Dateline: July 19, 2020 Smoked beef ribs, hurry up style

I had taken a 4-bone package of beef ribs out of the freezer, perhaps a little too late to fully smoke on the grill.  I coated the bone side with Willy's One-Derful rub, and on the meat side, I used Detroit Barbecue Rub that a friend had given me.

This got onto the smoker around 1 pm, which meant that dinner would be pretty late.  

I pretty much just sat around outside dead-heading flowers and trimming the trees.  I would escape into the house to cool off and then go back with water in hand.  

By 6 pm, it was clear that I needed to goose up the temp if we were going to have dinner before midnight.  I pushed it up to 350° F and hoped they would not dry out.  Luckily, when the meat reached about 180° F, I was willing to pull it off and use more than our teeth to eat them!  

all rubbed and ready for smoker

Bad girls off the grill

Check out the smoke ring

They were not quite tender enough, but very tasty and thoroughly enjoyable.  Lesson learned:  you can push your smoker around, it will do what a smoker has got to do!  Get over your timetable!

We ate it with grilled corn on the cob and crunchy salad.

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.

Dateline: June 13, 2020. BURGER AWESOMENESS REVISITED AND TWEAKED

Hey Tammy and Cody, this one is for you to try on your pellet grill!

I made the burgers again, and found out some things that are important.  In the original post, I stated, that the Jamison recipe called for the cheapest grade of ground beef....

No, no, no, and another no.  The first time I made them, I had 80% ground angus beef, non-vacuum packed.  The burgers were truly spectacular.  The second time I made them, I used 80% ground beef, but vacuum packed.  The packaging is what made the big difference.  The vacuum pack of the second meat made the burgers more compact and less tender and juicy.  So yesterday, I went with the non-vacuum packed ground angus and my faith in the recipe is restored.

The tweak I made was that I did not have any canned green chilis, but I did have some chipotle adobo sauce left as I used the last pepper the night before.  Perfecto, I will use the sauce in the burgers.  I used about 3 T worth and kept the minced onion the same as the recipe.  I made more One-derful rub and coated the burgers as before.  I set the smoker up the same, and after an hour they came off the grill at the perfect temp for medium rare.  I had the second grill going for the corn, so I seared off the burgers for a bit of crust, toasted the buns, and was in heaven again.

Awesome burgers here is the link to the original posting.  That rub is good on anything, too!

Dateline: June 1, 2020 It's Brisket, Baby!

I had a big hunk of brisket, packer's cut, in the freezer.  Took it out and put it into the fridge a couple of days ago to thaw.  In reviewing my options of cooking it, today seemed like the best choice.

Went at it with a sharp knife to trim it up; removing excess fat, and any weird bits that were hanging on.  I follow Franklin Barbecue and season only with salt and pepper, in a 50-50 mixture.

After I seasoned it on the bottom side, I managed to knock the rest of the salt and pepper mixture into the sink, and needed to make more!  D'Oh!

There was a lot of fat between the flat and the deckle.  In the photo at left, the deckle is the higher part at the top right of the picture.  It is also sometimes known as the "point" cut.  In the lower left, is the flat.  

I removed quite a bit of fat and decided to freeze it for when I make sausages, or need more fat in a ground beef concoction that I am making.  

The meat is well marbled, flexible, and looked to be of a high quality.  Why is flexible a good quality?  It is an unscientific theory that a tender raw brisket will be a tender smoked brisket.  I am not sure if this is prime or choice as I ordered it from Baldor and they said there were out, but the brisket arrived in the order anyway!  The markings on the package did not indicate one way or the other.

You can see the rise to the deckle in this photo better.  There is a large vein of fat that separates the deckle from the flat.  Care is necessary in digging it out for 2 reasons.  1)  That type of fat is not the kind that will melt away during the low and slow cooking.  2)  You do not want to accidentally slice off the deckle.

I started going at the meat around 7:30 this morning, hoping that if I could get it into the smoker around 8, it would be finished by dinner time!  Into smoker around 8:20 at 200°- 220° F.

I have 3 thermometers checking temps.  1) the build in one that came with the smoker,  2) in the far mid right you can see a short probe sticking out, that is for grill level temp, and 3) one in the meat which will go in around 10 am.  

I am so stoked for this.  I am using white oak pellets that came from bourbon barrels.  I am hoping that there will be some residual flavor left on the meat.

The meat was ready earlier than I thought it would.  I had a back up plan, but luckily I did not need it!

I wrapped the brisket at about 180° F.  I then replaced the brisket in the smoker and raised the temperature to 250° F until the meat was 190°, about another hour.  All told, the brisket was on the smoker for about 11 hours.  Pretty quick for a 13 pounder!

In the kitchen, the unwrapping

The house smelled great while the meat rested and as I got the salad and stuff ready.  We ate the meat on Martin's potato buns.  I put mustard (dijon) on mine, and was in absolute heaven.  The sharpness of the mustard cut through the fattiness of the meat wonderfully.  The salad was watermelon, onion, feta, cucumber and tomato salad, dressed with sherry vinegar and olive oil

Ready to slice

Servet's only request for a cocktail was my margarita.  I had an epic fail in trying to make a molecular cocktail.  The reverse spherification didn't work well.  The freezing wasn't complete so the little blobs did not form properly, it just ended up looking like snot.  Not appetizing!

MARGARITA RECIPE

1 oz lime juice

1 oz lemon juice

2 oz triple sec

4 oz blanco tequila

6 drops Fee Brothers Foaming Liquid

1/2 oz mezcal

Put first 5 ingredients in a cocktail shaker, add ice.  Put the top on the shaker and shake until the container feels "full".

Pour into a glass with or without ice and float the mezcal on top.

I took the meat off at 190° F so that I could slice it easily.  If I let it run up to 200-205° F, it would have shredded rather than cut and would have been drier.  Upside would have been a more pronounced bark.  I can live with what I got!

The three of us were in meat comas in no time flat.  I sliced the meat before the second margarita, because I knew that sharp knives and drunken hands are not a good mix.

I pronounce the meal a great eating success!

Dinner is ready

Dateline: May 25, 2020. An Experiment that follows smoking burgers

After yesterday's epic success with the smoked burgers, I decided to try to see if the same success could be had with smoking steak.  I had 4 thin sirloin steaks from FreshDirect.  Why not experiment on these?  Grilling them would be a crap shoot and I can't remember why I ordered them in the first place!

I used the website Hey Grill, Hey as my jumping off point.  I prefer my steaks medium rare, so cooking to 140° F or more was not in the cards.  I felt that I could get the temp right with a couple of probes attached to my Smoke Temperature Control Center.  I had one probe at grill level and one in the smallest steak. 

When I had thin, what I really meant was also tiny.  These steaks were .3 and .4 of a pound, about 5 and 7 ounces.  Maybe 1/2 inch thick, maybe if they were wearing an overcoat. 

torched steak

watermelon salad

In contemplating what to do with the steak, I thought immediately of the burger rub from yesterday, but decided that I wanted to taste the steak, not the rub tonight.  So I went with salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder on an oiled steak.  Season both sides, please.

Based on the timings from Hey Grill, Hey, I figured about 30 minutes at 220° F.  It actually took about 40 minutes.  Ok, the steaks came off the grill at 130° F and I brought them inside and used my propane torch on them to brown and crisp them up.  The photo appears incinerated, but they were nicely brown.  They then went into a 120° oven to hold until dinner was served.

To accompany the steaks, I prepped earlier in the afternoon a salad of watermelon cubes, thinly sliced sweet onions, thinly sliced cucumbers, thinly sliced celery and halved cherry tomatoes on the vine.

Just before sitting down to eat, I dressed it with sherry vinegar and a good olive oil and crumbled about 3 oz. of feta cheese into the salad before tossing.

My thoughts:  the steak was very beefy, relatively tender, cooked perfectly, but left me kind of cold on the idea going forward.  I think that the biggest issue was the thinness of the steaks and the lack of intramuscular fat.  Next time I will try either a rib eye or a strip steak. 

perfect medium rare

The flavor was good, the tenderness was ok, not buttery like tenderloin, but pleasantly firm to the bite.  What came through was the beef flavor and the smoke.  I tried cutting my piece like a London Broil, (diagonal slices, against the grain) but it did not make it any tenderer.  Bill cut his up into small squares and happily ate them.  I do concur on the tiny square system of portioning the meat.

The salad was a perfect go with, juicy and satisfying, along with a bit of dessert as well.

Will I try this experiment again?  Yes, as mentioned earlier, with a fattier steak.  Conceptually, this should have been like the burgers, but because the steaks were only in the smoker for 40 minutes, there was not enough smokey flavor development.

Dateline: May 24, 2020 THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME BURGER EVER!

I have been browsing in my smoking/barbecuing/grilling cookbooks and came upon this recipe.  I made one or two slight modifications in ingredients, but technique and process was as written.

This particular book, "Smoke and Spice", by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison was one that has sat on my bookshelf for years.  This recipe spoke to me, hence I gave it a whirl.  Oh, man, oh, man, am I ever glad I did.  This had to be the BEST BURGER I have 1) ever made, 2) ever tasted!

I was unable to find a web page with the recipe, so I typed it up.  Apologies to the Jamison's.

Humdinger Hamburgers

This is the way to one-up uppity neighbors who brag about their grilled hamburgers.  Smoking make the ground meat taste like tenderloin.

Wild Willy's Number One-derful Rub 

3 T paprika, I used Hungarian

1 T ground black pepper

1 T smoked salt, (he called for just salt, I used alder smoked sea salt)

1 T brown sugar, (he called for just white sugar)

1.5 t chili powder, (I used chipotle)

1.5 t garlic powder

1.5 t onion powder

1/4 t cayenne, (I left it out because of the chipotle)

2 lb "cheapest grade" ground beef, (I used grass-fed 80-20 as it was all I could get, and used 1 lb for                the two of us)

1/2 medium onion, chopped fine

3 chopped roasted green chiles, (I used a can of Ortega chopped green chiles, 3 T)

1 t air dried shallots (my addition, not in his recipe)

Basic Beer Mop

6 oz beer

1/4 c cider vinegar

1/4 c water

2 T canola or corn oil

1/4 medium onion, chopped

1 garlic clove minced

1.5 t Worcestershire sauce

1.5 t Wild Willy's Rub from above

I did not use the mop, but in the interest of authenticity, I am including their recipe.

About 1 to 2 hours before you plan to barbecue, combine the rub ingredients in a small bowl.  In another bowl, mix together the hamburger, onion, peppers and shallots with your hands.  (Be very gentle with the meat, do not over work or your end product will be dry, my addition).  For the mixture into 4 thick patties and apply the dry rub thoroughly to all surfaces, reserving at least 1.5 t of the spice mixture for the mop.  Cover the patties with plastic and refrigerate them.

Prepare smoker for barbecuing, bringing the temperature to 200° F to 220° F.

Remove the patties from the refrigerator and let them sit at room temperature for 15 minutes.

If you plan to baste the meat, stir the mop ingredients together in a small saucepan and warm over low heat.  

Transfer the patties to the smoker and cook for about 1 hour, mopping every 20 in a wood-burning pit, or as appropriate for your style of smoker.  (I did not mop, used my pellet smoker.)

Serve the burgers on a toasted bun.  Try a bite before reaching for any optional toppings or condiments, all good but less than essential with the richly flavored meat.

(My change up, I seared the burgers in a frying pan when they reached the 135° F mark.)

I thought that this would be okay, enjoyable, but not life changing.  This really was the best burger I have ever eaten.  If you don't have a smoker, then create one and use it in your oven or buy a stovetop one.  You can thank me later!

I had pretzel buns.  Next time I will use potato rolls that are squishier.  It was really tough getting it into our mouths.  The burger is a perfect medium rare all the way through.  It was really juicy and amazingly flavorful.  It had a bit of a spice kick, and that made me happy.  I did put dijon mustard on the bun and nothing else.  Followed it up with a tomato and onion salad.  The recipe made 2 SUBSTANTIAL burgers, one just over 8 oz, and the second just over 10 oz.  You really didn't need anything other than the salad.

This is a true revelation and a keeper of a recipe.  It is fairly easy, but not quick.  Luckily, one can read, power wash the deck, have a drink, or sit in the sun, (perhaps all four).  Let me know via the comments at the end if you tried this and did it ruin all other burger experiences for you!

Dateline: May 17, 2020 Pit Beef and When Will It Be Ready?

Alabama cleaned up.  

Yesterday I pulled my smoking/barbecuing cookbooks down and scrolled through them.  I had a large piece of chuck, between 6 and 7 lbs, that needed cooking and I wanted to smoke it.  The issue was with what flavor profile.  Most of what I saw was meh.  So I decided to check around on the web and found a Serious Eats treatise on smoked chuck roast.

I generously seasoned the roast with salt and pepper and it sits in the smoker at this moment, 9 am, Sunday morning.  I am having the same smoke issues as previously noted, and am trying to solve the problem.  These are dry pellets.

Barely 45 minutes in

smoking tube 

It's now time for yoga so playing with this will have to wait until after that.  

At 11:30

At noon

This is an exciting documentation for me.  I am watching the smoke cover the meat and soon the bark will start to develop.  I put a probe into the meat and it was registering around 140° at 1 pm.  That is 4.5 hours in.  Not a bad place to be.

At 1:00

Little puffer doing ok

I am happy with the smoke production, not sure if it is the smoking tube or the pellets.  In the scope of things, it doesn't really matter!

I will need to prep the potatoes that I am going to smoke and make some cole slaw or some other salad-y accompaniment.  Possibly smoking it too!

Sun dappled and taters.  At 2:40

The meat has been hanging out at 155° for the last 2 hours.  A little too cool for the stall to hit.  I want a nice bark on it and it is starting to develop slowly.

I have been very productive today.  Not only did the meat go into the smoker at 8:15 am, but I planted all the bulbs I had remaining, found a leak in the irrigation system, repackaged the kim chee into mason jars and put into the fridge, and made a margarita base which is chilling in the fridge as well primed for a 5 pm zoom call!  I'm ready for that 'rita now!

I was going to put soil and mulch down today, but with the break in the line, I wanted to be able to find the break easily.  So mulching and soil will have to wait until after the line gets repaired.

At 3:20

At 3:30

At 4:50

At 9:40

Somewhere around 4:50, I wrapped the roast in butcher's paper, and took the potatoes off.  It was clear it was not going to be ready for dinner!  We ordered Indian from a local place, happy to support them in these crazy times.

About 7, I took the roast off the grill, shut the grill down and brought the roast into the apartment.  The oven had been preheating at 220°F and into the oven it went.  At 9:40, I stuck a fork into the meat, it offered no resistance so I removed the paper wrap but the beef on a new sheet pan and put it back into the oven for about 30 minutes to crisp the bark up.  

Looking at the latest 9:40 photo, you can clearly see the grain running up and down.  J. Kenji Lopez-Alt suggests bisecting the roast parallel to the grain and then flip each piece cut side down and slice against the grain for the tenderest meat.  It will certainly be easier doing that than slicing the whole roast against the grain.

There was plenty of juice and fatty drippings all over the removed paper.  That means that the roast is moist and not over cooked.  The last smoking I did, pork shoulder, I went by internal temp and not by tenderness.  Consequently, the meat was a bit dry.  I don't think that will happen here.  The internal temp when unwrapped was 187°F.  

I will rewrap the roast and let it come down to about 140°F before putting it to bed in the fridge.  Tomorrow will be a delicious day.

The meat cooked for 14 hours!  And it smells great!

It's tomorrow!  Yeah, we're going to have smoked meat, we're going to have smoked meat, yeah us, yeah, us!

I can't wait for dinner time.  In fact, I was so excited about dinner, I forgot to eat brekkies! And, it was close to 2 when I realized I hadn't eaten anything yet.  Left over Indian baigan bharta and jeera rice.  Delicious!

I have the components for the smoked potato salad ready.  Chopped green and red things, cucumbers, blanched green beans, cherry tomatoes, red bell pepper, red onion, parsley, and rosemary, in one bag, and in another bag are the smoked taters that have been salted and doused with vinegar.  I will combine into a single entity with some mayo that has been spiced with chipotle and smoked paprika.  My mouth is watering already, and dinner is hours away!

Here is the mixed veggies and salted smoked potato salad

The dressing consists of a couple of tablespoons of mayo, a tablespoon of dijon mustard, 2 teaspoons of the adobo sauce from canned chipotle peppers, 2 big pinches of kosher salt, lots of ground pepper, a couple of tablespoons of white wine vinegar, and half a lemon worth of juice.  Stir together, should be thin in consistency, and pour over salad and mix well to coat everything.

The beef is in the oven I am hoping to warm and crisp it up some.

All warmed up to 140°

Yum

Check out that smoke ring!

This was really good.  The outside barky pieces were chewy, but not too tough.  The inner slices were nice and tender and had enough chew to make it interesting.  Coupled with the potato veggie salad, a meal that is memorable.

Two opposable thumbs up!

Dateline: April 26, 2020 Pastrami, yes please

I found this guy on youtube PressureLuck, who does pastrami in an instant pot, in a freakin' instant pot.  So I am going to try it out for myself.  I have a nice hunk of corned beef in the fridge that I will follow his recipe with.

Ingredients

2.5 - 5 lb store bought corned beef, flat or point

Rub

3 T ground black pepper

2 T ground coriander

1 T paprika, I used smoked dolce

1 T dark brown sugar, I used chopped up jaggery

1/2 T garlic powder

1/2 T onion powder

1 t rubbed sage

1/2 t mustard powder

Rinse the corned beef very, very well, for at least 1 minute under cold water.  In your instant pot, add 1 cup of water and a trivet with handles.  Position the beef with fat cap up into the instant pot and set to pressure cook on high for 1 hour.

When the hour is up, use a 15 minute natural release, then remove the meat and pat dry. Let the meat rest for approximately 10 minutes so that it is cool to the touch.

Put all rub ingredients into a bowl, jar, receptacle of some kind, and mix or shake to combine well.

Put the rub on a plate that is large enough to hold the whole piece of meat.

Place meat onto plate, fat cap down, and press into the rub.  Flip the meat over, and cover completely with the rub.  Get into any valleys or divots.  The rub is what provides the pastrami taste.  

Cut 2 pieces of aluminum foil.  Place the rub-covered meat into the center and wrap tightly.  Wrap a second time so that juices or spices do not escape.

Refrigerate for minimum of 12 hours or up to a maximum of 2 days.

An hour before you are going to cook the pastrami in the oven, remove it from the fridge and leave on the counter.  Set oven to 275° F with rack in the center, and a second rack with a drip pan below.  Remove outermost foil piece, and keep the meat on the other piece.  Using the foil around the meat, make a basket like structure to leave the top exposed, but there are foil sides to catch the drippings.  

Let cook at this temperature for 1 hour.  Remove from oven and place brisket on a cutting board and let rest for 10 minutes before cutting.  

Please slice against the grain into however thick or thin you want.  A very sharp knife is essential.

so much promise

slices

waiting for the bread to be done

So yummy.  You've got to try!


Note:  Next time I do this, I will hunt for a point corned brisket.  The extra fat will help keep everything really juicy. 

Dateline: April 20, 2020 Steak, Steak, baby

I asked Bill a question, a simple one, really, "What would you like for dinner?  Steak or Chicken?"
"STEAK" came back the reply in a nanosecond!

So out came the sous vide circulator, a plastic bin, 2 strip steaks from the freezer, and the propane torch.  All set for a post zoom call dinner.

I used the Joule app timing suggestions for strip steaks about 1.5 inches thick and cooked to 129°F.  Exactly 1.5 hours once the water had heated up.  That gave me time to season the steaks with salt, pepper, and garlic powder before vacuum sealing them.  I took the steaks out of the freezer earlier in the day and they were thawed when I put them into the water at around 5:00 pm.  It really doesn't matter, if they were frozen, you could still cook them sous vide but you would need about 2 hours.

I love cooking steaks sous vide.  There is no guessing about temperature, no unnecessary poking of the meat with a thermometer to check temperature, it's easy peasy and fool proof.  You can reverse sear them if you'd like.  You would do this especially if you didn't have a blow torch.  Come to think of it, you could do it even if you did have a torch.  I prefer to use a torch.  I get a nice brown coat on the exterior of the steak without the brown ring on the interior.  I have grown to hate that damn ring.

after torching

cut and you can see, no ring!

To round out the steak dinner, I made potatoes "baked" in the microwave, 5 mins in a brown paper bag, turn bag over, 5 more minutes, perfect baked potatoes! And I made asparagus and broccoli with onions, garlic, hot pepper flakes, chicken stock and a bit of pancetta and a few toasted pine nuts.  Finishing the meal with a salad of onions, tomatoes, celery and cucumbers dressed with sherry vinegar and Spanish olive oil

veggie

salad

Dinner was absolutely perfect.  The perfect amount of meat, Bill and I split one of the steaks about 1/3, 2/3 along with baked potato, veggies and salad....I will not eat until breakfast tomorrow!  Well, maybe some fruit later tonight!

If you have never cooked sous vide, I strongly suggest you visit Sous Vide Everything.  This YouTube channel is great.  It is 3 guys conducting experiments cooking various foods using the sous vide method.  Not only is it informative, it is hilarious.  These guys taught me not to fear sous vide and to relish the torch!  I have cooked lots of stuff using the sous vide method.  You do not need a vacuum sealer, you can use the water displacement method and everything will be fine.

In fact, the new 8 quart duo crisp instant pot has a sous vide function.  So you don't need a circulator either.  I have only used the instant pot to make yogurt using the sous vide function.  Most sous vide circulators now have an accompanying app to help you choose temperatures and time lengths that suit your tastes.  Chef Steps is a great app for figuring things out with this technique.

Be fearless and experiment!  What have you got to lose?  One iffy meal?  Small price to pay in order to expand your horizons!

Cheers.