Fall Fruit with Vanilla Sauce & Amaretto Sabayon

Following a trip to Honey Pot Hill Orchards in Stow, MA, I now have two bushels of various apples and pears. I had just seen an episode of Take Home Chef the other day, and, inspired by one of the desserts on there, decided to put some of my freshly picked fruit to good use.

I started with a couple of nice bosc pears and cortland apples, along with 3 stalks of rhubarb (about a half pound or so), and 1 Madagascar vanilla bean. I know that rhubarb is technically a vegetable, but you can technically kiss my fat ass.
Cut the pears and apples into pieces, obviously avoiding the core. The rhubarb should be split down the middle and cut into five or six inch long sticks. You're supposed to split the vanilla bean, scrape out the insides, and toss the insides and the rest of the bean in, but my bean was like 3 years old and all dried out, do I just broke it into pieces. Throw that along with about 3/4 cup of sugar and 1/2 stick of melted unsalted butter together in your baking dish.Toss this into the oven, which has been preheated to 350 degrees for 25-45 minutes, or until everything is nice and tender. You'll notice that the fruit juices, sugar, butter, and vanilla have combined to make a delicious sauce.
Next comes the sabayon sauce. The original recipe called for grand marnier, but I only have cheap triple sec at the house. So I used some of this goodness instead:The sabayon sauce, while it has a fancy name, is actually pretty easy to make. We only need 4 egg yolks, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup amaretto, and a couple tablespoons of water. You'll notice that the sugar is in a stainless steel bowl. There is good reason for this - we need to cook this sauce over a low, gentle heat, or we'll end up with sweet scrambled eggs. Place your metal bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Commence whisking like crazy for the next 5-10 minutes.If you didn't fuck anything up, your sugary, alcohol-laden egg yolks will have magically transformed into a delicious sabayon.Spoon some of your fruit (with the vanilla sauce) into a bowl, and top with your sabayon.

Brisket

I know I said Labor Day was my last BBQ excursion of the season, but since I'm recently unemployed, I have some free time during the day. What better excuse to cook up some brisket?

Brisket is the chest muscle of the cow. It's tough and dry if cooked improperly. But if cooked low and slow with a little bit of effort, it is one of the things that defines true BBQ. Since I live in MA, finding a whole brisket is pretty rare, which is why I'm cooking with just the flat cut. I was lucky enough to find one with a nice layer of fat on top, which will keep this fucker nice and moist. The benefits of using just the flat cut is that it's easier to slice (since it only has 1 grain), and it will take half as long as a whole brisket (which can sometimes take 24+ hours). On the down side, a whole brisket has a nice layer of fat between the point and flat, which keeps everything juicier.

I don't like to use sugar on beef, so I made a quick rub consisting of 3 parts kosher salt to 1 part each of black pepper and garlic powder.

For good measure, I dusted a little habanero powder on top. I try to avoid using generic "chili powder" blends, since it often has extra salt and other crap, when all I want is the ground chiles.

I'm using my usual hardwood lump charcoal and oak logs as my main fuel source, and beer-soaked hickory chunks for flavor. My drip pan is filled with water, a cup or so of Pepsi, and about a half cup of Southern Comfort. This will add a little flavor to the meat, while keeping the cooking environment nice and moist. I don't plan on opening the lid on my smoker for at least 6 hours. I'll keep an eye on my temperature inside the cooking chamber, adding fuel and playing with the dampers to keep it in the 200-225 range. Ever hour I'll add 4-6 chunks of hickory.

Here we are 6 hours in, and it's looking great. I tried to rotate it, and it almost fell apart on me.

As you can see, we're not quite up to temp.

45 minutes later, and we're at a healthy 192 degrees (sorry, no pic). We're going to wrap it in some heavy duty foil to seal in all those wonderful juices.

We're then going to place it into a foil pan, and cover THAT with foil, then place everything into a cooler (note for retards: don't put ice in the cooler) for another 3 hours (just in time for supper). The brisket will continue to get even more tender and juicy as it cooks with this residual heat.

Here it is, in all it's glory - take note of the sexy smoke ring...





I decided to make a Texas-style "doctored" sauce to go along with this. I took the drippings left in the foil from the brisket......and mixed it with half a bottle of beer.This went into a saucepan over medium heat.To this, I added 1 cup of one of my favorite commercial BBQ sauces, Sweet Baby Ray's
Then, 3/4 cup of apple cider vinegarFinally, 1 TBSP of the rub we used on the brisketLet it all simmer and get more delicious.

I tried to keep it classic with my sides: white bread, dill pickles, and our sauce. Some places like to use saltines as well, but I didn't have any. This seems kind of weird, but if you think about it, the bland bread and cracker, and the vinegary pickles and BBQ sauce cut through the richness of the beef.

Commence Drooling...

Labor Day BBQ Extravaganza

BBQ season is coming to a close (at least up here in Mass) - as is usually my habit, I go a little crazy with the smoker on Labor Day weekend. In my previous post, you saw that I smoked up the bacon - we also had some kickass ribs, pork shoulder, and my first attempt at a (half) bone-in leg of lamb.

I'm self-taught when it comes to BBQ - New England isn't exactly known for it's great BBQ, but I'd like to think that I do this time-honored tradition of cooking some justice, even if it is coming from a "Yankee".

First, the rub - for a while, I've been using a rub from Steven Raichlen, which has about 20 different ingredients in it. I wanted to make my own recipe, so this is what I came up with:

1/2 cup smoked kosher salt
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp. (packed) light brown sugar
3 Tbsp. Paprika
2 Tbsp. black pepper
1 Tbsp. garlic powder
1 Tbsp. dry mustard
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. habanero powder

I watched a special on the Food Network about the famous Kreuz market in Texas, and they only use salt and pepper on their meats. I'll experiment with this by only using salt and pepper on one rack of ribs.

First, let me introduce our supporting cast:

The smoker (complete with rusted exterior and broken car next to it to add to the white trash ambiance)
The fuel - hardwood lump charcoal and oak logs for our main fuel source; hickory chunks and applewood chips (soaked in beer) for flavoring smoke. Not pictured are drip pans inside the smoker, filled with a mixture of beer, water, and little apple juice.
Now, onto the featured players:

The Lamb

We have half of a bone-in leg of lamb, weighing approximately 6 pounds - you'll notice that slits have been cut throughout it, with whole cloves of garlic inserted. There are about 15 of these all together. I've also rubbed the outside with half a lemon - this gets rid of the funky odor lamb can sometimes have.
This isn't traditional BBQ, so pay attention kids - we're going to take some fresh thyme and rosemary...
...and chop the hell out of it.
Rub it all over the meat along with a little canola oil, kosher salt, and pepper. Work it in real good, so it sticks to the meat.
We're actually going to sear the outside of this bad boy before we smoke it at 225 degrees. The grate I had to go over the firebox was all rusted, so I covered it in foil.
The Butt

Boston Butt, aka pork shoulder. I prefer this cut to the picnic roast, since it doesn't have a rind, and has less bone. Here it is with our rub applied. Pork shoulder is the best cut for the beginner, since it is almost impossible to fuck up. It has lots of fat and connective tissue, that leaves the meat super moist and tender. You can basically toss it in the smoker and leave it as long as you like. You'll know when it's done when you can twist the bone around and pull it out without any resistance - the meat will be falling apart at this point.

The Ribs

I only cook with baby back ribs. I cleaned out the freezer, and had 10 racks in total, which was way too much, but it was thawed, so I had to cook them. I made extra space by using rib racks and stacking them on top of one another. To prepare the ribs, I remove the membrane from the back of the ribs using a wooden skewer to loosen the membrane, and a paper towel to get a grip on it while I'm ripping. This is a major pain in the ass.

The Details

Here's the deal - put all the meat in there, and keep the heat between 200-225 degrees, adding coal and/or logs as needed. Add a chunk or two of hickory and a handful of applewood chips every hour or so. I've messed around with all sorts of mops, squirts, and other things to keep the meat moist, but the best thing I've found is - DON'T OPEN THE GODDAMN COOKING CHAMBER! Ever time you open that to spray your shit down, you're losing between 50-100 degrees. By filling my drip pans with plenty of liquid, I'm keeping the chamber moist, without opening it up, losing heat and flavorful smoke.

How long does it take? Long enough to drink most of these:You're waiting until the ribs are tender and the bone can be pulled out with relative ease, which is in the neighborhood of 5-6 hours. I like my ribs dry, but feel free to apply your favorite sauce or glaze. BTW, the salt and pepper ribs were a little too salty, so I'll stick with my rub for now.

The lamb isn't going to fall apart like a pork shoulder, so we only need to cook that until around 145 degrees (for med. rare). This only took about 3 hours. This tasted awesome, but I paid for a lot of bone in this bitch - next time I'll go with a boneless leg of lamb.

The pork shoulder can go for a long ass time. It's safe to eat at 160 degrees, but you need to get it in the 190-200 degree area if you want this to fall apart (you can see where the meat actually fell apart when I picked it up with my tongs). Some people like to wrap it in foil and sit it in a cooler for another 12 hours, but I don't have that type of patience. You can shred it with your hands or with a couple of forks, but I like to whack the shit out of it with and chop it up with a cleaver. Mix it with a little cider vinegar (or BBQ sauce - I actually prefer a mustard-based BBQ sauce with my pulled pork), and serve.



There you have it, some Bay State BBQ

Homemade Bacon!

I made the trip to Kam Man Market in Quincy, MA with one goal in mind - pork belly. I read a thread on the OG linking to someone's blog who had attempted to make homemade bacon. It seems easy enough - cure it, smoke it, slice it, fry it, and eat it. I've got plans to use the smoker this Labor Day Weekend anyhow, so why not try some delicious homemade bacon?

Kam Man didn't have any whole pork bellies left (at least that's what I believe me and the butcher concluded after 5 minutes of pointing and grunting to each other), so I had to settle for 3-inch thick slices. There's some bone in it, which I don't think is supposed to be there, but it should only add flavor while it's curing and cooking - I'll remove it afterwards. I had 6 slabs, each weighing about a pound.
My cure comprised of light and dark brown sugar, kosher salt, black pepper, and (my homemade) smoked salt. I only had about 3/4 cup of the smoked salt, so I used that plus 1/4 cup of plain kosher salt. I added 1/2 cup each of the light and dark brown sugar, and about 2 tablespoons of black pepper.

For the maple flavored bacon, I added some good ol' Stop and Shop maple syrup - I'm not sure how much, but enough to coat.

I wrapped each section tightly in plastic wrap, bagged & tagged them, and tossed them in the fridge. I'll turn them every day or so for a week.

Initial Concerns:

1. Since these are small slabs, I might over-cure the bacon, and end up with pork jerky.
2. I used too much maple syrup on the maple-flavored bacon, washing off a lot of the salt, which will lead to a lack of curing.
3. I'll fuck this up and be shitting blood for the next two weeks.

We're only 5 days in, and the meat has released a good amount of liquid, and the texture has firmed up quite a bit. I didn't bother taking a pic, since it's more of a "touch" thing that you wouldn't be able to see. I'm not sure if it's possible to over-cure bacon, but to be safe, I'm going to rinse the cure off early Friday morning, instead of Friday night as I had intended. Smoking day will be Saturday, since I'm going to be BBQing by balls off all day all day anyhow.

Friday morning, it was time to rinse off the cure - it's been seven days, and the bacon has released quite a bit of liquid, it's firm to the touch, and there isn't any sort of smell, like there would if you left any other form of raw pork in the fridge for a week.
After the rinse, I made sure they were good and dry, and put them on a rack above a sheet pan. We need to let these bad boys sit uncovered in the fridge for 12-24 hours. This will make the meat nice and tacky, which will help adhere the smoke to it.


A side view - I couldn't get all that black pepper off, but tough titties......


It's Saturday (day 8 for those counting at home), and the smoker is already at a lovely 225 degrees. As you can see, I had to make some room for the pork belly - I need a bigger smoker. I'm using oak and lump charcoal as my main fuel, with beer-soaked applewood and hickory for flavor. The goal is to smoke this until we reach an internal temperature of 150 degrees - this only took two hours because these were thin slabs. I would have preferred this take a little longer in order to make it a little smokier.

Here they are once off the smoker - we remove the skin (and in my case, the bony section), and slice it somewhat thin. My carving skills suck, so they're pretty thick (and uneven).
Since we hot-smoked, the bacon is technically fine to eat right now. However, I think some time in the frying pan would be advisable.
And there you have it. The thicker slices allow you to crisp the hell out of the outside, and still have a slight chew in the center. I'm not gonna lie - I was nervous that this wasn't going to work out, but I'll be damned if this isn't some of the best bacon my fat ass has ever consumed.

Some quotes from those who've feasted on this porky splendor....

It's really yummy
~My 3 year-old niece, who doesn't like anything

Holy shit
~My father

It's a little on the salty side, which might be a result of over-curing. You've also gotta remember that I'm not using at phosphates, nitrates, or any other funky shit in this, just salt and sugar. The maple flavor really didn't penetrate the bacon, but it's still goddamn delicious.

So there you have it - homemade bacon