Dateliine: June 21, 2020 Happy Father's Day, Happy Summer, Happy Smoked Beef

I defrosted a big ole hunk of chuck roast last night to smoke today.  I have outlined this in a previous post, Pit Beef.

I seasoned everything the same with a 50/50 mixture of salt and pepper only.  Put the meat into the smoker by 7:45 am and removed it from the smoker at 6:45 PM.  A neat 11 hours.  What was different?  This was much juicier than the first one because 1)  I did not put it into the oven to attempt to get it up to 200° F.  I took it off the smoker at about 187-190° F and 2)  I wrapped it earlier as the stall seemed to be happening at about 150° F, so I wrapped in butcher's paper about 3 o'clock when the temp was stuck at 152° for over an hour.  

I unwrapped the beef around 6 pm putting the beef onto a sheet pan and pouring the juices and fat from the paper into the pan as well.  The chuck went back onto the smoker and I jacked the heat to 350° to firm up the outer crust.  The pan and the beef came into the house and the beef was put on a board to rest and the sheet pan was put to the side.

To go with this I made yucca with peas and a side of green beans.  I had a particularly inspired idea when it came to the yucca.  I drained the fat from the sheet pan, leaving all of the yummy salty beefy bits and then tossed the yucca and peas in these yummy bits.  Absolutely genius!  Yucca is very plain, so this really amped it up.

A plate full of goodness

Yucca

1.5 lbs frozen yucca, thawed

1 12 oz package of fresh english peas

1 large onion, peeled

6 or 7 cloves of garlic, minced

1 qt chicken stock

salt and pepper

avocado oil

Method

1.  Slice the onion in half and cut parallel to the root end into 1/8-1/4 inch slices

2.  Heat a large sauce pan and add a film of avocado oil.  Add onion slices and some salt and pepper,  Saute until they start to soften up.  Add the minced garlic and continue to saute.

3.  Quarter each piece of yucca and try to remove the strings as much as possible.  It may be easier to do that after it has boiled.  Add to the pot and add chicken stock.  Stir to coat and add salt and pepper.  Put a lid on the pot, but keep it ajar to allow for some evaporation.

4.  Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer until yucca is tender and cooked through.  Add the peas.

5.  Drain the fat from the sheet pan that held the beef and juices.  Add yucca to the pan and stir around to coat each piece.

The beef was very tender and held together quite well during slicing.  It was very moist as well.  

So what did I learn?

1.  Wrap the beef at the start of the stall and let it ride slowly through those 10-15°.  Wrapping kept the meat moist as well.

2.  When a fork, or probe, goes into the meat without resistance, it is done.  Don't worry if the temp is not what you believe it should be.  The meat is talking to you, keep cooking it and you will squeeze all of the juice out of the meat and it will be dry and jerky like.

3.  Unwrap the meat, but let it stay in the butcher's paper so you retain all of those juices.  They will add a wonderful dimension to any side dish you are making.  This will also allow the crust to firm up again.