Tag: Beef

The Final Salute, with a reminder from The Department of It’s Always Something

Every so often — and not that often, actually — hard work, the generous and unstinting help of one’s friends and plain dumb luck give a guy as close to a perfect day as one can get. That’s what we got yesterday at the 10th and last Salute to Meat.

We had perfect weather for just about 100 people, and when Janet asked some them at the end which of the 10 courses contained their best bite, each course was well represented. This is what you want.

The situation didn’t look so sunny on Thursday night and Friday: Janet had come home from our vacation with a stomach issue that turned out to be diverticulitis. She was admitted to the hospital Thursday after developing a bad reaction to the antibiotic she was prescribed and didn’t get released until late Friday night, just 18 hours before the party.

In the meantime, our friends started calling with offers of help. Phoenix, who drove Janet to the hospital and stayed with her for hours on Thursday, returned Friday to punch out 3-inch rounds from soft tortillas for the pork belly course, and caramelized 10 pounds of onions for the steak.

Other friends Becky and Dan and Madonna and Steve called often to check in and offer help, came to bring coolers and other things you’d only need for the crowd we had expected. Janet’s son, Zach, who is the menschiest guy I know, and his girlfriend, Hannah, came early to help and led all the outdoor setup. And our friend Kathy came early and helped in the kitchen all day and evening.

These are the friends one wants to have, wonderful people pulling us to the finish line.

There were other, less dire challenges. The brisket was done six hours early, actually overdone when I woke up to check it at 3 a.m. Saturday. I foiled it, put it in a cooler wrapped in foil and towels, and put it on warming trays in the afternoon when its temperature started to drop too low. It turned out a little drier than I would have liked, but people came back for seconds!

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Brisket ready to be cut. That’s Janet in the black, with her back to the camera.

I also tried to grill too many 2 1/2-pound steaks at once, going for a reverse sear on two rack levels, and lost one steak in a flareup. There was still plenty that was perfect.

And I thought a few of the ribs were overdone — I like pull-off-the-bone texture — but they went fast and people asked for more.

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12 racks of St. Louis-style ribs, membranes removed, ready for rubbing

Aside from the ribs, the big hits seemed to be the pastrami Reubens and pork belly with gochujang sauce.

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Prepping the pork belly course
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Pastrami Reubens ready to go out. Someone said she didn’t like sauerkraut. We accommodate all tastes!
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Kielbasa picked and ready to go out, lamb just off the grill and ready to cut. The greenery is the mis en place for the deconstructed BLTs, ready for the piece of thick, home-cured and smoked bacon at the end of the toothpick.
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The two picnic shoulders, ready to pull.
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The pulled picnics, ready for sauce.

All in all, we were very pleased with the food, although Janet couldn’t eat a bite — she’s on a bland diet for a while.

But I’ll tell you what: I worked on the food for the best part of a week, thought about this party for the best part of a year. And here’s the image I want to remember:

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A beautiful day in my back yard, our friends having a good time. This is about half the crowd; there is another tent to the left.

Today my almost-67-year-old legs are sore. There is a little cleanup left to do, not much.

So, it was a wonderful time, a fantastic 10 years of feeding our friends, learning how to smoke, cure and cook my favorite meats. From time to time I would sing a song or two with the trio of our friends who’d play guitar and violin to entertain; I’d never done that before and I’m not likely to again.

I’ll remember the night in 2014 when the police came because we had been noisy outside after midnight. And the monsoon in 2015 when I pulled steaks off the Egg while wearing a slicker with someone holding an umbrella over me so the meat wouldn’t get wet.

There was last year, when the freezer died a month before the party and we didn’t know about it until 10 days later because we had been on vacation. Then lightning struck a tree on our front lawn the night before the party. It was great, anyway.

We thought last year’s drama had been had been pretty much the limit, until yesterday.

The thing is, there is no limit to what can happen, but neither is there a limit to what you can do if you have friends to help you.

On the day after a party like this it’s easy to wax nostalgic and imagine just one more party, one more perfect day watching Janet create a miracle in the kitchen — 10 courses in three hours — and seeing all our friends in our back yard in the sun, eating and enjoying themselves.

I might imagine it, but I’m never doing this again. Maybe we’ll find something else, a different menu, fewer people, a more relaxed day for us. It may be a different kind of perfect, but perfect nonetheless.

And for all I’ve learned about food and cooking in these 10 years, I’ve learned that the perfect party isn’t entirely about the menu. The food may have created the occasion, but our friends’ gift of their days with us has given us a collage of memories that will warm us forever.

This could end badly

I’m thinking. What is it that goes before the fall? Oh, yes. Pride.

Exhibit A as to my current discomfort, may it please the Court:

Briskets on the Egg
That’s two, 15-pounder briskets that I’ve trimmed as well as I can, at the beginning of our cook at 3 p.m. The top one is still a little cold; not quite defrosted in the point. They don’t need to come off for 22 hours, but still…

I’d frozen them and took them out to defrost last Sunday. But here it is Friday and the top one was still very cold in the point. More worrisome than anything is the possibility that they’ll drip beyond the drip pan and flame up, which will turn them acrid. They went on at 3 p.m. and don’t have to come off until 1 p.m. tomorrow, and I could arrange things so they could even go longer.

A few years ago I tried to cook two 18-pounders that I hadn’t trimmed very much or very well. They went up in a beefy blaze of humiliation in the middle of the night and I couldn’t serve them.

I’m hoping these guys do better for me.

On the other hand, the pork belly seems to have turned out well.

Finished pork belly
Three of the four pieces of a 10-pound pork belly I roasted on the Egg for tomorrow’s Salute to Meat — one more was still on the smoker. It rendered down to about 7 pounds. We’re going to cut them into bite-sized chunks after warming them tomorrow, and serve them in Scoops corn chips with a dab of barbecue sauce at the bottom.

The bacon, pastrami, pork belly and pulled pork are done and in the fridge, waiting for their final prep tomorrow.

Still ahead, after the briskets, are the spare ribs, lamb, steak and kielbasa.

Yikes.

Salute to Meat 2018: Cooking Without A Net

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.

Salute to Meat

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.

Meat Raoul

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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