Salute to Meat 2018: Cooking Without A Net

Posted on July 27, 2018 by David Marcus

When we last left our pork shoulders they were resting comfortably on the Big Green Egg, having gone on at 5:30 at 225. They were up to 171 at bedtime, but I was pretty sure they wouldn’t go through their stall overnight.

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The two pork butts, just off the smoker. They rendered down to just over 16 pounds, from 18.

Sure enough, at 6 a.m. they were still at 179, and didn’t hit 190 until almost 9 a.m. They pulled beautifully.

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Both butts pulled, ready for Elder Ward’s North Carolina-style vinegar sauce.

The sauce is simple, and the recipe is readily available, but here it is:

  • 1 C white vinegar
  • 1 C cider vinegar
  • 1 Tbs. sugar (raw sugar, if you have it)
  • 1 Tbs. cayenne pepper
  • 1 Tbs. Tabasco sauce
  • 1 tsp. kosher salt
  • 1 tsp. cracked black pepper

Makes 2 Cups

The recipe and Elder Ward’s entire treatise on smoking pork butt is entertaining to read. It’s here: http://www.nakedwhiz.com/elder.htm.

Anyway, the pulled pork shoulder is now sauced and in the fridge. We’ll warm it in the crock pot tomorrow so it’s ready by 4 p.m.

I’ve decided to do the roast pork belly on the Egg, since I have a little grill time and we have things to do in the kitchen this afternoon.

Pork belly, rubbed and ready to rest, then roast

This is 10 pounds of pork belly, rubbed with a mix of garlic powder, cayenne, raw sugar, paprika, salt and cumin. It’ll rest in the fridge for an hour, then into a hot oven for 15 minutes to start melting the top fat, and finally onto a 325-degree grill for about 3 hours.

It’ll start at 500 degrees in the oven, which will melt a little of the top fat, and then I’ll take it out to the Egg. It’ll go at 325 for its entire cook. After 90 minutes I’ll throw a beer into the drip pan underneath, even though I don’t think it’ll need that in the Egg.

This will be my first time cooking it outdoors; all the other times it’s been just in the oven.

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Salute to Meat 2018: The Cooking Starts

Posted on July 26, 2018 by David Marcus

It always starts with the pulled pork.

Saturday's pulled pork

Two, 9-pound boneless pork shoulders from Costco, rubbed and ready to go on the Big Green Egg. I will shape them properly when they go on, for even cooking.

There’s 18 pounds of boneless shoulder on the Egg, with a full load of Rockwood lump and a chunk of hickory the size of a small child’s arm. There are two of them, on top of each other on what’s called an adjustable rig, a contraption that allows tiered cooking on the BGE.

There is a book, and a movie from it, called “God is My Copilot,” but this weekend my copilot is the BBQ Guru CyberQ, a device that allows me to keep the Egg’s temperature, and my sanity, constant.

It is a little computer with a web server that plugs in outside and runs a small fan that attaches to the draft door at the bottom of the Egg. With the help of a temperature probe that attaches to the grill inside the Egg, it will adjust the draft so as to keep a constant 225 degrees. Additional probes go in the meat to tell me how they’re doing. The web server lets me monitor the temperatures on my computer or my phone.

This thing alone has given me the ability to have fun at my parties when I’m smoking something on the Egg, and to sleep when I’m cooking something overnight. It even has a ramp feature that lowers the temperature when the meat temp gets close to done.

Of course, it’s cheating. I don’t care. I want my party, and I want to sleep. I have enough stress in my life.

I put the shoulders on the Egg at 5:30, not quite two hours ago. The temp on them is already over 100 degrees, but I know they have at least 10 hours left in them, and probably close to 14. I never wrap them, or brisket either, to get them through the stall, and it can be several hours long.

Time to think of something else for a while.

 

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Salute to Meat

Posted on July 24, 2018 by David Marcus

It’s our summer party, something that started nine years ago when my friend, Mike, suggested I host a barbecue and serve some of the things I like to cook on my Big Green Egg.

It was just ribs and pulled pork and some dry-aged steak then for 20 or so people, who seemed to have a good time. I did, too, and so my wife and I made it an annual event. This Saturday, July 28, will be our ninth time, and we have 84 RSVPs.

God help us.

It’s Tuesday, and I’m almost as ready as I can be before the final cook, which starts Thursday night. The pastrami is smoked and ready to be steamed on Saturday. All the meat has been in the freezer and is now defrosting.

Here’s how the cook will go, everything running at 225 unless I need to ratchet something up in the interest of time:

Thursday:

The two pork shoulders for pulled pork go on the smoker at 6 p.m. Thursday and will run about 20 hours, more or less.

Friday:

Briskets go on when the pork comes off, with a little break for moving out the ash and refueling and they’ll go for 14-18 hours, but they’ve been known to go 20. I’m doing two, indirect and over a drip pan, one on top of the other in the Egg, I hope to trim them right so they don’t flare up overnight, which will make them acrid, which happened the last time I did two. These are smaller, and I didn’t trim very much the last time, so I’m hopeful.

My wife will make potato salad Friday, in the middle of everything else she needs to do to set up. She is a whirlwind.

Saturday:

8 a.m. The pulled pork goes in the slow cooker to reheat. It’s been sauced with a North Carolina vinegar sauce and will be served on King’s Hawaiian rolls as sliders, with homemade coleslaw.

9 a.m. We roast 10 pounds of pork belly in the oven, rubbed with a mix of garlic powder, brown sugar, cumin, cayenne and salt. It takes about three hours. The belly will be served in those corn-chip Scoops with a dab of barbecue sauce on the bottom.

Barbeque beans with my homemade bacon go in the oven then, too, after I’ve lowered the heat on the pork belly to 325.

Noon: Two boneless lamb legs, seasoned with garlic, rosemary, lemon and olive oil, go on the Egg.

The pastrami goes in the steamer at about noon, it’ll take a couple of hours to get to 203 degrees. It will be the featured performer in small, open-faced Reubens on toasted rye.

12:30: About five pounds of thick-cut homemade bacon goes in the oven to cook; it’ll take about 40 minutes in several shifts. It’ll be served as deconstructed BLTs, with a half grape tomato and an arugula leaf.

1 p.m. Then the St. Louis cut spare ribs go on the Pit Barrel Cooker. It seems impossible that ribs take 6 ½ hours on the Egg and only 3 ½ on the PBC, but it’s true. The PBC will take only eight racks, so I’ll try to cook one on the Egg, maybe starting it when the briskets are close to coming off on Saturday morning.

2 p.m. I reverse-sear the three-inch thick ribeye steaks, cooking them to done at 225 and then torching them with my MAPP when I’m ready to serve to crust them up. This saves time and also preserves the gasket on the Egg. I used to put the steaks on to char after running the Egg up to 750 or so, but would always fry my gasket.

3:30 p.m. The kielbasa, which we buy at the local farmer’s market, goes on the grill. It’ll be our first appetizer for people who show up when the party starts at 4.

The weather is forecast to be rainy in the afternoon, which would be bad luck, but we’ll have to deal. My stepson has a good-sized tent that we’ll have on the driveway, very close to the garage. Between the garage and the tent we can probably hold 45 or so, and the rest can probably (barely) fit in the house.

So I’m serving:

*   16 pounds of boneless pork shoulder

*   30 pounds of brisket

*   31 pounds of St. Louis cut spareribs

*   15 pounds of pastrami

*   10 pounds of boneless lamb leg

*   10 pounds of ribeye

*   3 pounds of kielbasa

*   10 pounds of pork belly

*   5 pounds of bacon

That’s 130 pounds of meat, and I hope it’s good enough that I don’t have leftovers.

Fortunately, our guests are not huge drinkers. I have a case of white wine and a little red, and I’ll make drinks for people who ask and the bar is open and visible, even though I don’t invite guests to help themselves. I don’t want people getting sloshed, so I don’t make pitchers of anything.

Beer is tricky; I’ll have a couple of cases on ice, but people often bring their own and I always have a lot left over. If it’s hot, as it’s supposed to be, we’ll go through a lot of water; I get 96 of those 8-ounce bottles, which are just right. Plus soda, and you never can tell what’s going to move and what isn’t.

The garage gets cleaned out Thursday, and we’ve rented 40 chairs and some tables, which will arrive Thursday afternoon. A couple of our friends are coming early Saturday to help us set up; we’re also trying to land a paid server and our twice-a-month housekeeper is also coming from 4:30 to 8:30 to make sure we stay ahead of the cleaning.

It will still be pretty brutal on Sunday morning, though.

The way it always happens is that at 2 p.m. Saturday I’m swearing at myself for doing this, and at 8 p.m. I feel like it’s Christmas and I’m both the kid and Santa Claus.

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A lighter ice cream

Posted on June 5, 2016 by David Marcus

I wanted to make gelato for our friends who came to dinner last weekend, and my wife had bought a half-pint of heavy cream that we had thought to whip and use on top of strawberry-covered pound cake.

But we had an extra quart of whole milk in the fridge that we wanted to use and so I modified the gelato recipe we normally use to incorporate the small amount of cream, and now we have a gelato cum ice cream cum ice milk that not only tastes delicious the day you make it, but keeps much better than your basic uncooked gelato recipe.

Here it is:

2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream or whipping cream
2/3 cup sugar
1 packet (or 5.3 ounces) of nonfat dry milk powder
1 tsp vanilla extract (maybe a little more if you like, but no more than 1 1/4 tsp.)

That’s the whole thing. Blend it in your blender, chill it and freeze it according to your manufacturer’s directions, and you’re done. Some folks might want to up the sugar to 3/4 cup but I think that’s pushing it. No harm done if you want to try it that way.

In any event, the milk powder absorbs the water in the milk and helps, with the small amount of cream, to emulsify the mix so that it doesn’t go grainy on you by the second day. I tried ours on the second day, when our regular gelato has begun to get icy, and it was perfect.

It didn’t last a third day.

I think you could add four shots of chilled espresso (or espresso powder) to make coffee ice cream, or cinnamon. You could macerate some berries in a lot of sugar or Cointreau, Grand Marnier or framboise and add them to the mix when it was partly frozen — the sugar or alcohol will keep the berries from turning into bullets in your mouth.

So, OK: It’s not exactly gelato, and it’s not ice cream and it’s not ice milk. But it’s incredibly easy, and really good — even on the second day.

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First Bacon!

Posted on June 14, 2015 by David Marcus
This week's science project: Home-cured bacon!

This week’s science project: Home-cured bacon!

We’re getting ready for this year’s Salute to Meat. About 35 guests are coming and we’ve got home-dry aged steaks, KC- and Memphis-style St. Louis ribs, smoked briskets and burnt ends, pulled pork, kielbasa and lamb on the menu. But I’ve been wanting to cure and smoke my own bacon and so that’s what I did this week.

I got 11 lbs. of pork belly at my favorite butcher in Philadelphia, then cured it with Morton’s TenderQuick salt, brown sugar, maple syrup and some cracked black pepper. I cut the belly in half and stuck it in two, 2-gallon bags and put it in the fridge, turning it every day.

What you see above is half of the slab. I’m pretty pleased, although next time I think I’ll add more syrup and smoke it harder.

After 7 days I smoked them on the Big Green Egg at 200 degrees direct (one on a raised grid since they were too big to fit at the same level). I used hickory chunks. They were up to temp in less than three hours

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Meat Raoul

Posted on January 4, 2014 by David Marcus

When we lived in Boston, Janet and I would throw big dinner parties for her fellow Kennedy School students, and most of them featured a large beef rib roast. On seeing one of these beasts, one of Janet’s friends said, “I feel like I’m eating Raoul,” making a reference to an ’80s movie.

Since then we name all our big rib roasts Raoul and like the kings, increment them with Roman numerals. I dry-age them in our downstairs refrigerator for between 21 and 28 days, although I’ve gone up to 45, with pretty good results.

This is Raoul XXXII when we first brought him home from Costco on Dec. 1 for our New Year’s dinner, so he spent a month in the fridge.

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He weighed about 19 lbs. and was the first bone-in rib roast I’ve aged. I put him on a rack and then, because I recently read about how putting salt underneath the beef can help it, I dumped a bunch of kosher salt on the sheet try, which I usually just line with aluminum foil.

I don’t think the salt helped, and I won’t do it again, but I don’t think it hurt, either.

For the science and detailed technique I refer you to J. Kenjy Lopez-Alt’s outstanding article on the subject at Serious Eats. Lopez-Alt reminds me a lot of Alton Brown before he turned into a jerk, and his recipes, science labs and other pieces there are all excellent.

I’ve tried aging meat several ways: in special bags that are sold for this purpose, wrapped in paper towels, wrapped in cheesecloth and just naked on the rack. Bare on the rack has worked well for me, although I would like to raise the humidity in the refrigerator.

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Anyway, this is what Raoul XXXII looked like when he came out of the fridge after 30 days: That grid is the mark from the rack he was on.  He looks all dried-out and gross, but all he needed was a little trim.

He finished up at about 16 1/2 pounds, having lost about a pound of water during the month, and the rest in trimming on the leathery, dried-out portions. I left more fat

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on than I usually do, because I was roasting Raoul XXXII whole, and I usually cut the roasts into very thick steaks, about 2 1/2 pounds each.

Here he is, trimmed, tied and ready to roast. I cut the ribs almost off, leaving an inch or so connected to make carving easier but still allowing me to roast him whole.

I roasted Raoul on the Big Green Egg, starting at 200 degrees at 1:45 p.m. on New Year’s eve, aiming to pull him off at 128 degrees internal. My plan was to then run up the Egg to 700 degrees or so to crust the outside.

I later raised the grill temperature to 225 and then 250 when it seemed I was going to run out of time. When the internal temperature was only 125 at 9:45 I pumped the Egg up to 400 degrees and pulled Raoul when he was at 130 degrees. This very blurry picture tells the story after I cut the first servings.

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The color might be a little off in this picture. He was a perfect medium-rare in the center, but a little more done on the edge than I like, and that’s because I took up the heat — if I’d pulled him at 128 as I had planned and then put him back on for just a couple of minutes when the Egg had hit 700 degrees, it would have been a perfectly uniform pink just about to the very edge.

Taste was good, with a little of the funky, metalic, cheesy flavor that you want from aged meat, and he was extremely tender. We still have a few pounds of him left, which we plan to freeze this weekend. The rib bones are on the menu for tonight, roasted again with some barbecue sauce.

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An easy-looking molten chocolate cake

Posted on May 2, 2013 by David Marcus

Mark Bittman put up a video today about how to make an easy molten chocolate cake. I know I’ll want to see this again even after it’s been archived, so here it is.

http://www.nytimes.com/video/2013/05/01/dining/100000002053230/molten-cake-the-big-mac-of-desserts.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130502&smid=pl-share

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The Big Green Egg

Posted on February 21, 2011 by David Marcus

Almost ready for action

In the late ’90s I got tired of replacing gas barbeque grills every couple of years. So I bought a charcoal grill and smoker called the Big Green Egg and have never looked back.

It’s ceramic, about 140 lbs., and made in Atlanta, and shaped like an egg. It flips open at its middle and will sear steaks at 750 degrees or so (I’ve gotten it a lot hotter) and it will hold 225 degrees for 24 hours to cook whole briskets.

The grill is guaranteed for life, and on those occasions when the charcoal grate would break (it used to be ceramic and could eventually crack; now it’s cast iron and indestructable), the dealer would just replace it, no questions asked.

So why am I on my third?

Well, I couldn’t bring it with me when I left Massachusetts for center-city Philadelphia, so gave it to my father, who later gave it to my brother. And after Philadelphia, the one I bought in upstate New York went to a friend of Janet’s when I moved to Boston, just before we got married.

So now that we have a house and a back yard again, I have the third and I hope, the last. Spatchcocked chickens are going on it in about an hour.

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Maiden voyage

Posted on February 12, 2011 by David Marcus

I know it’s about the technique, not the equipment, but when we saw this Le Creuset on a really deep discount at an outlet (first quality, but discontinued color) we decided to splurge a little.

A new pot is like a science experiment

Today it’s on its maiden voyage, cooking a braised pork recipe we like.

Janet’s cooking it, and I’m hovering. Well, not looking over her shoulder, exactly, but from my seat in the living room I see her pick up a whisk.

“You can’t use that,” I say. “You’ll scratch the bottom.” She puts down the whisk for a wooden spoon.

Can you use metal tongs? I look it up. Yes, if you’re careful.

Is it browning correctly? Vegetables and wine pick up the brown bits on the bottom? Yes, and yes.

How will it clean up? When it’s dry, will I put the little rubber clips back on so that the top doesn’t scratch?

Just thinking about it is exhausting. Jeez, if I’d ever had kids I’d probably be a grease spot by now.

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Time to start cooking

Posted on February 12, 2011 by David Marcus

Like everyone else I know, I’m tired of the snow and cold. I haven’t cooked anything on our Big Green Egg since December and the beef I like to dry-age in our refrigerator is tender but lifeless when I cook it indoors.

It’s supposed to get warmer this weekend and maybe enough of the snow will melt by midweek so that I’ll be able to throw a chicken on the Egg. In the meantime, it looks like braised pork tonight and lasagna with fresh egg pasta tomorrow.

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