Episode X - Big Bob Gibson BBQ with White Sauce

Another weekend, kids are over and time to get cooking. This time it is page 119 and what is supposedly a true classic of the restaurant - chicken with white BBQ sauce. I don't really get that, coming from KC if it isn't red it isn't BBQ sauce, but what the heck, we'll give it a try.

But first I had to learn how to butterfly a chicken. A little quick Googling and I found a very handy video from Weber. Good thing I saw it, I wouldn't have guessed that you started with the backbone.

Anyway... check them out. Not too hard to do. Recipe is quite simple - salt, then pepper & oil when you flip. Sauce is easy to make too.

Here's the finished result. The chicken itself was fantastic. I give a lot of the credit to the Komodo. This stuff was really tender and moist. Heck when I flipped them halfway through I had a leg & thigh just fall off. I'm still not sold that BBQ should be white and would give it only a medium rating, but Boy Child declared it excellent with his first bite and Girl Child declared it great and even got more sauce twice. Gads... am I not mainstream? Can't judge food? Oh well, to each their own. We'll just move on to the next.

Episode IX - Turkey Beast & Fruit Skewers

It was a new weekend and time to get serious again about my goal. Plus, The Wife is putting the pressure on by inviting some Good Folks (not my usual riff-raff friends) over. Turkey sounded like nice variety so we're going for Smoked Turkey Breast with Honey-Maple Glaze on page 137 and for good measure, the Grilled Fruit Skewers with Spicy Maple Cumin Glaze on page 140. Oddly enough, my first obstacle was finding just a plain turkey breast. Went to a couple stores and finally the butcher at Market Street pointed me to a partial turkey. No legs, but all the ribs, etc. Slicing that sucker up was pretty slimy, but you can see it there on the left.

The rub was pretty straight forward and if you can believe it, I got the fire going real easy, hit the target 250 pretty much right off the bat and the darned thing cooked right on schedule too. Of all days to have planned ahead and factored in extra time! It was ready a solid 45 minutes before Good Folk showed up. Check it out. Smelled great and looked gorgeous with the glaze.






Here it is plated. The sweet crunchy crust and the mild smokey flavor really complimented each other. Female Good Folk made the excellent lettuce salad. The chilled corn dish I made was quite interesting. Just out of the paper, but the chipotle mayo, lime, Cotija cheese and Parmesan really made a great combo on a hot day. Spicy, but cold going down.







For dessert I made the skewers. Quite tasty and pretty fast to make. Used apple, peach, banana and pineapple. The sweet & spicy combo was quite tasty. It was hard to get the apple on the skewer without breaking it, but was really good cooked. I guess the Cinnamon in it reminded me of apple pie. I'm not always a peach fan, they changed flavor when cooked with the glaze and were great.

So.... overall, quite a success. I would definitely recommend these recipes in the future. Both Male & Female Good Folk seemed happy though Male seems oddly determined to make my buy a boat. But where would I put the Komodo?

Episode VIII - Steak

OK, I cheated. Nothing out of the book this weekend. The Wife requested steak and I complied. Popped the Copper Coyote up to about 800 in the dome and then dropped two seasoned New York strips (Worcestershire & Montreal steak seasoning) down low on top of the fire. About 5 min per side and got a real nice sear but medium rare inside. Just perfect.

Since it wasn't an "official" cook, I'll use small pictures. Don't want Big Bob getting upset.

Episode VII - Pork Chops

Question: If it says to cook for 8 minutes per side and baste during the last 3 minutes, what does that mean? Cook one side for 8 minutes then the 2nd side for 5, then flip and baste the bottom, then flip again and baste the top then allow the bottom to cook for 3 more minutes? Have I wasted 3 minutes with all that flipping? Maybe its cook 5, flip and cook 5, flip, baste and cook 3, flip baste the other side and cook the final 3? Argh. Grilling is not supposed knot my brain.



Anyway.... back to that later.


I didn't get to cook this weekend. Birthday dinner with my son, dinner out with friends, etc. Life can be so cruel! So I needed something a little quicker to prepare for Tuesday. Hence the Grilled Chops with Apple-Cranberry Maple Glaze on page 63. On Monday night I whipped up the brine and popped them in the fridge. Not much to look at so far.

Tuesday it was time to get rolling after dropping my girl child off at at her YAG meeting (don't ask). As usual, when I'm in a rush it takes a while to get the fire going and this was no exception. However, an hour and a half later we're at 450 and ready to go. Or am I? Turns out it is time to go and retrieve aforementioned girl child. Fortunately, using my finely honed negotiating skills learned from years of dealing with territorial control in corporate America I convinced The Wife we were all better off if she would go get girl child and I would have some perfectly prepared chops ready upon her return. Whew. And that left enough time for just a little more run punch left over from the party too. So.... on go the chops and check them out after 8 minutes and the first flip!


Then 5 minutes on the 2nd side, flip, baste, flip baste and then 3 more minutes. Hey, they look just like the picture! These things came out perfect. Incredibly moist and the glaze was really, really good. Family loved them. :-)

Answer: I think correct procedure should be 5 min, flip, 5 min, baste, flip, 3 min, baste, flip, 3 min. Why? The glaze is better when it has caramelized a little and that only happened when on the bottom.

Episode VI.c - Saturday morning, party day

First my wireless thermometer quit working, maybe because of the rain. Was reading huge numbers then just went dead. Stupid @## thermometer. So I set the alarm for 7:00 AM to check. But temps were way to low after 8 hours of cooking. The Komodo was down to 190. Since I had just cooked the shoulder I knew exactly where I had set the vents, but maybe the air in the rain has changed. I can imagine some interesting physics or thermodynamics, but none of that is helping me now. Guests are due at 4:00, so I open up the vents some more and go back to bed. It is still raining.

About 1:00 and things are looking better. Rain stopped about 11:00, got the yard mowed and then pulled the brisket after 14 hours. Looks pretty good.











And check the beans down below. Good first impression.













However, all is not well. They're edible, but not the right texture. Suffering from not soaking I presume. So I scraped off the top layer and then set them at a slow boil on the stove.











Meanwhile, the brisket has turned out wonderful. Full of flavor and very tender. I cut off the point and I put it back on the cooker for another hour and a half. I'm going to split it between the beans and a retry of the burnt ends.










While the point was back on the cooker "burning", it was time to finish the pulled pork. I had enough that I decided to split it and prepare two ways. The first is kind of a Mexican-style Verde Pulled Pork that I've made before. I mix the pork with green salsa, some green chilies, a little BBQ sauce and some Rotel. Bring it to a boil and then let it simmer an hour or so. (I forgot to take a picture). Then I took the rest of the pork and fixed it what I call cabrito style, though I am not sure that makes sense here. Anyway.... I popped it in a skillet with some of the vinegar sop mop that I had basted the outside with previously. It had become more flavorful after sitting around for a day. I just let the pork simmer 5 minutes till the mop evaporated and then put in a big pot to say warm. The mop really added a little zing and moisture and came out wonderful.





The mojo sauce is still pretty disappointing though. After rereading the recipe it seems to imply that maybe it was a cooking baste, not a dip. Bummer. But it also mentions that it is good with butter, so after a little experimentation it seems that a ration of about 2/3 butter to 1/3 mojo yielded something pretty tasty. Also interesting that all of a sudden you can really taste the lime.

After all that I grabbed the brisket point and cut it up. About half going in the beans and half I mixed with some KC Masterpiece and put back on the cooker yet another hour and half at about 350 degrees. More of a KC style burnt end than what is in the Big Bob Gibson book.


The burnt ends came out fantastic. Thank goodness I sampled heavily otherwise these guys were gone before we even really starting serving!



And thank goodness, the beans were rescued and came out very good too. About 17 hours of cooking, but really tasty and finally soft!












Conclusions:

1) This 2nd brisket was better than the first. Maybe you can attribute some of it to my growing mastery of the Komodo, but even so I think the paste gave it a better flavor & bark, and it is clear that you don't need to wrap it in foil to get a tender meal

2) The pulled pork was the best yet, and the mop sauce ended up quite flavorful. Very pleasant surprise.

3) I am a big fan of the crunchier style of burnt ends, and that seemed to be consistent with the guests

4) I really liked my modified pig dip. The vinegar and the Tabasco gave it a very nice zing. I could find myself making this one again.

5) Although I wasn't real big on the mustard sauce, it seemed quite popular.

6) Won't be making the mojo sauce again

7) Soak your beans! But even so, the beans came out with super flavor. The smoke and meat really made them almost a meal of their own.

8) Finally: Despite a little stress, I had a great time. Should've taken more pictures, but was too busy eating & drinking. Tull next time....

Episode VI.b

I got busy and failed to post about day 2 of cooking. First I should mention that the when I pulled the pork it was fantastic, most tender pork I have ever made on the grill, crock pot, anywhere. Just remarkable. Not sure how much credit to give to the Komodo which gives so much more control and moisture, or the the Chris Lilly recipe or maybe even to the cut of meat with the skin on. In any case, all three factors certainly came together well here.

Friday evening I made up three of the sauces as I mentioned before. The mustard sauce was most popular with the kids and was nice and sweet. Gotta talk about the pig dip though. It came out way to vinegary for me. Holy cow. Bear in mind I'm a Kansas City native who's spent the last 20 years in Texas, so in my mind BBQ sauce is tomato based. So I went back and doubled all of the other ingredients which diluted the vinegar and I ended up putting in 4X the Tabasco. Much, much better now. Whew. Feel kind of proud of myself for saving it. :-) Unfortunately the Mojo sauce is pretty questionable. The Oregano seems to dominate, but rather than mess with this one I think I will let it sit for a day. Let's see what some ageing does to these.

The brisket started off on the right foot. The paste is excellent, but I had nice big 12 pounder and I had to triple the recipe to get enough to thoroughly coat the whole. Mother nature was kind of conspiring against me though. Rain, rain, rain. Argh! Supposed to clear out by Noon tomorrow. We shall see...

And..... just to add some complexity .... I've already goofed up the bean recipe. I failed to soak them overnight. I had re-read the directions earlier in the day, but the comment about soaking was over in the ingredients, not the directions. Ugh. So they're only getting about 2 hours of soak.

Eventually I got the beans and the brisket on about 11:00 PM so I could head to bed and finish everything in the morning. (You can see the bean pot tucked under the brisket)