is more like a bbq-themed Disneyland, where you can even get married), but this one did the trick.

One last thing: it’s BYOB. ‘Nuff said. 

Go there.

Since I haven’t really started using my Low and Slow book yet, but have been eating a lot of good barbeque lately, I hope I’ll be forgiven for posting extra reviews.

Today I went to a great little family-run place in Waco, off of Clay and 8^th street. Even though I lived in Waco for almost three years, I had never heard of or seen this place before. I found it on Yelp! a few times, and I finally made it there today.

I’m glad I did, because their brisket rocked.

Mamma and Pappa B’s is a tiny little shack of a place, and I almost missed it as I drove by. When I squeezed into what I hoped was a parking spot, I smiled when I saw their menu painted on the front of their concrete block building. Always a good sign—it tells you that they’re committed to what’s painted on their wall, and because their menu doesn’t change easily, they’re good at what they do. As you walk in, you can see varying lengths and widths of chopped wood in their shed, which made me happy because it seemed like a place where every day is a different challenge for the pitman, not the consistent cookie-cutter stuff that you might get at a chain.

Photo courtesy of BBQ Snob, proprietor of bbq blog Full Custom Gospel BBQ

Once inside, I was greeted by an older gentleman watching TV, and he went back around the counter and asked what I’d have. Now, I know brisket is king, and that is what I’d judge this place on, but I decided to go with a two-meat plate. I asked for sliced brisket and ribs, and they put potato salad and beans in my foam container on their own. I noticed that they had a makeshift warmer, and they had their sauce on simmer on the stove behind the man. All but one of the employees were older men, and everyone was friendly.

Without me asking, they poured some sauce on top of my sliced brisket and ribs. I wasn’t that happy about it, but I think it’s good to try a place’s food the way they like to serve it, and not ask for it to be done specially for you. That way, it’s more authentic.

I sat down and noticed that the brisket wasn’t the long slices you normally find, but about half the length of a normal slice. I dug into a rib at first, and it literally melted in my mouth and fell off the bone. The bones were almost useless, but delicious nonetheless. I didn’t really pick up much rub or much taste on the ribs, and you could tell their ribs weren’t their main specialty. About the only thing I did taste was the meat and the sweetish sauce they poured on there, which was still a good thing.

The sides were pretty decent, but then I got to the brisket. It took a few bites of it for me to really taste the smoke, but when I did, oh man. I’ve never had brisket smoked with oak. It is really, really good. It’s different from the hickory-smoked beef you usually get. It tasted richer, deeper, and just—smokier. Add to that the sweet sauce they put on it, and it was pretty great. I wished I just got a pound of beef, because it was really tasty.

After I discovered their sauce they had on the table—which I thought was another bbq sauce of theirs—I was in heaven. Tangy, spicy deliciousness that added yet another layer of flavor to the beef, and made the ribs a bit better. I found out later that they considered it hot sauce, and that they made it, but I told them it reminded me of the sauce at Arthur Bryant’s up in Kansas City.

Following the meal, I tried to get the scoop on their brisket, and the old man that had served shook his head slyly, and said they “put some herbs in there, here and there,” and gamely answered my other questions. All in all, I think the oak is what did it, and I would really recommend this place to anybody living in Waco or driving by. It’s different, and that’s good, too.

God forbid I ever go to someone’s house for the big game and find stuff like this. Baguettes? Try pulled pork and Sam Adams.