Episode XV Postscript: Halloween

I didn't actually cook anything, but the The Wife and the Girl Child invested a lot of time setting up for a good party, so I thought I would show it off a little....






The family









The Wife aka The Evil Cocktail Doctor








Spare Eyeballs










The dinner table









Some blood punch for the little ones












Kitty litter cake for dessert









An unfortunate guest that won't be returning....








The end of the jello eating contest

Episode XV: Smoking a big fatty

So Girl Child wants to know what I'm doing this weekend and I say " helping with your Halloween party and then relaxing the next day by smoking a big fatty". She kind of gives me an "uh huhhhhh... What?" And I say "You know - a big fatty rolled in bacon and stuffed with cheese. It'll be perfect".

I think she left around then, but of course, can't let teenage girls distract you from legitimate fun.

Again, I am leaving the fold of Big Bob and going out on my own. Similar to the previous bacon explosion, I made a weave of bacon and a 2 pound layer of spicy Italian sausage, but then deviated with a layer of cream cheese, a layer of onions and pablano pepper I had grilled with bacon and garlic, and then a layer of sharp cheddar on top. Rolled her up and popped on the cooker. About 30 minutes from completion I slathered her in some sauce.

As predicted, came out Grrrreat! A few conclusions:

• 
  It was harder to spread the cream cheese than I predicted. Next time I want it at room temperature
  

• At first I was disappointed I didn't use jalapeno because the pepper didn't come through, but when we ate the left overs a couple days later, it was great. Kind of like the pepper had soaked into the cheese more. Makes me think this is a great dish to cook ahead.




• Also, I used a thinner bacon this time and I think it worked better. Still added good flavor and held it together, but the fat cooked up very well and I didn't see the kids trying to pick any off. And I just use everything left over from the weave in the veggies.

Episode XIV: Coffee Cardamon Brisket

I am sooooooo behind in posting. Ugh. And on top of that, I'm not even using a Big Bob recipe. Instead there has been a lot of conversation on the Komodo Kamado forum about this brisket rub that uses coffee and cardamon as the base. Add to that a lot of conversation about a high temp cooking method which includes a couple hours in foil and I was definitely starting to feel like wandering from the course a little. I think a long night at the House of Blues and sleeping late in the morning was a sign from the BBQ spirits that this was the perfect time to try this combo.

Prep was easy. I deviated just a little by not mixing the oil into the rub to make a paste, rather i put the oil straight on the brisket and added the rub. Seemed to work out well for me.

Cooking in foil is interesting because it is supposed to really shorten the cook time, however it accents one of my weaknesses - using my senses to determine completion rather than temp or time.

I also thought this would be a good time to try the baked potatoes again. Last time they weren't done, but using a higher temp I thought might give me more success.

How did it go? Here's my conclusions:

• I would say that I really liked the rub. Will definitely do this one again. Even though it had been foiled it still came out with an ok bark.
• Still haven't mastered the spuds. They came out very flavorful, but this time overdone. Argh!
• The high temp cooking seems to save time, but I might have pulled it off 30 minutes too early. Guidance is to stick a fork in it to check, and it seemed good, but afterwards I wasn't sure. See the problem is that the taste sample is fantastic, but when you slice and serve, it seems to dry up way to fast. Maybe I am not resting it long enough? And maybe I am rushing to cut off the point to make burnt ends? Needs more experimentation. Hmmmmm.

Episode XIV Prologue - Poop

Ok, this isn't really about poop, but I thight I'd title it that way to annoy both The Wife and the Girl Child. Always nice to get two birds with one stone.

Not many posts lately because I've been traveling and had a lot of interruptions with work. But the travel and the changes at the office have led me to the following list. It is remarkable how much toilet paper can vary from place to place and who puts a premium on it and who doesn't.

Anyway.... here's my ranking from best to worst:

1) The stuff The Wife buys (she's looking out for me)

2) Any civilized persons home and all nice hotels

3 - 50) Various other locations

51) Terminal 4 at the DFW airport (actually surprisingly nice given the location)

52) On an American Airlines plane (satisfactory)

53) Various train and bus stations through out Europe (not satisfactory, but livalble)

54 - 99) Big gap exists....

100) Hewlett Packard. Is the new stuff they just put in awful? Worse than sandpaper. Ugh. Yet another barrier to my productivity

Episode XIII - Beef Tri-Tip

The Wife talked me into fixing the flank steak last Sunday. Pitched the beef pretty hard. So, got all fired up, bought all the fresh herbs and went to the freezer to pull it out and...... it turns out it is the Beef Tri-Tip!?! What the heck? Can I not spell flank steak. Nah.... don't think it's me. Pretty sure it's the other half. But she shall remain nameless.

Anyway, on with this weekend's episode: Grilled Soy and Lime Beef Tri-Tip on page 96. This is a pretty easy recipe overall, just takes a little planing ahead for marination time. However, using the Komodo adds a complication. You're supposed to sear each side for 5 minutes then move it to the cooler side of the grill and cook another 30. As we all know.... once the Komodo heats up there's no going back. So, I tried the reverse sear that I've read others have used, but not sure it really helped here. Didn't really char the outside. Hmmmmm.

Nonetheless, the flavor came out great. The marinade added a lot of flavor and the medium rare came out wonderful. Definitely worth doing again.

Episode XII - Beef Tenderloin and a shocking rejection

Having eight people for dinner so it's time for another decent sized piece of meat, in this case a 6 pound beef tenderloin, and a few sides. We'll do the Mushroom Crusted Beef Tenderloin on page 100, the Stuffed Red Bell Peppers with Brown Sugar and Maple Baked Beans on 109, the Grilled Marinated Mushrooms on 110 and finally the Mustard Horseradish Sauce on 229.

Overall it was pretty simple and not a long cook time (a few hours all together) so that was cool. Plus Dave & Nic were just finishing Ramadan so I want to stuff my old buddy with some good American beef now that he was back from Japan. The couple formerly known as Mr & Mrs Riff Raff were over as were my kids.

Check out the beans. Very colorful! These things looked sharp on the plate too. I completely failed to take a picture of the mushrooms, but also really easy. Nice to have veggies that they kids will eat up and ask for more :-)

Here's the meat going on the Komodo. You really have to press the shrooms on it so they don't fall off, but once you do, it works pretty well.

It cooked up perfectly and check it out when I cut it. That was a perfect medium rare all the way through. Super nice. Extremely tender, though of course this is a good piece of meat to start with.

But.... hold on to your tighty whitey's for a moment, here's the shocker: One of my guests microwaved their meat! Argh! Double argh! Some issue with meat not being brown the whole way through. Sigh... from now on she'll be known as Vegan Egan because that wasn't real meat after being radiated like that. (still makes me shudder)

Anyway, here's my conclusions:

• The tenderloin is almost too tender to cook this way. I do like my meat with a little more texture. however, the flavor was wonderful and everyone ate it up


• As The Wife said on her first bite "Honey, these mushrooms ROCK". They were great


• I was originally a little disappointed with the horseradish thinking it wasn't quite spicy enough, but I was in the minority. Again, The Wife's comment was "Any stronger and it would've interfered with the meat". Probably true. Chris Lilly might be smarter than me


• Beans were first rate. One of the kids said I should've doubled the bacon (we all love bacon). Might try that next time

PS - The Wife continues to pair a new cocktail with each of my dishes. This time it was a Beer Margarita. Not sure how she did it. Looked and tasted like a very good 'Rita, but had a little carbonation to tickle the tongue. Very cool.

Episode XI.b

Soooooo, I am sorry to say that this blog was discussed at happy hour last night and it wasn't pretty. Turns out I've classified my friends into Good Folk and Riff Raff and Mrs Riff wasn't happy that she wasn't mentioned this weekend (Mr Raff had no opinion. According to the rumor, he just gave her his money and went home while she went drinking with us). Anyway, Mrs Riff pointed out (accurately) that she made a very good potato salad and wouldn't be doing it again if I didn't give her some attention.

Alrighty then.... I'm officially saying that all of her sides have been excellent and that Mr & Mrs Riff Raff are invited over at any point :-)

PS Happy birthday Angie.

Episode XI - Ribs, Ribs, Ribs Ribs

It's Labor day weekend, thank goodness, and time to cook out. I think there's 5 different rib recipes in the book so I better start making a dent. It will be us 4, plus 4 guests and so I'm estimating a half rack a person. that's really going to push the size of my Komodo (since I have the small one) and to try to make them fit I am going to use a trick that Munger1 mentioned his brother. Munger2 uses.


But first, time to select the specifics rubs and sauces. Since I need 4 racks of ribs I figure I can try 4 different styles. Girl Child of mine made the first selections. Pineapple Sweet Ribs on 193 with the Big Bob's Competition Sweet Glaze on 225 for choice 1, and then Country Style Ribs with Apple Bourbon Barbecue Sauce on 198 and the sauce on 227. To balance these I will do some similar to my previous style, coating one with John Henry's Mojave Garlic Pepper on one and John Henry's Pecan Rub on the other (and a layer of honey on both).

The sweet glaze turns out to be a little bit of a trick. It relies on two store bought sauces with no directions in the book, so I ended up substituting some KC Masterpiece that I had in the frig.


Time to get them on the grill. The idea to save space is to roll them and stand them on end. This seems to work fairly good at getting them to fit and cook. I know that I will have to wrap them in foil later and can stack them flatter then.

Dealing with 4 different styles is a bit of a hassle. Kind of fun to compare, but definitely tests the logistics as they are all coming off at different times, getting glazed, soaked, etc. Sheesh. Need a spread sheet :-)






Check out the results. They're quite tasty, but pretty different. From the left we have the pineapple sweet ribs, the Mojave Garlic, the Pecan Rub and finally the Apple Bourbon.







My conclusions:

• Most advice has you wrapping them in foil towards the end of cooking. Perhaps this is because I've also heard that the meat absorbs the smoke better at lower temps. But I am inclined to go back to my original style of wrapping first. I did this in part because my previous smoker wasn't very precise and this got them cooking more evenly. Then I would coat them with a layer of rub, some honey, then more rub. After a couple hours bare to the smoke then that formed a real nice crust and seemed to absorb a fair amount of smoke flavor.
• Pineapple came out pretty good though the pineapple flavor was quite minimal. (probably a good thing). The glaze was pretty average, but that can probably be fixed easily.
• I actually like the apple bourbon pretty well. They came out real tender too and were the only ones not wrapped at all. However, I'm not a real fan of that cut of meat a whole lot and would've preferred the sauce on the baby back ribs I think
• A couple people like the Mojave Garlic the best which was interesting. Much easier than the other styles. Complexity does necessarily lead to best flavor!
• I think that if you're going to roll them, then they need a some time stretched out and open to the heat and smoke or they won't crust up properly

One other big, big note. The Wife has often made cocktails to match what I'm cooking and it's sometimes channeled by which ever ingredients I happen to have left over. In this case, lots of pineapple juice. She says she's going to start a blog to chart the cocktails, so look forward to that.....

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)

Episode VI - Party Time! Pork Shoulder & Bare Naked Brisket

The Wife has announced it is time to be more social with the cooker and so we're having our annual summer party. That means multiple opportunities for "Big Bob Gibson". Plans are to try the World Championship Pork Shoulder (page 53) and the other brisket on page 91. The pork requires the vinegar sop mop on page 222 and just for the heck of it I will make the Carolina Mustard Sauce on 228, the Caribbean Mojo Sauce on 236 and the Western Carolina Pig Dip on 224. I have plenty of red sauces already in the frig so I figure these are nice compliments.

I am not aware of the local Wal-Mart carrying a bone in, skin on, full pork shoulder so to step up my game a little I've decided to move up to an authentic Texas butcher for some manly meat. So, yesterday afternoon it was over to Hamm's Custom Meats just off the main square in downtown McKinney TX. Some of the nicest people work in there. I was almost caught by the "no credit cards" rule, but am now the proud owner of 16 pounds of pig.

After dinner last night I whipped up the rub, the injection and the mop. The recipe clearly says to use all the injection, but about halfway through it seemed loaded with fluid coming out of the other holes, so I didn't hit that goal. Also, honestly a little confused with the amount of bone in here. I would've expected more meat, but oh well, it is what it is.

Had a little trouble getting the fire going at the right temp. Almost suffocated it. I think I need one of those Stokers or Guru's to manage the airflow in the bottom. Will have to spend more time investigating that. Anyway, got the thing going about 10:30 last. Goal was to let it cook overnight so I could deal with the mop and such today.

Check it out, here's the shoulder. Smells fantastic. Seemed to cook a little faster than expected. I took it off after 13 hours. Basted 3 times with the mop and internal temp had been around 195 for a couple hours. The blade bone twisted off easily in my hand. I'll let it sit a little then pull it and set it aside till tomorrow morning.