Not so Texas-style Smoked Brisket

Find Minnesota on a US map and start moving your eyes south down the middle of the country. They say that once you get to around Mountain Grove, Missouri, the brisket starts getting better. By the time you reach Houston, it gets real good, or so the saying goes.


At my neighborhood grocery store in Houston, I was eyeing the brisket in the meat case for a Texas-style culinary adventure when a guy wearing a turquoise ring, three-day stubble and wife beater shirt struck up a conversation. He started pointing to the fat on the bottom of the meat referring to it as the “marble” and how much that adds to the finished product. All this thing needed was a half a day on a low heat fire with dudes drinking a rack of Lone Star beer, and it would be good to go, Mr. Turquoise said.



What I ended up doing was just about as simple (and still involved the rack of Lone Star), but involved a cross of grill time and oven time. Oven time? Mr. Turquoise and his smoking buddies would gasp at this un-Texas blasphemy. When it comes down to it though, the taste is all the matters. This recipe, compliments of Cook’s Illustrated combined with an inflection of Nark-style love, yields a hunk of tender meat that avoids the typical pitfalls of stringy dry brisket.

This recipe is to be done on a charcoal grill. It takes about an hour to two hours to marinate followed by 5 to 5 1/2 hours of cooking time.


The Meat
1 brisket

The Dry Rub
1/4 cup paprika
2 tablespoons of each of the following spices
chili powder
cumin
brown sugar
salt
1 tablespoon of the following
dried oregano
white sugar
ground black pepper
cayenne pepper

1) Rub the dry rub liberally all over the brisket. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours. I have marinated for as little as 30 min. and it still turns out great.



2) During this time, soak wood chunks for meat smoking in water for an hour. This is important. A quicker solution is you can get wood chips, wrap in foil and poke about six holes in it.

3) Light a chimney half full with charcoal briquettes (I strongly advocate Kingsford briquettes, which last longer and burn evenly). Once the charcoal is covered in a layer gray ash, empty them into the grill, stacking on one side of the grill. Keep the bottom vent open. Put the grate on and the lid for 5 minutes to sanitize. After this is done, put the wood chips on top of the charcoal pile.



4) Put the brisket fat side up on the side of the grill opposite the fire. Put the lid on the fire with the lid vent open. The vent should face opposite the coals to draw smoke across the meat. Barbecue without removing the lid for two hours (I am serious when I say don’t remove the lid). The temperature should drop by about 100 degrees to 250 degrees during this time.

5) After nearly two hours, preheat oven to 300 degrees. Attach two pieces of foil together by folding the long edges together a few times crimping tightly to seal. Put the brisket lengthwise in the center of the foil and wrap together. Place the brisket on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake for another 3 or 3.5 hours until the meat is tender.

6) Remove brisket from the oven, loosen the foil and one end to release steam, and let rest for 30 mins.

7) Put brisket on a cutting board and slice ACROSS THE GRAIN. Seriously, after all the work you want to make sure you cut across the grain in thin slices. Take some of the juice from the brisket and mix with some barbecue sauce to serve with the brisket.



--nark

The Big Chili

WARNING! This is not a recipe for Texans. I have to say that right away. If you were born in Texas, please save your fingers the work of writing me to complain and go make your grandpa's chili--I know it's delicious, and you know you'll eat it without complaint. In the mean time, let the rest of the union enjoy the bean and tomato chilis of our fathers. (Yeah, I've had one too many lunchroom arguments about what makes a "true" chili. . .)



This comes from allrecipes.com, which, if you don't know, is a pantheon of recipes from home cooks across the country. The title is Boilermaker Tailgate Chili, which is enough to make the Hawkeye in me puke. I'm looking for a better name right now, but I haven't found a better chili recipe. Here it is:


The Meat
2 pounds ground beef chuck
1 pound bulk Italian sausage

The Rest
**This IS obscenely long, I agree, but if you cook often you'll probably have most of these things. If not, you'll have a good start on a spice rack**

3 (15 ounce) cans chili beans, drained
1 (15 ounce) can chili beans in spicy sauce
2 (28 ounce) cans diced tomatoes with juice
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
1 large yellow onion, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
2 green chile peppers, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon bacon bits
4 cubes beef bouillon
1/2 cup beer
1/4 cup chili powder
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 (10.5 ounce) bag corn chips
1 (8 ounce) package shredded Cheddar cheese

Putting it together
Brown the meats, drain, and put them in a really, really big crockpot. Then add all the rest, except for the chips and cheese.

Stir well and be careful! If you are clumsy, get someone else to do this for you or be prepared to clean up--the crockpot will be on the verge of overflowing.



Let the pot cool on the counter top for about 20 minutes, then cover and place in the fridge overnight.

When you wake up the next morning, start cooking the chili on low. When 6 p.m. rolls around, serve in warm bowls with chips and cheese. To avoid using up every container in your home to store the leftovers, invite over 10 people and enjoy!




-jaf

p.s. This goes really well with darker beers, especially Furthermore's 3 Feet Deep if you can find it.

The Kraut

One of my first cooking disasters occurred in 7th grade. A buddy and I were totally bored one summer afternoon and wanted something to snack on while we waited for American Gladiators to come on.

Problem is, my friend's mom is something of a health nut and all they had were triscuits and low fat mozzarella--and a can of kraut at the back of the fridge. So we did what kids do: we made a Super Dish.

We piled the cheese and kraut onto those triscuits as high as we could, which was pretty tall considering we had a 32 oz can of kraut to deal with. Then, of course, we topped it with hot sauce, nuked it and devoured the entire plate.



Ten hours later, my buddy and I were still sick. I'd been raised on brats with kraut--I ate probably two or three every Sunday since I've had teeth to chew with--and was no stranger to kraut's tangy deliciousness. But until that day, I was not familiar with the havoc "Atomic Triscuits" can wreak on a young body. This is an important life lesson, parents--let the kids play with their food until they get sick. It teaches limits.

Last night, though, I took a much more grown up approach to cooking with kraut. I took a big shoulder roast and cut a large diagonal pouch into it. Then I stuffed the pouch with drained kraut.




Then I put the whole thing into a crock pot, covered it with the leftover kraut, and sprinkled brown sugar over the top. Then I slept while it cooked.

This had to be one of the weirdest looking things I've ever cooked--looked like a giant festering wound. . .with sauerkraut spilling out of it. Hot, I know.





But for as unappetizing as it looks, this finished product was incredible and couldn't be easier. And for those of you who are kinda "uhh" about the taste of kraut, the meat isn't terribly krauty at the end--just juicy and rich.

The Meat
1 5 lb Pork shoulder roast (aka Butt, Butt roast, Boston Butt, Shoulder Butt, etc)

The Rest
1 32oz jar of sauerkraut, drained
2 tbsp of brown sugar

Putting it all together
Cut a 5 inch diagonal pouch into your roast, making sure not to poke through the bottom or out the sides. Then, using your fingers, spread the pouch open and stuff it with kraut.

Put the kraut-stuffed butt into your slow cooker and top with the additional kraut. Sprinkle the sugar over the top, cover, and cook on low for 9 hours.

Remove the roast and let it sit for about ten minutes. Then, try to slice it. If it's too shreddy, don't worry. Just shred the thing and put it on kaiser rolls. This goes really well with mashed potatoes, green beans and warm applesauce. Enjoy!




-jaf

Pork Butt

When I told the lady friend we'd be eating pulled pork butt, she thought it was a bad joke. I'm sure she saw visions of little piggies getting dragged to the butcher to have their tails yanked off. Or whatever.

But no, pork butt doesn't really come from the pig's hind quarters. It's actually from the shoulder area. Think of it as the place where the leg butts up against the rest of the pig. Some butchers avoid the confusion by giving this cut a different name. Boston roast, shoulder roast, and shoulder blade roast are common synonyms, and for our purposes, any of these will do.

Just like the beef, the pork butt is marbled with fat which will flavor the meat and help keep it moist throughout its cooking time. The recipe below is for the crock pot, but look for a grill recipe from nark in the weeks to come.

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

The pork:
1 5-8 lb. butt

The rest:
salt and pepper
14 oz beef broth
1/4 c coffee or liquid smoke
1 big bottle (30 oz or more) of BBQ sauce
(I used Sweet Baby Ray's because it's, uh, sweet. But use your favorite.)
1/2 red onion sliced
bread and butter pickles
a package of rolls

Put it all together:

If you have a boneless butt, cut it into 3 parts. Rub the butt on all sides with salt and pepper and place it in the slow cooker. Add the beef broth and the coffee (or liquid smoke--follow instructions on the bottle). Then cover and cook on low for about 8 to 9 hours.

After 8 hours or so, strain the juices and put the meat back in the crockpot. DO NOT JUST POUR THE JUICES DOWN THE DRAIN!!! Sorry for the e-yelling, but please, save the juices; they're good for gravy, for reheating the meat, for stock, for soups, for whatever. Save the juices.

Once the meat's back in the pot, add 1/2 the bottle of bbq sauce and a cup or two of the juices and keep cooking on low for another hour. Serve the pork on rolls, top with red onion and pickles and maybe just a smidge more bbq sauce, and you're set. Enjoy!



-jaf

The Beef

For the longest time, I ignored those big, fatty chunks of meat that filled the lower shelves of the meat aisle in the store. Besides, when you're in school or on the clock, who has time to sift through chucks and tips and rumps, make sense of it all , and then figure out what the heck to do with it? Give us hamburger in a tube, daggonit. We know what to do with that! (keep your eyes peeled for a future post about 80/20 tube beef)

I didn't know then what I know now. All big cuts swathed in fat make huge amounts of food with almost no effort. A four or five pound chuck roast will yield enough meat for 2 people to eat on for days.

The cut you use isn't really as important as what you do with it: you need a big hunk of meat and you need to cook it a LONG time. For those of you who know what you're looking for, use your favorite stew beef. If you count yourself among the clueless--Hi! Welcome to the club. There's a lot of us. . .--ask someone who works in the meat section to recommend a cheap roast. You'd be surprised how happy most meat counter guys are to help out with this.

To get you started, here's a recipe for shredded beef sandwiches:

The beef:

1 3 to 5 lb beef roast

The rest:
3 c beef broth
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp dried basil
2 packages of dried Italian seasoning (look near the salad dressings at the store)

Putting it together:
put the broth and all "the rest" into a pot and stir. Bring to a boil. Set the beef in the slow cooker and pour the liquid mixture over the beef. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.

After 8 hours, remove the beef and shred it with forks; keep the juices in the crockpot. Put the beef back in the crock pot and cook on low for another 1 to 3 hours.

Serve the beef on rolls and enjoy!

-jaf

Pot Pie

Last night, I made a chicken pot pie with the most delicious gravy. The chicken was all-dark meat leftovers from a bird that I slow-cooked on Sunday. Add in a couple carrots, some celery and whip up some gravy, and you got yourself a good meal (with leftovers!) Sometimes I get really excited about a dish and try to capture it for posterity's sake; this was such a meal. After the lady friend and I ate our fill, I snapped this shot.


Try it out.

Filling:
1 lb. of dark meat leftovers
1 c chopped carrots
1 c frozen peas
1 c chopped celery
1/2 of an onion, chopped

Gravy:
5 tbsp butter
1/2 onion, diced
1/3 cup flour
1 tbsp black pepper
1/2 tbsp salt
1 3/4 cup of chicken broth (dissolve a cube of boullion for concentrated chickenness)
2/3 cup milk, at room temperature

Other:
2 pie crusts
additional chicken broth (to cover veggies while cooking)

To cook the filling:
put carrots, peas, and celery in a saucepan and cover with the additional broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Add the chicken and cook for 5 more minutes. Drain, set aside. Meanwhile, prep the bottom crust by pre-baking in a 425 degree oven for 8-10 minutes.


For the gravy:
melt the butter over med heat and add the onions. Cook until translucent. Add the flour, salt and pepper and stir. Slowly stir in the milk and broth, allowing the flour mix to soak up as much liquid as possible. Finally, once all the milk and broth are incorporated, simmer over slightly reduced heat until thick, stirring occasionally to keep the mix from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

This got poured over the pot pie, but it would go just as well over mashed potatoes, chicken fried steak or fresh biscuits (add in browned ground sausage for that "clog the arteries" goodness).


Put it all together:
put the filling in the pre-baked crust, and pour the gravy mix over the top. carefully place the second crust over the mix and crimp down the edges. Bake for 30-40 minutes until the top is golden brown. Let it sit a few minutes before serving, then enjoy!

-jaf